Recently, there has been some interest on the board in adding keys to existing flutes. I thought I would post my new Garry Somers, Delrin, Pratten, D flute with 8 Maruice Raviol keys. I have only had this flute for about 2 weeks now. It is a wonderful flute and I should note that I had Garry Somers permission to add the keys to his flute. Garry Somers makes an excellent flute; however, he does not put on keys. Without going into huge detail, I can say that the intonation is excellent, and the keys are magnificent. All in all, a really nice flute. Further, it is my experience that it takes no more wind to play this flute than my Rudal style timber flutes. The weight is a little greater than a timber flute, as Delrin is a little bit heavier; however, it isn't unmanageable in any way. Here are a few photos that, I hope, will show the key work well. Would appreciate your thoughts or questions. I'll try to answer as best I can.

Thanks, Don.

(edit) I neglected to provide Maurice Reviol's website. He can be best reached at: info@reviol.co.nz. His price list is included on the website. In addition, his keys are made of bronze and there are several options that he lists, I decided on the silver plate, but there are a couple of other interesting options, one of which is black keys. New Zealand is a long way from where I live and the shipping is on the costly side; however, even with the shipping, it was a bargain for me as I purchased the flute when the exchange rate was about .63 cents to the USD. The value of the New Zealand dollar has declined quite a bit over the past year and half, I think the current rate of exchange is about .65 cents to the USD and may decline even further by the end of the year, depending, somewhat, upon if the Fed. raises interest rates. Money is always of concern; however, I was most interested in obtaining a quality product and I certain achieved that end in my opinion.

Maurice does lovely keywork. It looks great!

Thanks Jayhawk, I'm certainly enjoying it.

Amazing! I own myself a Somers "Pratten" keyless and I wrote some weeks ago to Mr. Reviol in order to request him to put keys on my flute, but he has not answered me yet. Could you tell us for how much was the total amount? (shipping going and return + keys value). I guess in your opinion it really worth the investment to have a first quallity full keyed flute, is it?

I particulary don't like too much the "Böhm-looking" of his keywork, but I recognise it is really fine crafted and looks top quallity indeed.

Enjoy your flute!

Cheers,

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Guille

Clementi Improved 1830-restored by Chris Wilkes, 8 keys (Cocus wood) / François Baubet R&R, 5 keys (Mopane) / Gary Somers "Pratten" keyless (Delrin).

Tried to find the receipt for the addition of the keys, I guess I've lost it. However, his price list is on his web site and as best as I can recall, the prices currently are the same as when I had keys installed almost 3 years ago. Placing keys on the Somers flute was worth it for me. I very much enjoy the flute and Mr. Reviol does amazing work. I know that in order to make the low C on pitch he had to remove a small amount off the foot of the flute, the result is that all notes are spot on in terms of pitch. In addition, the C# and C cups are larger than the other keys, as you can see from the photos, this was necessary to cover the large holes on the foot; it was necessary for him to add larger cups.

My understanding is that Mr. Reviol does not make the keys himself, they are made elsewhere, exactly where I'm not certain. My recollection is that the keys are made in NZ and when he receives them, he does some fine finish work on them and then has them silver plated. The "Boehm-looking" keys are not a distraction to me, as I play the Boehm Flute more than I play the Simple System flutes that I own. While I very much enjoy this flute, if I had to do it over again, I would have the keys installed on a Rudall type rather than on a Pratten, just personal preference with regard to sound on my part.

I hope by now, Mr. Reviol has contacted you. I can say that he is a master at what he does, his work, the placement of the holes and the finished product are/were far beyond my expectations. Plus he is easy to work with, at least that has been my experience. Actually, the photos that I posted do not do justice to the quality workmanship and overall appearance of the instrument. Further, I rather suspect that Mr. Reviol is quite busy as his talents/expertise are clearly in demand--this may account for his delay in contacting you???

I hope this helps somewhat. I wish I had kept better track of the receipt and the total cost, sorry about that.

The prices do not appear on Maurice Reviol's website, as near as I can tell.

