shite. (barrel cracked)

Irish Flute
1

Since I’m too stupid to move, extremely tired and totally clumsy, I wiped my flute from the couch table. It landed on the rather soft carpet, but the cracked and with much love and time invisibly repaired barrel opened again and the crack is now going through. It is too narrow to suck epoxy resin through (since it’s not a shrinkage crack) and I don’t want to place a fat glue seam on the crack.

Now I’m too tired to go down to the workshop and switch the lathe on…I might destroy more than I repair.

I hate days like this. :puppyeyes:

2

Go back to bed. In an hour, get up, make coffee and start the day over.

(Sorry, that’s all I’ve got. . . cracked flutes suck. . . or blow. . . or neither. . .)

3

You won’t see a fat glue seam if you fill the crack with very fine sawdust of the same type wood, then add the right (nearly water thin) superglue, and do a very precise filing job - no flat spots, yeah?

But then you probably know this, and just like to use the lathe :wink:


Loren

4

Yeah, I got the flute cracked and fitted with a nice a broad glue seam on the barrel. I used the lathe to polish it after removing the seam

I sucked really fluid white glue into the crack now, worked quite nicely. We’ll see if it worked…

5

…didn’t work. For some reason the flute plays perfectly, but I can blow through the barrel into the headjoint if everything is put together (barrel is airtight if tested solo, i.e. without the rest of the flute), so it’s obviously leaking. I’ll see if I can find this water thin superglue…still have some old Bubinga wood (not the new reddish stuff, the real dark brownish, good old bubinga) which might work just fine for mixing up a dust resin. Any other ideas? The fact that the crack is so super-narrow and airtight if no tenon is inserted really doesn’t make things easier…

6

Hang on. If the barrel tests airtight by itself, but adding the head allows air, doesn’t that suggest the problem is either in the head or the slide?

Does the head test airtight by itself? That would just leave the slide?

I’b be careful to check the LH is airtight (with holes and end covered, and then add the barrel and check again. Often the expanding force of the tenon will open old cracks in barrels.

Terry

7

Nah, I didn’t describe well enough what I meant, sorry. If I put the joint with the keys and all into the barrel, the leak opens. If i pull it back off, the leak closes. The headjoint/slide has no influence on that.

8

Hi Gabriel,
The only way to have a lasting repair, is to pull the sleeve, close the crack and glue it. Then bore it out so the sleeve slides in freely, then epoxy in the sleeve. The socket also needs to be replaced, with new wood. I show how to do it on my Face book page, I will send a invite.