Chiff and Fipple Forums

I've owned a Forbes D flute for many years, and I love it, but I would love to have some more chromatic capabilities. I know there are some flute makers who add keys; has anyone ever had keys added to a Forbes? From what I've seen it is pretty expensive to have them added, which also makes me wonder...

Shoot, that's my mistake; no idea why I repeatedly read it like that. That said, I'm still not finding anything other than references to to Larsen's CD.

I've been listening to Grey Larsen's CD "The Green House" quite a bit lately, partially in order to get a better ear for the Irish style. One tune that I've kind of fallen in love with is Sweet Insicara; the way it goes back and forth between minor and major is beautiful. I would love to l...

As you might know, I'm a bit of a newbie to the flute, but not to music (I'm an organist). When I'm practicing on organ or piano, I generally put in a lot of work on two or three pieces per practice session, from 30 minutes to an hour for each piece. I'll focus in on difficult passages, work in diff...

One thing that occurs to me is that you stress that the flute is very much a sideline venture for you, and that you often go days without playing it at all. You also say you have trouble getting a good tone from your Forbes, (which is another fine flute). Not to restate the obvious, but the flute i...

Hello all, I'm currently considering buying a new flute. At the moment, I own two: a Forbes, and a 19th Century French 8-key I bought in an antique shop and had (mostly) repaired. But they both have a few shortcomings, and I'm trying to find something that will work a little better for me. I'm a pro...

Well, I've been playing the flute for a month or two now. I'm still getting used to the old-fashioned fingerings, but that will come. My concern now is that most of the notes, especially in the lower octave, are very weak sounding, MUCH weaker than my Forbes. I'd be pretty disappointed if it was jus...

I got the flute back yesterday, and it looks good. All the sections are airtight, and she gave it a nice cleaning. I can play it, but some of the notes are pretty badly out of tune. Is this something that is to be expected with a flute that hasn't been played in so long, and they'll go back in tune ...

It turns out that the woodwind repair person at the University of North Texas, just half an hour away from me, has experience working on wooden flutes like mine. It would have cost $300 to get it all fixed, but she said she could do everything but repairing the broken key for only $100. I figure I'l...

verdegris is just the green slime seen on nickel, brass and copper parts. All the French flutes I have worked on used silver for the sockets. They will crack the sockets, when the wood shrinks around the liner... That seems to be what has happened on mine. The two cracks I most recently noticed are...

Got some blu tack and plugged up the key holes, and taped up a couple of cracks. The low D was a bit tough to sound, but other than that, it's playing pretty nicely. One of the sections still seems to be losing a bit of air, but I can't seem to get it any better than it is. I've emailed a guy in Hou...

Well, I got all of the tenons rehemped. I haven't gotten any wax or tac yet, but I played a few notes and it seems to have a really nice sound.

Unfortunately, I've also noticed a couple of more cracks in two of the other sections. Nothing to be done about that for now though, I suppose.

Been working at getting the old hemp off; unfortunately, it's so old that it seems almost as hard as the wood itself. Any tips on getting the stuff off?

I presume I would used waxed hemp, same as a highland pipe?

EDIT-- and what about oiling?

That's awesome news! I can't seem to find a tape measure right now, but if I find one, I'll let you know the exact sounding length. So the next question is, where do I go from here? Could the pads be replaced by anyone who works on Boehm flutes? And what about the broken key? I presume it would be d...