I DO have the pricing info you sent me 3 years ago, although without the shipping cost or actual invoice, just the various per key costs in NZ dollars & the ring-mounted Eb pillar cost vs. standard.

If Guilleflute wants the historical pricing info, he can PM me for it. Probably not fair to post publicly if Maurice does not have more current info showing on his own website.

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International Traditional Music Society, Inc.
A non-profit 501c3 charity/educational public benefit corporation
Wooden Flute Obsession CDs (3 volumes, 6 discs, 7 hours, 120 players/tracks)
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I just wanted to add my voice in support of Maurice's work. He added six keys to my Doyle flute, as Martin Doyle suggested. It was a marvelous job, and its been my main flute for about three years. John Skelton told me that the keys were "French style," which I think may partly be a reference to the G# key. It plays wonderfully and easily. He was a pleasure to deal with, as well.

Hi kkrell, here is the address to the price list, which was current as of May 2012, and since it has not been updated, I assume these are still his prices in NZ Dollars. http://www.reviol.co.nz/HTML/Prices.html. With regard to shipping cost, Mr. Raviol was able to save me money on the shipping cost as he had a procedure/process that he goes through when he returns the flute, and you would need to email him for details. Please keep in mind that I'm going off of memory that is almost 3 years old, but that's how I remember it. In addition, the shipping cost that I paid would be of little value as the price would be different depending upon where the instrument is shipped to.

On his web site, Mr. Raviol does add the following caveat: "The prices for repairs vary a lot due to the work needed and it is only possible to give estimate prices for repairs. Work is charged on an hourly rate and discounts are given for labour intensive jobs that take longer - you pay for more hours, you get them cheaper! That includes batches of instruments." I assume that this caveat applies to adding keys as well???

The prices are listed on his web site. First click on "Repairs/Service," then click"prices" on the far right side. Once you click on "prices" scroll down to "Adding Keys to existing Instruments." The prices that are quoted are the same that I paid back in 2015. As near as I can tell, this is his current web site, hence current prices--- don't see anything that would indicate otherwise.

Interestingly, Google led me to a different version of his website http://bassoon.co.nz/flute-keywork.html , which discussed keywork but did not have the same info.

Yes, the prices on the page you linked http://www.reviol.co.nz/HTML/Prices.html (Last Modified 07/22/2015) , does match your PM of 2015.

_________________
International Traditional Music Society, Inc.
A non-profit 501c3 charity/educational public benefit corporation
Wooden Flute Obsession CDs (3 volumes, 6 discs, 7 hours, 120 players/tracks)
http://www.worldtrad.org

Hello! I am hardly ever here on this forum.

I am still adding keys to flutes, the price is more or less the same, with a slight change to the price for Silver plated keys. The company that did the plating for me over the last 15 years closed down and the new plating company is more expensive. So, Silver plated keys are more expensive. I also can offer now a key version cast in White Bronze, which is an alloy that looks like Silver (or Nickelsilver) is tougher than Silver and Silicone Bronze, doesn't need to be plated, but is a bit more expensive to get cast. I didn't get around to update the (rather old) website now.

The bassoon.co.nz website is the attempt of a few years ago to update it finally and it's sometimes easier to tell people to go to bassoon.co.nz, it's a bit easier to remember and it's also more meant for the repair side of the business which takes up quite a bit of my time.

I also still make Cast Bore Flutes, the process is now fine tweaked and I developed methods over the years that produce outstanding results.

Emails sent from my email server can sometimes end up in Spam folders, I had a few cases where this caused problems. I will resend a reply that I sent out in September and that was probably caught in a spam filter later today...

I hope that clears a few questions. I will check back here over the next few days, so, if you have any questions, I am happy to answer them here.

A lot of updated information and pictures are on my Facebook page, so you can get an idea what I am doing at the moment.

All the best,
Maurice Reviol

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Reviol Woodwind Instruments
http://www.reviol.co.nz
http://www.facebook.com/Reviol.Woodwind.Instruments