Hi all.
ok this might not fall under the general ruling here lol
I hope someone can possibly advise me regarding specifications of metals to use for tuning slides, rings and keywork for flute making please.
I am in the process of starting making my own wooden folk flutes and am looking for suitable metals such as brass, chrome, etc which could be used. in particular can anyone recommend suitable thicknesses for keys, the rings and other components please?
I have sourced some suppliers near to me for metals and the pricing for brass seems reasonable. the other option I suppose could be recycling old brass ornaments, melting down and using them for keywork, etc.
if there's someone who can advise me please I would really appreciate it
cheers
lewis
advice on metals and key making for flutes needed please.
-
theblindpiper
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Sat Jul 03, 2010 8:46 am
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 12
Re: advice on metals and key making for flutes needed please.
have you considered making a few all wood, keyless flutes first?
Might keep ya busy for a couple of days sorting those parts out.
Might keep ya busy for a couple of days sorting those parts out.
Picture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free
It's dizzying, the possibilities. Ashes, Ashes all fall down.
It's dizzying, the possibilities. Ashes, Ashes all fall down.
-
Jon C.
- Posts: 3526
- Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2001 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: I restore 19th century flutes, specializing in Rudall & Rose, and early American flutes. I occasionally make new flutes. Been at it for about 15 years.
- Location: San Diego
Re: advice on metals and key making for flutes needed please.
I agree with Denny, you might want to make a couple of keyless flutes first. Get your hands on a good quality antique or modern maker and just reverse engineer the flute. You can use brass for the slides, a lot of makers use silver, but the originals were mostly brass, with a sleeve of silver on the female slide. The keys can be silver nickel silver or brass, some makers just make a master key, and have the keys cast. It is a lot easier cold forging silver then brass or nickel, but it is pricey... I use 3-4mm square wire, for cold forging the silver keys. The simple D rings range form 2mm to 3 mm. the common size is 3mm. male slide is 18.9-19mm interior diameter, female slide is 21 mm outer diameter.theblindpiper wrote:Hi all.
ok this might not fall under the general ruling here lol
I hope someone can possibly advise me regarding specifications of metals to use for tuning slides, rings and keywork for flute making please.
I am in the process of starting making my own wooden folk flutes and am looking for suitable metals such as brass, chrome, etc which could be used. in particular can anyone recommend suitable thicknesses for keys, the rings and other components please?
I have sourced some suppliers near to me for metals and the pricing for brass seems reasonable. the other option I suppose could be recycling old brass ornaments, melting down and using them for keywork, etc.
if there's someone who can advise me please I would really appreciate it
cheers
lewis
Hope this helps, good luck!
Jon
-
theblindpiper
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Sat Jul 03, 2010 8:46 am
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 12
Re: advice on metals and key making for flutes needed please.
cheers this is much appreciated.
the main stress I'm having to be honest is finding suitable reamer and drill specifications which are accessible to me. This is the real nightmare.
It's all well and good someone sending a sample of a printed plan to me when I have no sight at all lol good idea haha
Can someone help me with some reamer and drill specifications if at all possible. say a rudell and rose spec or similar? I have a company specialising in making gun drills and gun reamers who would like to help me out with the reamers and drills needed and they need details for each drill and reamer. I usually go for a 4 part flute (headjoint, main in two and bass joint.
My personal flute was a rather nice ray sloan flute purchased for my 19th birthday but sadly 2 years later it was stolen at college. it was a celtic pro. just a total stunner. since, I haven't had the resources nor the confidence to buy another flute. however I feel I should start making these and make a decent success out of life. I already have a reasonable workshop built. just about finished lol
so if someone can help with some specifications or if there's a maker in the UK or ireland willing to spend a little time and offer some confidence I would really appreciate it.
cheers guys
lew
the main stress I'm having to be honest is finding suitable reamer and drill specifications which are accessible to me. This is the real nightmare.
It's all well and good someone sending a sample of a printed plan to me when I have no sight at all lol good idea haha
Can someone help me with some reamer and drill specifications if at all possible. say a rudell and rose spec or similar? I have a company specialising in making gun drills and gun reamers who would like to help me out with the reamers and drills needed and they need details for each drill and reamer. I usually go for a 4 part flute (headjoint, main in two and bass joint.
My personal flute was a rather nice ray sloan flute purchased for my 19th birthday but sadly 2 years later it was stolen at college. it was a celtic pro. just a total stunner. since, I haven't had the resources nor the confidence to buy another flute. however I feel I should start making these and make a decent success out of life. I already have a reasonable workshop built. just about finished lol
so if someone can help with some specifications or if there's a maker in the UK or ireland willing to spend a little time and offer some confidence I would really appreciate it.
cheers guys
lew
-
Casey Burns
- Posts: 1488
- Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2003 12:27 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Kingston WA
- Contact:
Re: advice on metals and key making for flutes needed please.
