Never trust a .....
Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2023 5:49 am
We have a saying in our family. Never turn your back on a cucumber. I was reminded of it today. Went down into the garden hoping to come back with a cucumber to include in our Thai Beef Salad, and came back with eight. And then found I had two in the fridge from a few days back. Even now, I reckon I can hear the next batch of cucumbers swelling up out there. Never turn your back on a cucumber...
Flutes have a bit in common with cucumbers. Long, round. And inherently untrustworthy. I was also reminded of that today. I've been restoring a smallish holed Rudall Rose, and was pretty happy with its response down to low Eb, but the low D was distinctly marginal. So I hooked up the foot to the Magnahelic Flute Leakage Detector, having removed the keys and having plugged all the key holes with rubber bungs. No leakage. And then, more by good luck than good management, removed the bung from the Eb keyhole and covered the hole using my finger. Enormous leakage! Er, what? Repeat. Bung in hole, no leakage. Finger over hole, enormous leakage.
So, what's the difference? The Eb key on this flute has a pewter plug key, like the C# and C keys, and the plug seats in a little square silver plate, set onto a flattened section of body, and secured to it by four tiny wood screws. When you poke a bung through that plate, the bung continues on in, blocking up the hole in the wood below it. Perfect seal. But when you put your finger over the hole in the plate, it allows for leakage sideways between the underside of the plate, and the flattened section of wood the plate sits on. I guess over the last 200 years, the flattened section has probably warped a little, opening up gaps through which air (notoriously thin stuff) can leak.
Didn't take long to introduce a gap-filler into the space between plate and wood, and was rewarded with zero leakage and a much happier low D.
I sometimes think flutes are not to be trusted either. I guess after 200 years, you get a bit tired of all that travelling wave-front stuff, and would prefer just to see out your days sitting attractively on the mantle piece. So it's a reminder to those of us who enjoy (hmmm, enjoy is a strong word....) coaxing old flutes back into action to be ultimately suspicious. If a flute can leak, it will. Often in places you would never think of.
Never turn your back on a flute. Or a cucumber....
Flutes have a bit in common with cucumbers. Long, round. And inherently untrustworthy. I was also reminded of that today. I've been restoring a smallish holed Rudall Rose, and was pretty happy with its response down to low Eb, but the low D was distinctly marginal. So I hooked up the foot to the Magnahelic Flute Leakage Detector, having removed the keys and having plugged all the key holes with rubber bungs. No leakage. And then, more by good luck than good management, removed the bung from the Eb keyhole and covered the hole using my finger. Enormous leakage! Er, what? Repeat. Bung in hole, no leakage. Finger over hole, enormous leakage.
So, what's the difference? The Eb key on this flute has a pewter plug key, like the C# and C keys, and the plug seats in a little square silver plate, set onto a flattened section of body, and secured to it by four tiny wood screws. When you poke a bung through that plate, the bung continues on in, blocking up the hole in the wood below it. Perfect seal. But when you put your finger over the hole in the plate, it allows for leakage sideways between the underside of the plate, and the flattened section of wood the plate sits on. I guess over the last 200 years, the flattened section has probably warped a little, opening up gaps through which air (notoriously thin stuff) can leak.
Didn't take long to introduce a gap-filler into the space between plate and wood, and was rewarded with zero leakage and a much happier low D.
I sometimes think flutes are not to be trusted either. I guess after 200 years, you get a bit tired of all that travelling wave-front stuff, and would prefer just to see out your days sitting attractively on the mantle piece. So it's a reminder to those of us who enjoy (hmmm, enjoy is a strong word....) coaxing old flutes back into action to be ultimately suspicious. If a flute can leak, it will. Often in places you would never think of.
Never turn your back on a flute. Or a cucumber....