Hi Jem,jemtheflute wrote:Interesting tour and reviews, lovely looking flutes. Wish there was a Euro-leg!
One makerly Q, Geoffrey. I note you are drilling the embouchures and at least to some extent the tone-holes in the V grain, and that does look very pretty, especially in some of these gaudy exotic timbers. But I've long noted that the "old guys" always, quite invariably, of all nationalities, drilled their holes, and most certainly the embouchures, in the vertical grain, at 90 degrees to yours, so the V grain would be on the "side walls" of the flute when in playing position, not the top and bottom of the tube. I have always assumed there were wood-workers reasons for making that choice, to do with exposure of the lateral grain in the hole chimneys and the risks of water absorption there, as well as perhaps to do with reducing risks of cracking. It has usually been one of the marks of the "Pakistani table leg" flutes that they have the holes drilled through V grain top and bottom, and though I may have seen flutes by some reputable modern makers done this way too, most do not do so. Now, I absolutely do not mean to imply any other kind of comparison of your workmanship to the dreaded table legs, but I wondered what your perspective (and Terry's, given the conversation in the concurrent cocus thread) might be on this question of what angle to drill the holes relative to the grain, and also to what extent your sealing treatment might render older fashioned considerations (why the old guys did it their way) redundant?
Very good question. The old fashioned method of having all the holes cut into the denser grain makes good sense. I think it would be better for the embouchure cut particularly, being that a denser, finer grain will likely behave a bit better when cutting it. I use that plug of blackwood for looks rather than utility (at least that was my original reason) but it had the added advantage of creating a very predictable embouchure cut.
Admittedly, my more "modern" approach to materials probably renders a lot of the old fashioned preferences moot, so I tend to make these decisions based more on aesthetics. With many of these woods (blackwood, cocobolo, kingwood, and even maple) they are already so dense and fine grained, I haven't noticed much of a difference in where I put the holes (in terms of workability). How the wood handles moisture is something I've honestly never had to consider due to my method of sealing the wood with epoxy. If I were using more traditional oil finishes I'd probably have to give the grain orientation more significance, and even though I think the V grain on top looks very nice, I'd certainly change my tune if it was causing moisture problems. I suspect that there are a fair number of tricks that the old timers figured out that I'm ignorant of because I've never faced the same problems that they did. I've never attempted a more traditional approach to making this type of flute. I suppose each generation of makers takes advantage of whatever materials and tools become available to them, solving their problems according to their means. I've often wondered what the makers of 160 years ago would do if they had modern finishes available to them. If they had epoxy, delrin and such, would they be taking advantage of it?
Having said that, I'm always open to rethinking my approach to making these flutes if it will improve them. There is always room to learn more about the craft of flute making, and this is especially true when getting into making something that differs so much from my past endeavors. Hopefully this tour will continue to yield useful feedback. These flutes are experimental in terms of materials and some of my approaches to making them and I'm keen to know how they compare to similar flutes and what the player's experience's are.
Incidentally, I'd love to do a Euro-leg of the tour. This leg of the tour was confined to the U.S. for the sake of simplicity, but if there are other European members such as yourself who would like to participate in a tour, do please let me know.
...and a Canadian tour would be great, too. I'll volunteer to co-ordinate the festivities if it helps.
The value of a tour, from my perspective, is to collect the impressions from as wide a variety of players as possible, be they beginners, professionals, or anything in between. Every player is different, both physiologically and in terms of tastes, expectations, playing technique, etc.. 
