PVC flute question

Irish Flute
21

@ Cork,
Reading back over this thread, I think that for most of it we have actually been saying very much the same things in terms of hard content, just from different perspectives and degrees of optimism/pessimism!

I too would like to see someone take this concept on seriously as a business proposition and don’t see why the tecnological side would be problematic on that level. Obviously once you’ve made/acquired the tooling it would support a long-term/high volume production run. I still don’t think it is easily accessible to a potcher like myself and most of us who muck about with these things. We’re perhaps not the folk to whom to address your challenge. Someone like Susato or Aulos, on the other hand, who already move in similar fields… And let’s not forget that there’s those carbon fibre experiments out there on a not dissimliar tack.

22

Make some bodies Cork, I’ll poke the holes in them.

23

Or make me the mandrel and sleeve; I’d do the rest…

24

You guys make the flute - I’ll provide the air… ; )

25

There’s been some mention of die cast flutes, and, as I have an Aulos Grenser, I can say that die cast plastic really can produce a fine flute.

However, in regard to a conical bore PVC flute, I’m speaking of the difference between a die casting, and a die molding.

For instance, the required tooling, and all, of a die cast process could cost far, far more than a more simple, heating and reforming process.

26

Seems there are several threads close to this subject.

Over the last several days I tried making conical body’s of copper and pvc. I turned a mandrel of wood because it was easier, and faster than to make one of metal. I think metal would last longer but to get some dimensions first I used wood. It started out as 30’’ long but has become shorter from having to beat it out of the pvc with a steel rod after cooling. The first conical tube I made was of copper by removing a section of it length wise than shaping it around the wood mandrel. Made the embouchure hole in a section of pvc then slipped it onto the copper. It plays but is very fussy I think where the copper is in the pvc there is a step.

I made the wood mandrel longer than needed to allow some room to move the pvc and to have some pvc left to cut off neat ends. The first try with the white pvc did wrinkle and I cut it off and tried again. The white pvc I used became soft and I did manage it onto the wood mandrel. It was able to be reheated and manipulate wrinkles and bulges out several times till I had a length suitable. I made it in one length with no tuning slide, and it tapered from ID 3/4’’ down to ID 5/8’‘. I used 3/4’’ delrin to make the plug. There was some luck involved when guesstimating where to put the tone holes. It plays in tune but is a little on the quiet side of a Terry Mcgee or Casy Burns wood flute. The wall thickness on the larger end did shrink some but not as much as I thought it might. It lost about 1/64’’