antique flute repair - hadjoint blocked: please help!

The Chiff & Fipple Irish Flute on-line community. Sideblown for your protection.
Post Reply
francy222
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:59 pm
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8

antique flute repair - hadjoint blocked: please help!

Post by francy222 »

Hallo, I bought this antique flute. My intention was to repair it and play..
Image
when it arrived, I try to 'unmount'/divide the two upper part (the headjoint and the barrel), but something very strange happen.
the metallic part slipped inward into the headjoind on the low.. :( :boggle:
Image
I try to resemble the two parts, but the joint are locked.. I don't really know how to procede. the flute actually isn't playable at all, because the metal parts cover the embouchure as shown in photo.
Has anyone any suggestion about how to procede?
Image
User avatar
Terry McGee
Posts: 3330
Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2004 4:12 pm
Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
Location: Malua Bay, on the NSW Nature Coast
Contact:

Re: antique flute repair - hadjoint blocked: please help!

Post by Terry McGee »

Hi francy222

This is not that uncommon. I can think of two reasons for the two slides to be locked together:
- the owner allowed breath condensate to remain in the head (instead of mopping out). It's a bit corrosive over time and possibly has glued the slide mating surfaces together,
- somebody has oiled the flute with a drying oil like linseed, and allowed it to enter the metal sections, where it has dried, gluing the surfaces together.

You might try introducing some alcohol at the join. I'm not sure your term for the cheap alcohol sold in hardware stores. We call it methylated spirits, as it contains mostly ethanol, but methanol to make it poisonous and pyradine to make it taste and smell bad! I think it's sometimes referred to as denatured alcohol. A penetrating oil might be helfpful too, but I wouldn't hold out much hope. It's hard to get them into the required area, and we don't know if they will dissolve the "glue" as we can't know what that glue is until maybe later.

You might have success inserting a sharp but strong knife blade between the rings at the junction. EG a Stanley Knife. If you can get it in all round, then you follow up with a thicker knife, etc.

Generally, I've found that heat is the best approach, but how to heat the slides without destroying the wood and ivory? Again, the best approach I've found is to heat a metal bar (like a poker as you'd use to move hot coals around in a fire) and run it around the inside of the barrel slide where the two slides are jammed together. Once you feel the heat starting to come through the barrel wood, try twisting the two sections back and forth, trying to break the seal. You might have to reheat it and twist it a number of times.

Rubber washing-up gloves can help give you more traction in twisting.

You might find that the slides come out of the wood and or ivory before they come apart. That's OK too, as you can now apply heat directly to the outer slide. It also allows you to fix up that big crack in the ivory and ream or sand out the inside to counter the shrinkage before putting it all back together.

Best of luck, and let us know how you get on.
francy222
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:59 pm
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8

Re: antique flute repair - hadjoint blocked: please help!

Post by francy222 »

Terry McGee wrote:Generally, I've found that heat is the best approach, but how to heat the slides without destroying the wood and ivory? Again, the best approach I've found is to heat a metal bar (like a poker as you'd use to move hot coals around in a fire) and run it around the inside of the barrel slide where the two slides are jammed together. Once you feel the heat starting to come through the barrel wood, try twisting the two sections back and forth, trying to break the seal. You might have to reheat it and twist it a number of times.
If heat can help I was thinking another approach: hot salt. It occupies naturally all the space and it slowly yields heat without burning. I will heat it up at the right temperature in a pot and put it inside the flute.
I provide to do some ligatures around the headjoint and the barrel (I learn to do them when I saw a video where they teach how to repair and prevent shakuhachi crack), anyway that should prevent cracks, because wood and ivory can't move too much, and the legature are very strong.. I hope.
Do you think that this should work?
francy222
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:59 pm
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8

Re: antique flute repair - hadjoint blocked: please help!

