To lip plate or not to lip plate?

[Angel Shadowsong]

Hi Everyone,

Due to the quarantine and boredom I guess after studying a lot about investment management, I decided to make a flute using a CPVC pipe with 18mm ID and 2mm wall thickness.

After using the flute tone hole calculator I made a low F and plan to make an F#.

I made a lip plate using a PVC pipe cutter, a heat gun, and a pair of scissors.

After making an oval hole I just noticed something.

I haven't glued the lip plate yet and noticed the following:


Without the lip plate:

Everything is sweet and quiet.
High notes are easy and low notes are well to my taste, quiet.
To make it loud, your lips need to do some shape acrobatics, which makes it less responsive for me.

With the lip plate:
The low notes sounds loud and complex like that of Irish session type, which I like
But the high notes are very hard to execute. To the point my lips are numbing.


My question: what is the sweet spot for the lip plate measurement to make the low notes louder without making the high notes harder to execute.


Is there suppose to be an undercut or some angle?
The current measurement of lip plate depth is 4mm.


Ive been playing front and side blown since 2014 and I play on church regularly so skill is not an issue somehow AFAIK.

Common shoot me.

Thanks,

Angel Shadowsong Warren

[Sedi]

I use aluminium tube with 1.5 mm wall and a lip plate of about 2mm, so the chimney is about 3.5 mm. I make an offset cut for the embouchure -- it's not really a cut, I just use a drill. Starting with about 5 mm and working up to 10mm. I also make an oval shape but not like a standard flute. It's more like a quena. The blowing edge becomes razor sharp. The flute is very easy to play, very boomy low notes and easy high notes. Second octave sounds a bit like a boehm flute but I think that is because of the cylindrical bore. Tuning is spot-on for 2.5 octaves but you need to experiment with the stopper position to get the tuning right. Mine is set at about 15mm from the middle of the embouchure. The inner diameter is 19mm. But that is for a low D. I did use the same diameter for an F flute, too but without a lip plate. It worked fine but was a bit harder to play.
I made an experiment with a 3mm wall tube and a lip plate. So the chimney was about 5 mm. The result was bad. The flute was very sluggish. Horrible response. I didn't even bother with finishing it.
Here is a tune with the flute I am playing every day. Sorry for the playing, I am certainly not the best player but you get an idea of how it sounds. As you can see, I just used a screw to fix the lip plate. The screw goes straight through the lip plate and the stopper. This way it is very lightweight (180 grams).
https://youtu.be/hmUne9gr_00

[chas]

My first thought, before reading your questions, was that you probably need an undercut. It doesn't have to be huge, maybe 5-10 degrees. Try a little bit at a time till your octaves are well balanced.

[Angel Shadowsong]

My first thought, before reading your questions, was that you probably need an undercut. It doesn't have to be huge, maybe 5-10 degrees. Try a little bit at a time till your octaves are well balanced.

Hi,

Is the undercut some some sort of an angle?

[chas]

My first thought, before reading your questions, was that you probably need an undercut. It doesn't have to be huge, maybe 5-10 degrees. Try a little bit at a time till your octaves are well balanced.

Hi,

Is the undercut some some sort of an angle?

Yes, if you hold the flute so that the embouchure hole is level, the part of the hole opposite your lip needs to have a bit of an acute angle to it. In other words, if you roll it a little away from you, then the wall should be vertical.

[Angel Shadowsong]

Ive been making some progress.

With the undercut, I dont need the lip plate anymore.
Its loud on the low notes and sweet and gliding with the 2nd octave notes.

Thanks