Chiff and Fipple Forums

I have a Lehart keyless that I love, bought about a year and a half ago (I bought it used, it's about two and a year years old). It took over from my first flute, a Shannon, and I'm not sure I'll ever need another keyless flute outside of those two.

My question is more out of curiosity than anything: how best to describe the design of Lehart's flutes? I know that some makers have multiple Pratten/Rudall/small hands/Nicholson/etc. models, but Lehart is a one-model guy. I also know that Hammy Hamilton, another one-model guy who is often described as a Pratten-esque maker (but who started with a Rudall-ish design), has made it known that he dislikes categorizing his flutes based on past designs, so perhaps Mr. Lehart is the same. But as people tend to like to sort these instruments into basic camps, I've been wondering where mine falls.

From what I can gather, the best description would probably be "large-holed Rudall." I've had the opportunity to try flutes by a bunch of other makers including Olwell, Grinter, Hamilton, O'Brien, Murray, M&E, and an assortment of antiques, and the impression I get is that the Lehart is on the larger-holed and louder side, but closer to the middle than the extreme ends of Pratten and Hamilton models. I have not, however, taken calipers to every flute I've tried, so this is mainly based off of feel and sound.

Anyway, does anyone with a deeper knowledge of flute design than I have a sense of where Lehart's design falls?

Hi there! I have a 6 keyed Eb flute from Gilles and I can't be happier with it. It's a fantastic flute, strong tone, very good balance between octaves and really easy to play.
In his own words when i ordered it he wrote me in one of his emails:
"My flutes are of rudall type"
Apart from this, i sent him some pictures of the embouchure of my wilkes flute as i wanted to keep a similar embouchure in the new flute and he finally made my flute with a slightly smaller embouchure than his standar embouchure cut.
So... A pleasure to deal with Gilles and incredible flute! More if you think in the price and the waiting time

It’s just a good reminder that you can’t place flutes into easy categories.
Like Big holes one piece body is a Pratten / smaller holes Rudall
My Lehart had bigger holes then the Nicholson Olwell and the distance between holes was a greater stretch.
I once had a Noy flute that was supposed to be a Rudall that also had huge holes and bore.
The Lehart I had also had a sort of diamond shaped embouchure cut. It was a great playing flute.