Post by francy222 »

UPDATE: I try with hot salt and it work as you see in the photo:
Image
Now I still have the problem of the metal internal to the headjoint... as I just said it slipped inward.. it cover the embrouchure and flute isn't playable at all...
Image
And plus, when I try to unlock I damaged the internal metal part as shown in the Photo
Image
I don't know if it should be trascurable or not..
Anyway.. what can I do at this point?
User avatar
Terry McGee
Posts: 3330
Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2004 4:12 pm
Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
Location: Malua Bay, on the NSW Nature Coast
Contact:

Re: antique flute repair - hadjoint blocked: please help!

Post by Terry McGee »

Wow, hot salt eh? That's a new tool in our armoury, thanks francy222.

Hmmm, but the slide damage doesn't look good.

If I were doing this job, I'd remove the string wrapping around the head, remove the two rings and push the slide right out of the head. Then, using the largest bar of metal I have that will go into the head as a mandrel, tap the outside of the bump until most of the bump was removed. Then I'd compress the slide at that point to make it run OK in the outer slide. Then clean out and glue up the crack, and ream or sand out the bore carefully until the slide only just wants to go back in. Then I'd recentre the embouchure hole, and by twisting and pushing back and forth put a small amount of glue on the slide around the embouchure hole, re-centre it and let the glue set. (I'd use a glue that I can soften later with heat if I ever needed to remove the slide again.)
But of course you may not have these resources.

First, answer this question - does the damage stop the barrel section sliding far enough up the slide for it to reach the end of the outer slide (visible through the barrel socket)? If so, we have to fix the bump. If not, we need to determine if it's likely to crack the head when you push the head slide back in.
User avatar
mendipman
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue Oct 17, 2017 11:24 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: I play flute and stringed instruments and enjoy playing in sessions and for step dancers and teach music part-time. My flutes are a new Gilles Lehart blackwood keyless in D, a c.1820 Clementi 'Nicholson improved' English boxwood single key in F and a simple-system 8-key English blackwood flute made by Richard Weekes of Plymouth, Devon c.1840 both in beautiful, pristine condition. I also have a wooden c.1880 English keyed flageolet. My home is in North Somerset a short distance from where my family come from at Blackford in the Mendip Hills and my repertoire are the tunes that are local to my area. That is the rural vernacular English music from when ordinary working people simply played and danced to their own rhythm with little concern for that which lay beyond a day's walk.
Location: Somerset, England

Re: antique flute repair - hadjoint blocked: please help!

Post by mendipman »

francy222 wrote:
Terry McGee wrote:Generally, I've found that heat is the best approach, but how to heat the slides without destroying the wood and ivory? Again, the best approach I've found is to heat a metal bar (like a poker as you'd use to move hot coals around in a fire) and run it around the inside of the barrel slide where the two slides are jammed together. Once you feel the heat starting to come through the barrel wood, try twisting the two sections back and forth, trying to break the seal. You might have to reheat it and twist it a number of times.
If heat can help I was thinking another approach: hot salt. It occupies naturally all the space and it slowly yields heat without burning. I will heat it up at the right temperature in a pot and put it inside the flute.
I provide to do some ligatures around the headjoint and the barrel (I learn to do them when I saw a video where they teach how to repair and prevent shakuhachi crack), anyway that should prevent cracks, because wood and ivory can't move too much, and the legature are very strong.. I hope.
Do you think that this should work?
Am I right to assume you heat the salt in a container within a pan of water on a gas ring? I have a flute with a stuck slide and this technique of applying heat sounds ingenius and comparatively risk free.
francy222
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:59 pm
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8

Re: antique flute repair - hadjoint blocked: please help!

Post by francy222 »

Am I right to assume you heat the salt in a container within a pan of water on a gas ring? I have a flute with a stuck slide and this technique of applying heat sounds ingenius and comparatively risk free.
no, you put the salt in a pot without water and you put the pot on a gas ring. You have to mix the salt when you heat it.
to be risk free you have to tie the flute as shown in the photo. Warm cause expansion.. if the flute expand inside and the outside will remain equal.. the wood or other material will be exposed to a pressure that can break it. If you tie strongly the instrument you would prevent/reduce external expansion and prevent crack risk.
Post Reply