Sterling silver is easy to use for keys and is widely available through jewelry suppliers. I make my own keys through processes such as fusing, cold forging, cutting to shape, filing to refine the shape and then finishing. I prefer forged keys over cast as these can be bent and re-bent as needed, to tweak them into perfect functioning. For springs I use off the shelf wind instrument springs from band instrument suppliers.
Tubing is harder to source. A large band instrument supply house or sometimes your local repairman has several sizes of tuning slide tubing used on brass instruments. I look for the closest size available, and then press it through home-made dies to size it to the diameters I need. I use brass inner and nickel outer slides mostly.
Gun drills are available through Drillmasters - see http://www.drillmasterseldorado.com/
Gun drills are something you can make also with drill rod. The FOMRHI journal which you would find at a university music library has several articles on making these
Reamers you should learn to make yourself. FOMRHI again has articles on this.
My earliest reamers were made by turning a piece of round steel on a wood lathe at the slowest speed, and simply filing it to the taper I wanted, and polishing it with emory cloth. The reamer then was cut up the middle with a hacksaw. This took several days to do and seemed like it took forever - but it was good discipline. I was a bit inspired my my dad's tales of early machining school where one of the first assignments was to transform a rough lump of cast iron into a perfect cube using only a file, vise and square. Took most of the students a month! So a week to make an important tool didn't seem too bad.
These days I use "Stressproof" steel for my reamers - its actually just 1045 Carbon Steel (.45% carbon) which is available at steel warehouses. Drill rod can also be used but is harder to work. The reamers are not hardened afterwards. I use Myford metal lathes in my workshop instead of a wood lathe so these are turned the way all metal is turned usually. Approximately 1/4 of the diameter is milled away on my milling machine for a cutting flute. The cutting edge is ground, honed and then burnished to an edge.
In a pinch reamers can also be fashioned out of a hard wood such as rock maple, turned and then cut to 1/2 or 3/4 profile. A cutting edge is attached with screws and glue, such as a thin hacksaw blade. One of the FOMRHI articles describes how to do this.
Finally you need to look at some flutes that you would like to copy - and make inside and outside measurements of them. There are museum collections that have been measured, and make these measurements available. Also instruments owned by friendly players. Its best to find something that plays well in some player's hands and measure that rather than copy something in a museum. Another thing several makers do is to purchase some instruments themselves to then use these as templates for their work. I couldn't afford this myself - but fortunately I had access to some great Pratten, Rudall and Prowse flutes early on. I have several volumes of notebooks with dimensions. These days I set aside good examples of my work and use these as my templates out in the workshop. Its also great to have these to show the occasional visiting player.
Tubing is harder to source. A large band instrument supply house or sometimes your local repairman has several sizes of tuning slide tubing used on brass instruments. I look for the closest size available, and then press it through home-made dies to size it to the diameters I need. I use brass inner and nickel outer slides mostly.
Gun drills are available through Drillmasters - see http://www.drillmasterseldorado.com/
Gun drills are something you can make also with drill rod. The FOMRHI journal which you would find at a university music library has several articles on making these
Reamers you should learn to make yourself. FOMRHI again has articles on this.
My earliest reamers were made by turning a piece of round steel on a wood lathe at the slowest speed, and simply filing it to the taper I wanted, and polishing it with emory cloth. The reamer then was cut up the middle with a hacksaw. This took several days to do and seemed like it took forever - but it was good discipline. I was a bit inspired my my dad's tales of early machining school where one of the first assignments was to transform a rough lump of cast iron into a perfect cube using only a file, vise and square. Took most of the students a month! So a week to make an important tool didn't seem too bad.
These days I use "Stressproof" steel for my reamers - its actually just 1045 Carbon Steel (.45% carbon) which is available at steel warehouses. Drill rod can also be used but is harder to work. The reamers are not hardened afterwards. I use Myford metal lathes in my workshop instead of a wood lathe so these are turned the way all metal is turned usually. Approximately 1/4 of the diameter is milled away on my milling machine for a cutting flute. The cutting edge is ground, honed and then burnished to an edge.
In a pinch reamers can also be fashioned out of a hard wood such as rock maple, turned and then cut to 1/2 or 3/4 profile. A cutting edge is attached with screws and glue, such as a thin hacksaw blade. One of the FOMRHI articles describes how to do this.
Finally you need to look at some flutes that you would like to copy - and make inside and outside measurements of them. There are museum collections that have been measured, and make these measurements available. Also instruments owned by friendly players. Its best to find something that plays well in some player's hands and measure that rather than copy something in a museum. Another thing several makers do is to purchase some instruments themselves to then use these as templates for their work. I couldn't afford this myself - but fortunately I had access to some great Pratten, Rudall and Prowse flutes early on. I have several volumes of notebooks with dimensions. These days I set aside good examples of my work and use these as my templates out in the workshop. Its also great to have these to show the occasional visiting player.