Opinions about delrin flutes with a very good sound

[Geoffrey Ellis]

I totally get that people like wood and I actually prefer wood for aesthetic reasons, but definitely not because I think wood makes a better flute. It doesn't. Wood makes a more "organic" flute, in that the material choice is more likely to have a subtle impact on the performance of the flute as a result of the inner bore surface, the workability, etc.. Some folks consider that "character" and value it accordingly, as do I. But in terms of acoustic response, projection and overall behavior, Delrin is awesome and very, very consistent.

Nicely put, Geoffrey. What you say reminds of Tom Ridenour's pitch for hard rubber (presumably Ebonite or something very similar) clarinets:
http://www.ridenourclarinetproducts.com ... -myth.html

Of course rubber's a 'natural' material where Delrin's not, and still needs just that little bit more looking after, but I'm sure this guy's not making top-quality clarinets from rubber if he thinks they'd be better in wood. And, yes, I still love my wood flute for its beauty and associated feelgood factor.

Yes, one of my wood suppliers shared that article with me after we had a discussion about blackwood (which I thought was very broad minded of him, being his business is selling wood).

But my big objection to Delrin has to do with it's being an artificial material made by DuPont. But the truth is, that is just a bit of knee-jerk environmentalism with no real logic behind it. I use power tools, I use epoxies, lacquers and various chemicals in my flute making, I use tons of duct tape (pretty artificial), foam brushes, florescent lights, and I drive a gasoline powered automobile down to the store to buy supplies (to name but a few). From that perspective, drawing the line at Delrin would be pretty arbitrary And we are all aware of the impact of harvesting tropical timbers.

Few of us can really achieve the ideal of having some sort of zero-impact approach to our craft. I remember on a bansuri forum some years ago, Jeff Whittier claimed that anyone who made wooden flutes (when environmentally friendly bamboo was available) was "an ecological criminal who should be put in jail". I thought that to be a bit strong! I suggested to him that such a position was really only unassailable if he did not drive, did not use wood or paper products, and didn't support any industry that did. And I could also have pointed out the irony that he was making these claims on the internet, which meant that he was using a hunk of plastic and circuit boards to do so, supporting who-knows-what sort of chain of environmentally unfriendly processes!

So while my feelings about Delrin are not unmixed, in the bigger picture I think using it for flutes is a pretty reasonable compromise. And as mentioned by kmag, it does not require things like bore rings to protect the sockets from rupturing or anything like that so that reduces the cost of the more "plain" looking Delrin flutes (though the silver rings still look really sharp on that nice black background!).

[dont]

I have a delrin RR perfected from Terry McGee that is lovely, I travel with it and use it when playing in iffy places where weather or inebriated people could be an issue. Doesn't set off any alarms going through customs, and sits out all the time, so is the one I play most. Couldn't be happier.

[kkrell]

I've had through my hands various Seery flutes (including one gifted me by Desi), an older M&E & newer R&R M&E. Currently happy with a Delrin Cochran (Jon C.) R&R, Somers R&R & Copley Eb. I do prefer having the rings & slides on the Cochran & Somers.

[jim stone]

A question about the Somers RandR. I've heard this once at a session, played
by someone not very robust, and I played it briefly, but not long enough
to really get a feel for it--except it did sound like a rudall. Do these, played
by somebody experienced, generate enough volume to be heard in a session?
I don't mean the session from Hell, just five or six people playing....

[kkrell]

A question about the Somers RandR. I've heard this once at a session, played
by someone not very robust, and I played it briefly, but not long enough
to really get a feel for it--except it did sound like a rudall. Do these, played
by somebody experienced, generate enough volume to be heard in a session?
I don't mean the session from Hell, just five or six people playing....

I haven't heard it played in a session. However, it's not a quiet flute. I doubt it cuts through like a Hammy, though.

[jim stone]

Thanks. Helpful. I expect that medium to small holed Rudalls aren't going to have
the power of a Pratten. Such are Rudalls.. I've gone kind of rudally, and I'm hoping
that a strong embouchure can make a big difference. So the Somers is interesting.

[Casey Burns]

Am still playing with the idea. Actually what intrigues me more is the idea of acrylic impregnation and am about to try this with some fairly light weight Kauri wood. Michael Hubbert sent me some pictures of a full set of Uilleann Pipes made from Western Bigleaf Maple, but acrylic impregnated. Impressive. The process renders the wood stable, nonporous, with a mass similar to blackwood. Apparently it also much improves its turning properties.

