I am looking for my cochran pratten in delrin to give it a nice loving new home.
Got it this spring from Jon (paid 420 dollars) but I have discovered it doesn’t get enough play, and that I would like to invest the money into another flute.
Please PM or email me, I want 350 dollars for it.
cheers
berti
This one has your name written all over it Jim 
Loren
Yeah, delrin sounds just like wood.
I’ll take five of em!
Sorry man, couldn’t resist 
Loren
I’m broke as usual 
Actually, Catherine McEvoy said that the Delrin sounds a lot like wood. 
I’ve never played your flutes and for all I know your delrin
flutes do
sound just like wood. Loren and I are harassing each other, is all.
I didn’t mean this to reflect on the flute Bertie is selling.
Whether or not delrin has its own sound, I think there is
definitely a place for delrin flutes. I recall Jessie K
had one made by Patrick O. I had a Seery, a good flute.
I keep wondering what a skillful maker can do
with the stuff.
sale pending
berti
Huh??? Why would you keep wondering, if you’ve had a Seery and say it was a good flute? Plus you’ve read that what both Jessie and I have written here on numerous occasions, stating that the Olwell Delrin was an excellent instrument, essentially as good as Pat’s wooden flutes. Do you not believe either of us? Haven’t other people written very positive things about Terry McGee’s Delrin flutes? Or perhaps Dave Copley’s?
Alzheimer’s Jim?!?
Loren
Is Pat making delrin flutes, then? Last I spoke to him (a couple of years back, to be sure), he said he didn’t like working with the stuff. Said it was “icky”.
A fellow I know just got a delrin Seery. A fine flute so far as I’m concerned.
As far as I know, Pat made just the one. And it arrived with a rather rough finish (I did the final sanding and polishing myself). I sold it quite a while ago. I don’t like Delrin…not because it isn’t capable of being turned into an instrument that plays similarly to a wooden one, but because it feels and smells different. It’s heavier in weight (more dense) and it smells like plastic. Delrin instruments don’t inspire me the way wooden ones do. That said, that Delrin Olwell was the best Delrin flute I ever played, and it was on par with several wooden Olwells that I played at various times.
Yeah, Delrin is more of a pain in the a$$ to turn and can also be difficult to bore without breaking your gundrills, if that’s what you normally use. Seth Gallagher busted a gundrill or two at VH when he was first experimenting on the stuff for chanters, or so I am told.
When you turn delrin, the stuff comes off in ribbons, and unless you have really good and direct suction from your dust extraction system, these streamers coming off as you turn, immediately get wound back around the piece you’re working on, mucking up the process. You also have to use either a full length mandrel (which sucks if you’re set-up to use short length expanding mandrels or centers of come sort), or you have to use a follow-rest, because unlike wood, the delrin tends to bend away from your cutting tool. Finally, if you turn by hand on a wood lathe, as I believe Pat does, you can have a real problem with “dig-in” or “grabbing” which is not just annoying, but can also be dangerous.
Loren
To answer your questions, the Seery was a good flute but when I said I wondered
what a skillful maker can do with the stuff, I really had in mind
a maestro like Pat. Not meaning to knock Desi S, of course,
and there are makers who I believe are in another league.
The Seery was good but not very good, IMO. 0f course it
isn’t meant to be top end; it cost me about 300 something
when I bought it used. I recently sold
it, preferring the sound of my wooden flutes. I expect there
are better delrin flutes–but I’ve never played one.
I’ve read
Jessie’s posts about the Olwell, don’t remember yours. She said, I recall,
it doesn’t sound exactly the same as wood–the spirit of the tree is alive in a wooden flute she says. Later she said she discovered finally
that the Olwell delrin was good in ‘its own way,’ that it has its own virtue.
It’s as good as wood, perhaps, but differently good. Well I don’t know what that amounts to and so I don’t know
what it sounds like really, or what its goodness consists in–that’s info that would require my playing the flute. So I still wonder what a skillful maker can do with the stuff.
Didn’t know there’s a Delrin Copley, marginally aware of the
McGee but not read any reviews. As Delrin is interesting
but strange stuff, IMO, I’ll probably wonder what these things really
amount to until I get my mitts on 'em.
I’ve played Jon’s delrin flutes next to his wooden ones, McGees Delrin flutes next to his wooden ones, Michael Cronnolly’s delrin flutes against his wooden ones, Paddy Ward’s Delrin Eb against his woden Eb etc…
I agree with Jessies that delrin (or PVC) flutes are a bit heavier and feel less organic than wood though the weight difference is minimal.
When I’m playing them they sound a little brighter to me, not quite as warm as wood but my wife can’t really tell the difference from 4 feet away.
I do miss the wood vibrating 'neath my fingers.
Doc
Ditto to all of the above! It is nasty stuff! Loren, you should see when I drill the delrin head joint with a 3/4" gundrill, dicey. The trick is to have low RPM’s and a lot of compressed air. No problem with turning the stuff, no need for a mandral, just carbide cutters. Lots of strings though, can be a pain…
Wood is easier to finish then delrin, as it resists sanding. ANd worse of all, it stinks when you turn it! 
It’s hard to find words. I’m one of these folks who think the
material the flute is made of is implicated in the sound,
not just in virtue of the bore’s smoothness or whatever,
but that molecular structure in the wood does something
to sound.
I’ve played the Seery, I’ve played the M&E and the Dixon (I
think that’s delrin, anway). Also I’ve played delrin
whistles, Abells. Always there was a sort of ‘deadness,’
except that’s much too strong and severe a word.
Where wood was vibrant, the material absorbed sound
and produced it in a way I found audibly different (as
did my experienced listener), although the sound
was at least in the neighborhood of blackwood.
When Jessie said the ‘spirit of the tree’ is alive in
a wooden flute, that captured for me what I
was hearing. I think that may be a feature of
any delrin flute, but of course I don’t know,
and a really skillful maker may be
able to either eliminate that or make something
differently good of a delrin flute. I’m rooting
for delrin, you know, but I suppose (tentatively)
that I’ll prefer wood.
I’ve never played, heard, or even seen John C’s flutes, and
for all I know he is ‘da Man.’
I had a chance to play a McGee delrin up in Asheville a month ago and I liked it very much. Then again, I play an M & E, so I have a bias in favor of it.
But what was really eye-opening was watching another very good flute player using my flute which I had swapped for his Olwell. It really hammered home the adage “it isn’t the flute; it’s the player.” I have a lot more I can get out of mine.
The thing I dislike about delrin is the weight. It’s the single most obvious and important difference, in my very limited experience.
The Antique boxwood Metzler is the butteriest tone that I have ever played. I like the edgy crisp antique cocuswood sound also. There is no question in my mind that these to woods are distictivly different, even though they both have lined heads… Go figure? So for me, wood is the one that I gravitate toward, but it is nice to have the delrin or PVC flute for the trip to the desert, mountains, or to the beach.
I’m, not that man, your the man, man! 
Jon
Thanks, but actually my wife is da Man.
how about having nowhere to go, and just being lazy?