Gluing the liner

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Re: Gluing the liner

Post by cavefish »

well flat is easy to fix, shart on the other hand, yuk that takes some time and skill
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Re: Gluing the liner

Post by kkrell »

PB+J wrote:The gluing is done--first glued a strip of paper to the liner with superglue, then opened the blowhole on the liner, then put epoxy in the headjoint and on the liner and glued it in, after masking all the surface I didn't want to get epoxy on with either tape or vaseline.

It worked! I think the liner will stay glued in for the foreseeable future.

The flute is easier to blow now with a stronger tone, but it's horrifically out of tune with itself. A 440 only happens with the slide a good ways out, and then low D is 25 or so cents flat and high D is 40 cents flat. It's a mess. I have the cork adjustable, but am having a hard time figuring out where to start. With the slide all the way in A is a 30 sharp cents A#, and low D is a 40 cents flat D#

I wont have much time to devote to it for a while but I'm clearly going to have to get a handle on the physics of flute tuning
Time to haul out the cork position thread, again:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=60057&p=787462&hili ... on#p787462
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Re: Gluing the liner

Post by Lsu »

I know I'm posting this too late, but in my opinion, a solvent-based contact cement is the way to go. It has all the advantages of other glues and and very few disadvantages.
It applies thin, doesn't set up fast which allows plenty of time to position the piece, doesn't foam up, unaffected by moisture, adheres to most all materials very well, and can be released with heat for removal if needed. the one disadvantage may be that the pieces need to touch...its not as good a filler if there is a gap...if so, then the epoxy might work better in that case.
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Re: Gluing the liner

Post by PB+J »

kkrell wrote:
PB+J wrote:The gluing is done--first glued a strip of paper to the liner with superglue, then opened the blowhole on the liner, then put epoxy in the headjoint and on the liner and glued it in, after masking all the surface I didn't want to get epoxy on with either tape or vaseline.

It worked! I think the liner will stay glued in for the foreseeable future.

The flute is easier to blow now with a stronger tone, but it's horrifically out of tune with itself. A 440 only happens with the slide a good ways out, and then low D is 25 or so cents flat and high D is 40 cents flat. It's a mess. I have the cork adjustable, but am having a hard time figuring out where to start. With the slide all the way in A is a 30 sharp cents A#, and low D is a 40 cents flat D#

I wont have much time to devote to it for a while but I'm clearly going to have to get a handle on the physics of flute tuning
Time to haul out the cork position thread, again:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=60057&p=787462&hili ... on#p787462
I had already done this, setting the cork to 9mm, and have redone it multiple time. It's just an out of tune flute, I think
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Re: Gluing the liner

Post by kkrell »

PB+J wrote:I had already done this, setting the cork to 9mm, and have redone it multiple time. It's just an out of tune flute, I think
* 9 * ? No, start at * 19 *
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Re: Gluing the liner

Post by PB+J »

kkrell wrote:
PB+J wrote:I had already done this, setting the cork to 9mm, and have redone it multiple time. It's just an out of tune flute, I think
* 9 * ? No, start at * 19 *
yes that's what i did--typo
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Re: Gluing the liner

Post by paddler »

Most antique flutes I've worked on play best with the cock set a lot further back than 19 mm. Often 22 mm or more.
Don't be afraid to test out these longer distances. There is no hard and fast rule to this. The right distance is just the
one that allows the flute to play best in tune across the octaves. When that is a longer distance it also tends to make
the lowest notes speak better.

As for the flute being "out of tune". That begs the question "out of tune with what?". I've found that many (most) old flutes
are quite well in tune with themselves at some target tuning frequency (which may not be A=440 hz!), and that this is often
found at a well extended tuning slide position, because the flute was also expected to be played at tuning standards higher
than its target tuning standard.

On old American flutes this slide position is quite often around 10 mm slide extension and in that position the tuning ends
up being pretty good for A=440 hz. A lot of older English flutes are best in tune with themselves at an even longer tuning
slide extension, say up around 20 mm.

It is very rare, and in fact probably a design flaw, for a flute to be in tune with itself with the tuning slide fully closed,
assuming you are not testing at an extreme temperature. I say this would be a design flaw because it would not allow
the flute's tuning to be sharpened by flat players or when playing in lower temperatures.

You might be able to find a tuning slide position that gives an acceptable (maybe still a bit flat) D, reasonably well in tune
other notes, but slightly sharp A and B. This situation is quite common, and can be easily addressed by carefully placement
of shellac or maybe beeswax in the tone holes that vent A and B. Some people refer to this as "taming" those notes.
The nice thing about this approach is that it is easily reversible.

If the second octave A and B are sharper than the first, try to address this by pushing the cork further out before messing with
the tone holes.

Oh, and you need to verify that you don't have a leak under any of the key pads. A leak on the C key can easily cause the
bell note to be weak and flat. Sometimes such leaks pass the suck test, but still occur when the flute is played, due to
air pressure generated at that point by the vibrating air column.
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Re: Gluing the liner

Post by PB+J »

Thank you, that’s very helpful. I don’t think this flute was made for A 440 and so it’s hard to find the home frequency.. I’ll mess with the cork some more

Partly I got this because I wanted to experiment with a keyed instrument to see if I wanted keys
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Re: Gluing the liner

Post by PB+J »

I've got it reasonably enough in tune so it's pleasant to play.

The keys are really interesting. They're basically poorly placed compared to a Boehm flute. If I want to play Bb blues its possible, but the fingering isn't very straightforward. But some Irish tunes are easier with a C# key. Fascinating!
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