This would open up the wood resources to locally derived species. No need for import. No need for CITES stuff. Speaking of which I just got my permit today. An added wrinkle in the process is that one has to have the blackwood items inspected and the individual export permits stamped by a FWS or USDA inspector before these can be sent. Which for me means a ferry ride over to Seattle, which can use a whole day and costs minimally $35 in the summer. For my friend Murray in Southern Oregon, it means driving 5 - 6 hours up to Portland and 5 - 6 hours back. Hopefully after these initial inspections they'll grant waivers and simply pre-stamp the permits. Or not. But eventually I might tire of this and only export flutes in Boxwood and Mopane and potentially other non-CITES species. Or Delrin even. One of the reasons why I am actually looking into it some.

Casey

[Geoffrey Ellis]

Am still playing with the idea. Actually what intrigues me more is the idea of acrylic impregnation and am about to try this with some fairly light weight Kauri wood. Michael Hubbert sent me some pictures of a full set of Uilleann Pipes made from Western Bigleaf Maple, but acrylic impregnated. Impressive. The process renders the wood stable, nonporous, with a mass similar to blackwood. Apparently it also much improves its turning properties.

This would open up the wood resources to locally derived species. No need for import. No need for CITES stuff. Speaking of which I just got my permit today. An added wrinkle in the process is that one has to have the blackwood items inspected and the individual export permits stamped by a FWS or USDA inspector before these can be sent. Which for me means a ferry ride over to Seattle, which can use a whole day and costs minimally $35 in the summer. For my friend Murray in Southern Oregon, it means driving 5 - 6 hours up to Portland and 5 - 6 hours back. Hopefully after these initial inspections they'll grant waivers and simply pre-stamp the permits. Or not. But eventually I might tire of this and only export flutes in Boxwood and Mopane and potentially other non-CITES species. Or Delrin even. One of the reasons why I am actually looking into it some.

Casey

Maple is the champion of resin absorbing woods, at least of all the types I've tried. I've done maple, cherry, black walnut, douglas fir, curly redwood, redwood burl, bubinga, African blackwood, osage orange, verawood, cocobolo, hawthorne, dogwood, ironwood, western red cedar, mountain mahogany, bocote, and probably some others I'm forgetting. All of the oily hardwoods were done simply as experiments since it was obvious from the get-go that they didn't absorb any resin. Any extra stability that resulted came simply from being vacuumed down and then baked at 220 degrees for about five hours And the flip side to that is that the process can actually damage perfectly sound timbers as often as it stabilizes them. I had some very treasured pieces of wood come out full of cracks they didn't have previously, which taught me a painful lesson about the risks of vacuum chambers on certain types of wood.

In terms of resin absorption, maple, curly redwood and (surprisingly) curly douglas fir actually absorbed the most resin. Maple is the champion because it is already quite hard on its own (and I'm using hard maple instead of soft) but then it also takes on a load of resin and by the time it cures in the oven it comes out as heavy as blackwood as well as being hard. I'm actually launching my new line of Pratten flutes making them entirely out of resin stabilized maple that I've dyed. It looks like old, stained boxwood, and by the time I add the silver rings it makes for a gorgeous flute and it performs every bit as well as the most dense tropical timbers. And it also eliminates the issue of wood mobility and the long process of drying and stabilizing wood a bit at a time by working it and resting it, etc..

Looking into the future and facing all the paper work associated with exporting CITIES protected timbers I just decided not to bother. Even as recently as a week ago I was thinking about getting the master permit because I've got a few hundred pieces of blackwood, but then I just said to hell with it. I'd rather focus on developing these alternatives and just limit my sales of blackwood flutes to the domestic U.S.

So I see Delrin as a great option for many of the experienced makers who have only used blackwood in the past. I think the ITM community is ahead of the curve in its acceptance of it as a material as well, which is an advantage. Delrin is (IMO) every bit as good as blackwood in terms of sound and it has a host of other advantages as well. And when you sand it properly it looks like blackwood! The only thing I don't like about it is reaming it. It can behave differently than wood and on a couple of occasions I got a section stuck on my reamer! It expands and contracts when being worked, and I was reaming a long section of a Pratten body and it got on the reamer and wouldn't come off. I think the heat made it contract and then it just seized up and I'm hanging on the thing and heaving with all my might. The reamer was turning but it couldn't be backed out. Nothing. I had to use a winch to pull it off the reamer--it was a bit of a farce actually, but I needed to get it off without harming my reamer. So beware of reaming long sections...

[Casey Burns]

I'd probably only use it on short sections and would have reamers dedicated for it, and maybe have the bores roughed out at a local CNC shop to spare my reamers!

Geoffrey, where do you purchase it? Do you get solid or in tube form?

[Geoffrey Ellis]

I'd probably only use it on short sections and would have reamers dedicated for it, and maybe have the bores roughed out at a local CNC shop to spare my reamers!

Geoffrey, where do you purchase it? Do you get solid or in tube form?

Having the bores roughed out would be a great option. Even step boring the sections helps if you have a variety of gun drill sizes.

