I use epoxy glue to repair cracks in my woodwinds.It takes longer to bond than cyanoacrylate (superglue) but is also less poisonous.Plus it hardens out nicely and is extremely durable.I have never seen a crack reopen when it was fixed with epoxy.
On the other hand, the parts of all wooden flutes that have metall tube fittings inside will crack with age. Thats because all wood undergoes a natural shrinking process that cannot be stopped. The head and barrel of flutes with brass or silver tuning slides will find that the metal doesnt give way to them shrinking and crack because they cant stand the pressure built up. The only solution to prevent this would probably be to insert some soft and flexible material between the brass tubing and the wood which can be compressed by the wood when it shrinks. But I dont know if this can be realized without diminishing the tone quality .
You may as well try to fill the ocean with a teaspoon! The humidifier may help, especially for you, but the bowls of water might be just a drop in the bucket.
You only need to put your flute in a plastic bag with a wet paper towel. Lay the whole thing in a drawer or box so that it doesn’t roll or fall. The bag will humidify quite nicely.
Put the paper towel in a small plastic container of some sort so it doesn’t touch the flute or drip.
Lotta, do you have Ziploc bags there? The kind with a press-seal zipper at the top?
Better still is a nice Rubbermaid plastic box with a tight-fitting lid. Anything like them in Germany?
Nice looking work - well done. Bum about the split, but these things happen. Just a few thoughts to add to what others have said (I don’t get much chance to get here often!).
I wonder if the crack happened because the wood shrunk and came away from inside the arificial ivory ring? I’ve seen this happen, even when the ring has been glued on. When the wood shrinks, the glue holds the ring to one side but not the other. That’s mean, because you think the ring is firm, but it’s really “loose in place”.
The gap between ring and wood doesn’t have to be very big. The smallest gap leaves the thin wood unsupported, then the tenon puts too much riving force on it and k’bang.
Second thought is the tightness of the tenon wrapping. I prefer cork as it is more resilient, others prefer string because it is user-adjustable. But whatever, if it is too tight it can produce the kind of forces needed to split wood. Wood is mighty strong in compression (railway ties), but mighty weak in riving mode (splitting firewood).
There’s a suggested reinforcing method for socket cracks at:
Another method I have used is to bore out the socket oversize and glue in a tube of fresh wood.
David mentioned sucking superglue into place. A useful technique, but dangerous for the human - that stuff is really nasty. When I do it, I use the little pumps sold to evacuate the air out of wine bottles. Some gaffer or duct tape will attach the pump to the wide end of the barrel, a bung or someone else’s hand will close off the slide end.
Australian red wine is so good there is never any left, so no need to keep the little pump in the kitchen!
As if in payment for my being so dogmatic, the barrel crack on my old Rudall opened in the middle of a session last night. I first noticed that I lost tuning in the second octave. Then I saw that the barrel was really wet. There was a hot fire in the pub (Vaughan’s, in Kilfenora) so maybe that had something to do with it.
So today I will practice what I preach and spend some time with a tube of super glue. The worst of it is that I had to leave the pub early to avoid inflicting my tuning problems on the other musicians.
Lotta, do you have Ziploc bags there? The kind with a press-seal zipper at the top?
Better still is a nice Rubbermaid plastic box with a tight-fitting lid. Anything like them in Germany?
Yeah, we have such things over here, but youll hardly find a woodwind player, even a pro using them or some other really leakproof instrument case.Most use the standard cases their instrument came in when they bought it. The only musicians I have seen running around with their instruments in a portable humifier were some violinists who had spend a fortune on their old n`famous fiddle.
As for me, I wrap my old traverso in a velvet cloth then put it in a plastic shopping bag and close the opening with a thread to prevent humidity changes .
I do have a flute with a repaired barrel crack, and I’m sure it’s fine, but…
Last Fall, I played it for a couple of hours, then noticed that water was running down the outside of the flute.
The place of origin was the barrel crack.
The flute had lost none of its sound.
I wasn’t sure if that was cause for alarm, so I just got a piece of black electricians tape and taped over the crack.
My question is, was that a bad thing to do? Can I just leave the tape and not worry about it?
Or
Should I add more superglue?
Am I supposed to remove the existing glue from the crack first, and if so, how?
If it isn’t really making a difference with the sound of the flute, should I let it bother me at all? The crack appears to be well repaired with the glue, and so I can’t account for the leaking moisture. BTW, I live in a pretty humid climate, and keep my flutes in a humidified wooden trunk anyway.
The crack closed nearly completely now, just by letting the flute resting and not playing it. Another thing is that the tenon wrapping now is way too loose, I have to add additional thread to hinder the head from falling off the flute body. So I think, the tenon “growed” when the flute got wet by flaying and caused and widened the crack. Now when the tenon is more or less dry again, the crack closed since the tenon does not apply any pressure on the barrel.
What would you suggest? I think I should give the flute some oil, but that won’t fix the whole problem…
Ah, and by the way, that flute plays like a dream at a single blow…
So each time the crack fails you get out the old nail polish remover or acetone, and give the barrel a good soak? How do you get the solvents deep into the crack that you spent all that effort getting the glue into in the first place? What about antique flutes, ready to acetone the old rudall again? Probably not, you just glue over the old glue.
It’s not a fear of repairing my own flute; I don’t see the super glue method as a repair. It’s an inexpensive, temporary patch that everyone is wild about. I could see it being used as filler in a spot where a crack isn’t prone to moving, or on a flute you don’t care about.
Any flute could crack at any time. But why put yourself in the position of -
Wasting the time it took to get to a session because the fireplace killed the humidity and the crack decided to open up
or -
Wasting your money/time at a workshop/lesson trying to find a wine keeper pump to re-glue your flute
or -
Being unable to finish a gig because of the $2 ‘repair’ you did to your flute.
.
.