Thin Walled Flutes

[talasiga]

excerpt from this other topic
Hi...I received a keyless small hole Dominic Allan flute a little over a week ago and am finding it to be very impressive. I own or have owned an Olwell Nicholson, Wilkes, M&E, Dixon, and various other flutes that run the gambit from R&R to pratten. I think that Dominic's type 1 flute has more in common with the 19th century French flutes rather than English, with relatively thin walls and small holes... the headjoint bulge below the slide was also not uncommon. The Allan flute has a large embouchure that seems to nicely complement the smaller bore and holes.

I am interested in thin walled flutes - wooden flutes.
Who makes them? What effect it has on tone. responsiveness?
Indians prefer their bansuris to have relatively thin walls eschewing thick walled bamboo.
They claim it increases responsiveness and is more suitable for large tone holes.

I would especially like to see comments here from wooden, PVC and even bamboo flute makers.
I have heard that thin walls have ears.
I would like to hear more about this.

The topic is not limited to flute makers only.
Anyone can comment.
Experiences and speculations welcome.

Regards

[Jon C.]

Namiste talasiga,
I just finished making a thin walled flute this very evening.
The walls of the flute are 4mm the headjoint walls at the
embouchure are 5mm.
If you thin out the headjoint it will sacrifice the tone.
I think thinner then 4mm and the flute would be
difficult to make and keep in one piece!
It seems to be very responsive and has a brite tone.
I just getting ready to send it to Bang, for his evaluation...
Jon

[talasiga]

Jon,
David Chu custom made me a beautiful bamboo C flute
69cm (about 27.5 inches) long. Bore diameter is 29.9mm with inside diameter being 21.5mm.
That is, wall thickness is 4.2mm. For a flute this size, would you consider it a thin walled or
a medium walled flute?

[Julia C]

Hi Jon , very nice to see your latest, looking swirly grained and beauteous. I saw your photo of the blanks you cut them from and it's hard to believe the transformation. What tool do you use to measure the wall thickness as you bore them out?
Best
Julia C

[chas]

Jon, I noticed your joints have rings on both the sockets and tenons. Would it be possible/advisable to retrofit rings onto the tenons? I have a flute in which the tenons are going out-of-round, and this would seem the obvious solution to halting this process. Would reassembling it after swabbing it out help? For reference, it's two years old, boxwood, lapped with cork, well cared for, and this just started probably 2-3 months ago.

[Jon C.]

talasiga wrote: David Chu custom made me a beautiful bamboo C flute
69cm (about 27.5 inches) long. Bore diameter is 29.9mm with inside diameter being 21.5mm.
That is, wall thickness is 4.2mm. For a flute this size, would you consider it a thin walled or
a medium walled flute?

David Chu's flutes look very nice! I'm not familiar with bamboo flutes, but I would think that it would be a normal medium thickness for bamboo.

Julia wrote: What tool do you use to measure the wall thickness as you bore them out?

Digital Calipers for the outside and a bore gauge to measure the bore.

Chas wrote: I noticed your joints have rings on both the sockets and tenons. Would it be possible/advisable to retrofit rings onto the tenons? I have a flute in which the tenons are going out-of-round, and this would seem the obvious solution to halting this process. Would reassembling it after swabbing it out help? For reference, it's two years old, boxwood, lapped with cork, well cared for, and this just started probably 2-3 months ago.

That's to bad about the tenons! Boxwood does have a problem with warping. I don't know if they would ever return back to a perfectly round tenon. You might seal the end grain of the tenon with super glue to prevent any more moisture entering in at the tenon. I think rings would help, but the lip of the tenon would have to be turned down to fit the ring.
AS far a re-essembling the flute, I don't think there would be enough pressure to do much. Maybe you could email Terry Mcgee and see what he thinks. I have this old boxwood flute, the only perfect tenon/socket on the flute, was the always essembled foot tenon, the rest were warped and cracked!
Jon

[mcdafydd]

Hi Jon et al!

I had the fortune of meeting bang last night at session, and trying out your delrin rudall flute. Now that I know he'll be getting this thin-walled beauty too, I'll have to hit him up for another try.. I really enjoyed playing the delrin flute, wishing I had more time to figure it out. It's great to see all the ideas you're coming up with. Thanks for the good work!

Since delrin is a more sturdy material then wood, what is the smallest diameter wall thickness you would think possible with it?

Boehm talked about producing an ideal (as far as tone) cylindrical flute made of wood, with thin walls and a large bore. But the cost of producing an instrument that was likely to be too delicate for most people/conditions stopped the large scale production of it. Delrin might be the perfect material to take up this idea again??

[Loren]

Since delrin is a more sturdy material then wood, what is the smallest diameter wall thickness you would think possible with it?

Well, it's sturdy in some ways, but quite bendy as it gets thin.......

Loren

[talasiga]

.....

Boehm talked about producing an ideal (as far as tone) cylindrical flute made of wood, with thin walls and a large bore.
.......

That would have to be thin walled bamboo as used in bansuris. Reed back to square 1 !!

[mcdafydd]

ha! I guess you're right!!

[Terry McGee]

Boehm talked about producing an ideal (as far as tone) cylindrical flute made of wood, with thin walls and a large bore. But the cost of producing an instrument that was likely to be too delicate for most people/conditions stopped the large scale production of it. Delrin might be the perfect material to take up this idea again??

While thin walls might work well for one piece instruments, like bamboo flutes, you get into trouble at the joints of multi-sectioned flutes. If the walls are 4mm thick, that means your sockets and tenons can be only about half that thick, less the clearance. Cut into the tenon to the depth required for lapping and it's considerably thinner. Cut into the socket for the ring, ditto. A common problem with Boehm bore wooden flutes is tenon failure.

Delrin itself probably wouldn't be any better, but you could use delrin for the body and a piece of metal tube for the tenon. Since the metal tube can be much thinner than 2mm, that leaves more thickness and strength for the socket.

Terry

[talasiga]

.....

While thin walls might work well for one piece instruments, like bamboo flutes, you get into trouble at the joints of multi-sectioned flutes. If the walls are 4mm thick, that means your sockets and tenons can be only about half that thick, less the clearance. Cut into the tenon to the depth required for lapping and it's considerably thinner. Cut into the socket for the ring, ditto. A common problem with Boehm bore wooden flutes is tenon failure.

.......

Yes, I have not yet found a bansuri or other bamboo flute maker who was happy to incorporate a tuning slide or other arrangement for a multi sectioned tuneable bamboo flute. I have heard that the Chinese do this with the best of their "tsi-tsays" but I have not seen it. I was driven to the Irish flute in the 1990's because it is a tuneable simple system flute.

Could it be possible to have a multi section thin walled bamboo flute with the section joins housed in a wooden sleeve? When I ask "possible" I mean would it be a reasonably practical proposition.

[Jon C.]

Here is my latest "thin Flute".
I was having trouble with my wrist,
so I turned this Delrin R&R as thin as I could,
the walls are 3.75 mm thick.
The Chimney on the embourchure hole
(blow hole for whales and Englishman)
is 3.5 mm eccentriclly bored-
(another one of Terry's inovation).
And I don't have to swab it out every 5 minutes, for fear of cracking.
Jon
Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting

[andrewK]

I have waiting to be tarted up one of the thinned body Rudall Carte 1867 patent flutes. They were made with the holes standing proud. They were ever so dear in their day, but are supposed to work superbly well.

Now I know what to do if I have wrist trouble. Make a thin walled flute !

[talasiga]

Jon C., I am interested in your project.
What is the thinnest you can go with delrin?
Like, could you go down to 2mm (and have the embouchure supplemented with a lip plate) ?