Chiff and Fipple Forums

Gabriel wrote:Are you Chris, the bass player of The Wakes who I met last saturday and who told me he plays an Ormiston?

Hi Gabriel, thats me! l didn't catch your name on saturday at the festival sorry. Was great meeting you, some awesome flute playing as well. All falls into place now l know its you on the forum. Was a late night sesh at the aftershow party .

Cool, great to meet you here! First name's Steffen, by the way. Indeed was a mighty party afterwards, and we really felt sorry for you guys when the rain started...but we did our best to party hard after the rain was gone hope to meet you again somewhere on the road!

And just to make sure this post isn't off-topic only, here's a pic of three flutes:

You don't like short F do you

I just purchased this flute for what I would consider a cheap price without any history or information on the flute. I will need to decide if it is worth the cost of a overhaul. If anyone could give me some insight on it it would be greatly appreciated.

Well, it is clearly a "nach Meyer" style, German/Austrian/Bohemian made flute, most probably made between c1870-1940. With an Overall length of c560mm and an Sounding Length of c490mm, it is assuredly an F (band) flute ("in Eb" in modern technical terms as that would be its transposition key - like alto sax). With a little luck it may be playable at modern concert pitch A=440 with little or no slide extension, but I suspect it may be Low Pitch (the majority of German flutes, especially those imported to the US, were LP, A=432-5) and a struggle to get up to 440.

If it is OK for 440, it's a really nice find and well worth working on. If it is LP, maybe not so much - but it would make a good project to overhaul yourself either way. This kind of flute can be rather ill-made, but this one looks pretty decent. Unfortunately that is no guide as to how good its internal intonation/tuning (at whatever pitch standard) will turn out to be - some are very well in tune with themselves, others unplayably execrable.

From the photos it has no serious structural problems, so a basic overhaul - strip, clean, re-pad, re-lap, maybe renew stopper cork, bore-oil, adjust keys..... - is probably all it needs, and all of that is very DIY-able, inexpensively. As the average modern woodwind tech would not be likely to do a terribly suitable job on it and would charge quite a bit, I strongly recommend having a go yourself. We've had plenty of old threads full of detailed advice on the relevant techniques, sources of materials etc. Even if it turns out to be a good player with good intonation at 440, it won't be very valuable, but nice to have and fun to play. A plus point is that it has a "C foot" - the two extra notes at the bottom (actually E & Eb), which is relatively unusual on a band flute, so that makes it more worthwhile and potentially a little more valuable.

Thanks for the info jem!
I think it will be a fun flute to play around with and try to overhaul myself. Since I did not pay much I won't be disappointed if it is not a great playing flute but I will keep my fingers crossed as I would really like to learn to play a simple flute. Worse case I will just have to buy another flute
Jackie

Here are some pictures of my recently acquired original H.F. Meyer. It was mostly in good shape when I got it, but I did have to do some cleaning and polishing and repair an ugly crack in the head that ran through the embouchure (can you spot it now?). I've included a rather excessive number of pictures so you can admire that rosewood and see some of the important identification details, such as the maker's mark, crown, plate mounted posts and supports, wood-wrapped rings, boxwood crown etc. Oh, and it plays great too!

Beautiful looking wood. I hate the screws though, it makes removing the keys way longer than with the hooks!
Is it heavy?

I haven't weighed it, but this flute seems to be significantly lighter than other 11 key German flutes I've played. Don't ask my why though?

As for your comment about screws, all the keys are mounted with pins not screws, so they are easy to remove if you have something sharp to poke them out with. The picture with the screw head visible is actually of one of the stops that prevents that key from moving side-to-side. These stops are mounted on minute plates that are screwed to the body of the flute. All the key posts are also mounted on plates that are screwed to the body of the flute. It has a lot of interesting little features, and the standard of workmanship exceeds that of most other flutes I've seen.

Hey Paddler,

Great Job!

Did you polish all the wood and keys, or were they already in this great state?

Plus not having to replace any pads on an 11-key flute, you won the lottery!

Beautiful flute and lovely pictures!

Well, I had to refinish the head entirely after using heat to pull the rings and head lining, and using alcohol to clean out the crack before filling, gluing, scraping, sanding and buffing. Doing all of this removes the previous finish on the head, so I had to rebuild the finish there from bare wood. Now that I've learned a few tricks, thats actually not too hard. The other parts just required key removal, then cleaning and polishing all the metal work and wood. I also cleaned out the bore and tone holes, oiled it, cleaned and regreased the cork, and started the whole humidifying process. The biggest challenge has been the case (not shown) which is in great shape, but must have spent the last 100 years or so in a room with a heavy smoker. Getting the cigarette smell out of the leather on the case is proving a bit of a challenge. Fortunately, the flute itself does not smell, so I don't think the original player was a heavy smoker.

Well great job with the finish. Do you use French polish or just some kind of oil?

I don't know if this has been posted before, but this chap seems to have one of everything
http://memory.loc.gov/service/music/dcm ... m0049v.jpg

Hey Steampacket,

Nice picture.

That is the famous Dayton C Miller collection and it has been cataloged and is available online: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dcmhtml/dmhome.html

Great Resource!

Regarding Lorenzo's question about the finish on my Meyer flute, I used a friction-based french polish approach with shellac and various waxes in layers. Not very difficult really, it just takes a bit of elbow grease.