Ta very muchly!
add just a wee bit every time you put it together
This is VERY important. I broke two corks in no time before knowing…
Looks a lovely flute. Is it me, or is that quite a large, Rudallesque embouchure hole?
Well, it is certainly a classic English ellipse style - doesn’t look especially large to me, so far as one can tell in a picture.
@ Anyanka: yep, they’re right about taking care to grease the cork regularly - it is pretty obviously newly done and rather dry - with time you won’t need to be quite so careful as it will become grease saturated, but I’d actually massage a liberal amount of grease into it when you get your supply, then apply little and often. If you just leave it be, you do indeed risk peeling it off - and remember always to assemble and disassemble with a twisting motion, only gradually pushing on/pulling off. If they’ve done a good job on the new cork, it shouldn’t be drastically tight, but as it will compress and gradually spring back less with use, neither should it be too easy - do tell/ask if you have any worries. The new cork needs grease both to lubricate assembly/disassembly and to waterproof it so that it is less likely to swell, which can jam a joint. (It is bound to do that a little while new, hence the importance of ample lubrication.)
You need to remember not to use the mark on the other end of the Boehm flute cleaning stick for setting the position of the head cork/stopper. That mark will place the cork at about 17mm above the centre of the embouchure hole. On this flute, it needs to be set at about 19mm.
There’s one thing that catches my attention in the photo - the shoulder of the tenon at the top of the topjoint, by which I mean the wood bit between the end of the cork and the rest of the body, looks unusually long…The tenon at the other end of the joint looks normal in comparison. Could this have been part of the refurbishment mentioned - was there some shortening of the joint…?
Garry
Don’t think so, Garry - I can’t imagine even a Hobgoblin tech doing that on something obviously on decent condition. Anyway, the tenon ends are silver bound, so to shorten the tenon one would have to take that off and put it back… besides, the overall length of the tenon is in proportion and looks normal enough to me - it certainly would never have been longer. I agree the gap from lapping to shoulder does look long, but it is just that the lapping bed is not placed centrally in the length of the tenon, nor extends as far south as it could.
The Williams I played was a rudall, and it was really swell.
Odd that, isn’t it…
I was wondering if something like this might have been done to effectively shorten the flute at the head so that a previous owner who was a flat blower, say or a beginner - could blow it into tune – somebody who found they were playing flat even with the slide closed. Could have been done by removing the metal band at the tip and taking an equal amount off the tip and the shoulder of the top tenon. The lapping trough/groove for the cork should then also be extended to avoid any possibility of the joint rocking - but perhaps not done in this case…?
Presumably the flute is still in the period of approval. I’d say it would be a good idea to get an experienced player to look it over before finally committing to it. It would be good to know what the position of the slide is at A440, for example - and whether that joint between the top of the body and the barrel is secure and doesn’t rock.
Garry