I noticed that on days with like 90+% humidity (usually rainy), I can’t hold my flute vertically because the weight of the headjoint will push the tuning slide in. It’s very annoying when I’m playing with someone. I’d like to know why this happens on humid days rather than dry ones, and a solution too if anyone knows of a good one.
I don’t know why that happens on humid days cause there are very rarely humid days here in Utah. But my C flute has this problem. The slide was much too loose to stay in place when the flute was held up vertically. I put beeswax on the slide and it fixed the problem right away. You could try that.
Interesting - hard to see at first what humidity would do to the friction between two pieces of metal. My guess is that on humid days, the inside bore of the head happens to be round, making the inner tuning slide round, presenting the least resistance to the outer slide. On drier days, the bore goes slightly eliptical, forcing the thin metal tuning slide slightly eliptical, increasing resistance between the slides.
Just hold the end of the protruding tuning slide between fingers and thumb and squeeze hard enough to render it a little elliptical. It will be forced round again when you insert it in the barrel, but the springiness of the metal will provide some increased resistance to stop it aimlessly sliding about.
Don’t squash it flat! Try a bit of pressure, then offer it up to the barrel, if not enough, try a little more and so on.
Clean the outside and inside first (rag soaked in alcohol), then regrease with cork grease, yak fat, whatever you have to hand.
Terry
Make some slide grease by melting candle wax and adding vasoline.On humid days add more candle wax for stiffness. I Melt it in an old tomato sauce can over the stove top and use pliers to handle the can.
you probably have moisture getting between the male/female parts which reduces friction there causing the slide to move. beeswax worked for me.
Yup. Yup. Big water droplets, condensation I’ve always figured.
Wipe the slide dry, rub with beeswax block. (Lather, rinse, repeat.)
When it’s gotten really bad I’ve put a one-layer “O-ring” of teflon tape at the the spot to act as a sort of “stop”. It looks sort of grotty, but it gets me through the session or gig or whatever.
Though I am going to try Terry’s method. That’s so much cleaner. 