repairing ?

Irish Flute
1

hello,
Christmas is over. I received an old attic-gift : old flute.
well cleaned and oiled, pads looked after. Plays at 440 hz, not the standard for old German Meyer-types….
This flute is not that precious to give away for professional care, so I will try myself.
On the back of the head there runs down a crack as usual. But all is well fixed, the embouchure is fine. Should I glue the gap or let the gap open for future room to move to the wood ?
Next : an old cork. I chopped a new one . About the cork’s surface : is it important to get exact orthogonal cut related to the tube ? The shape of the surface : just sanding well smooth or glueing on some hard mini disk, a coin ?
Repairing old flutes is but a whim, but why junk everything before trying to keep?
Dear fluter, what do you think?

greetings from a sunny morning,

Herbert

2

There are folks with much more experience in flute repair than I on this board, but for what it is worth, my successful flute head repairs go as follows:

  1. Disassemble the flute head by removing the inner metal tube (I have had good success steaming the wood to temporarily increase the diameter and release the shellac that often glues same in place).
  2. Remove any residue from the area of the crack (steam also works for this, but you may need some kind of solvent if it has been previously glued or filled)
  3. Humidify the wood, then band clamp and glue (I use new cyanoacrylic glue - high quality from a hobby shop that doesn’t have it sitting on shelves for years on end)
  4. Turn on lathe, or sand out with dowel and sand paper wrap, the couple of mm required to have the metal tube slide into the repaired wood head.
  5. Reglue tube into the head using shellac and a heat source, be sure to keep embouchure hole aligned (hot air heat gun or small butane torch on the metal tube only).
  6. Oil wood with your favorite wood flute maintenance system
  7. May want to steam clean all other sections to keep a consistent color, but that is up to you. Can be difficult to remove and replace keys if not required, especially on post mounted flutes.
  8. I have hard faced corks on flutes, but not noticed any significant difference. Should replace the cork if it shows signs of degradation however.
  9. Keep flute at least 45% RH environment (and disassembled between use) to avoid future cracks.

Good luck

3

Years ago I had a Rudall Carte repaired by Terry McGee. At that time, with that flute, he said to leave the head crack alone since it was in the back of the lined head joint. (Someone had put wax in there I think, or he may have. I can’t remember). He said that if the crack didn’t bother me it would allow for expansion and contraction. The lining prevented any leaking problem. That particular flute has a wonderful sound. I have actually had a professional player interested in buying it for the sound of that head joint. So non leaking existing cracks may not be a functional problem depending on where…