I get mine at McMaster-Carr. I use both solid rod stock and tubes for different applications. If you look at the specs for the Delrin tubing you'll see that you have limited choices in terms of the O.D. and I.D. of the stock and can choose accordingly.

Boring Delrin requires patience and slower spindle speeds. If it gets hot during the boring or reaming process, it melts and then you have a mess (and have to chuck the piece). So you go a bit slower, but its not a big deal. And a 12" section of 1.5" diameter Delrin rod is about $10. More expensive than many woods, but less than others. Plus you never have to bother with grain matching!

[Casey Burns]

That is about what I pay for blackwood if I am lucky!

[Geoffrey Ellis]

That is about what I pay for blackwood if I am lucky!

Exactly! That's why I've always rolled my eyes a bit when players expect the Delrin flutes to be cheaper based upon the material. It is very high quality, super dense and machines like butter. Not an ordinary plastic at all.

[Latticino]

I've owned and tried a number of Delrin and other plastic flutes including: Seery, Older M&E, Tipple, Dixon, Copley, Somers and Ward. I'm at best an intermediate flute player, so take this for what it is worth, and most prefer my granadilla 6-key Wm. Hall and Sons. I currently still own both the Somers small hole Rudall and the Ward Delrin flutes. While they play quite differently (as I believe the Ward is based on a Hawkes design, which has profile and holes closer to a Pratten, with the 4-piece body of a Rudall - best of both worlds...), I would say that either has more than sufficient volume for the type of small session the OP is interested in. I think the big difference between the two has more to do with embouchure cut and tone hole position than anything else. Takes me a bit to get the most out of either on switching between the two, but both are very good instruments.

As an aside, I also have a blackwood Ward, designed to the same pattern as the Delrin one, and I do like it better than the Delrin. Possibly a slight difference in the cut of the embouchure, or slightly better fitting joints. Hard to say, but I get the impression that it has a more complex sound with more interesting overtones.

[Peter Duggan]

Nicely put, Geoffrey. What you say reminds of Tom Ridenour's pitch for hard rubber (presumably Ebonite or something very similar) clarinets:
http://www.ridenourclarinetproducts.com ... -myth.html

Yes, one of my wood suppliers shared that article with me after we had a discussion about blackwood (which I thought was very broad minded of him, being his business is selling wood).

He's got another, perhaps even better article ('better' because it's not so directly trying to sell something) at http://www.ridenourclarinetproducts.com ... -knew.html. If you can get through the first few paragraphs about Aristotle, what he's saying is that the most important question's not 'what's it made of?', 'who makes it?' or even 'what does it sound like?', but something more like a vast expansion of 'how does it play?' (he says 'how does it phrase?', but the intent is the same). And the lesson is equally applicable to flutes (or any other musical instruments) as clarinets. For sure, the first three questions are likely to contribute to the fourth, but that's the important one.

As an aside, I also have a blackwood Ward, designed to the same pattern as the Delrin one, and I do like it better than the Delrin. Possibly a slight difference in the cut of the embouchure, or slightly better fitting joints. Hard to say, but I get the impression that it has a more complex sound with more interesting overtones.

Just like I ultimately prefer my wood Copley to my Delrin one, and believe the (not quite identical) embouchure to give me just that little bit more. But perhaps we also prefer our wood flutes because we want to prefer them and find we can get that little bit more out of them because of that? On which note, how fortunate that ultimately preferring even the 'every day' qualities of my beautiful, unique, wood four-key to the almost equally good Delrin keyless Dave made me to help us develop it has the flutes the 'right way round'!

[Jayhawk]

I have owned (M&E R&R PVC and ebonite, Seery, Walt Sweet Shannon, and Baubet) or played for a goodly amount of time (Copley) quite a few delrin flutes. Unlike Loren, I'm just lazy and I don't swab them out...just shake them out and never had a mold issue. I still do need to try a Summers and a Forbes, because I've heard good things about them.

Anyway, the only one I still own is my Baubet 5 key. The flute simply fits me well. I suspect a wooden Baubet would work for me as well. Love the look, weight, block mounted keys, etc, plus Francois is a great guy and his flute, not based on a specific historical instrument, is a design that works well for me.

Thoughts on the others:

Seery - if you like a Pratten based flute, they tend to be good (owned one, played 3). I have a great CD by a bunch of good players all playing Seery flutes...they sound great.
Copley - quite good.
M&E - best bang for your buck if you want keys, heavy, industrial design and the wide body profile was hard on my hands with time.
Walt Sweet Shannon - best bang for your buck, period. If I wanted a pure keyless travel flute...this would be it. I missed keys and at the time I was playing with a box player who was slightly out of tune so I missed a real tuning slide.

Anyway, I've always stated I'm in the camp that says the material matters much less than design and execution of said design.

I don't think I've posted much in ages...hi everyone!

Eric