Tool for clearing headjoint slide recess blockage

[jemtheflute]

This new video of mine describes and demonstrates a crude but effective improvised DIY tool for a very specific issue - removal of glue residues or other obstructions from the receiver cavity for the male part of the barrel slide tube in the headjoint of a flute with a tuning slide.

Often when we glue a head liner tube back into the wooden main tube after a crack repair we inadvertently get some glue in the receiver cavity which, when all is cured and it is safe to assemble the tuning slide, prevents the barrel pushing right home. There are other situations/operations which can cause similar problems, such as trying to run in glue to seal an air leak between the two tubes.

The video should be self-explanatory.

https://youtu.be/SDVTgPvSn7U

I think I may have seen a suggestion for such a tool here or somewhere else in the past, but I don't know when/where. I'm certainly not claiming it as an original idea.

[Geoffrey Ellis]

Great minds think alike! Here is the one I created some years back for the same issue

In this case I used some of the same material that I use for the receiving portion of the slide, so it's a snug fit going over the male portion of the slide. This is an early version that I made where the teeth were bent out a bit to give greater clearance. I have another one (in a box somewhere I believe) that has lower profile teeth so that it clears the socket without removing too much material.

[jemtheflute]

Cool. Maybe if you (Geoffrey) described it here some time it was a memory of that which came to me when I needed it.... Might have been Jeff Dening on FB, though. Or someone else.

[Geoffrey Ellis]

I don't think it was me. However, it does sort of illustrate (perhaps) something of the collective unconscious Human beings are famous for coming up with similar solutions/inventions all over the world, even without any contact with others working on the same problems. Pretty cool.

[jemtheflute]

BTW, to anyone not familiar with them, I very highly recommend getting some of those luthier's strap clamps - exceedingly useful things, use them where you might otherwise use jubilee (hose) clips or cable ties.

They're Stentor strap clamps. I got them quite cheaply from a GB supplier, Touchstone Tonewoods. I paid £18.20 including delivery for 10 a couple of years ago.
https://www.touchstonetonewoods.co.uk/p ... 425638500/

See also: http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Ty ... Clamp.html

They can be found on Amazon and eBay too.