So, at some point in the near future my name will pop up on a list somewhere and I’ll need to choose what I want for a 6 keyed flute. One of those decisions will involve the wood. As it happens I have an 8 key antique cocus, 8 key blackwood, 6 key mopane (and I fully accept the argument that I don’t need another keyed flute - but I bought all three after having placed a deposit for the one I’m waiting on).
So, I’m wondering whether I should get a 6 keyed flute in boxwood. I love the look of it and generally would appreciate the extended variety and balance across the four keyed flutes.
For those who have, have had or work with boxwood flutes, are there any pros or cons vs Blackwood or Mopane? Sound quality? Maintenance? Risk? If everything else was equal and it was purely a question of cosmetics I’d likely request a boxwood, but would appreciate any thoughts for those who have more experience/ knowledge.
Would depend on the maker and how the boxwood was treated.
Potential cons are:
Light wood can show dirt more easily. Stains & repairs are likely to be more visible.
Boxwood, depending on how the wood is sourced, aged and treated, can be prone to warpage toward a banana curve. This would probably be less fun in a keyed flute, where keys might bind.
Thanks for the input. I’m waiting on a 6-keyed Lesouef. 26 months into 32 month wait list.
I’d originally planned on either blackwood or mopane, but I sorta got a mopane Baubet and blackwood Grinter in the last year and a half or so, hence my 1st world quandary.
The following is from Solen’s website which raises slight concern.
"Boxwood is the densest European wood and although it can’t compete with Blackwood for its density, it is extremely smooth. Irish flutes made from Boxwood have a less direct sound than Blackwood Irish flutes but they are rich in harmonics.
It is a beautiful but unstable wood that acts like a hygrometer even when the wood is very old. It helps to stabilise a flute when it is played constantly but Boxwood keyed flutes can be high maintenance.
With changes in the weather the blocks of Boxwood Irish flutes can open and close, so the keys will often stick or wobble and leak."
The French version of Solen Lesouef’s website states that she no longer uses boxwood because of its instability: if that’s the case, that would “solve” your problem
I had a boxwood flute which I resold recently. I really liked the weight but, although I didn’t have major problems, I did notice a little bit of movement at one of the tenons after long periods of playing. Boxwood also requires more frequent oiling than mopane and blackwood (information that I got from the maker).
The biggest pro of boxwood in my opinion is that it is a fairly hypoallergenic wood
I’ve owned box wood flutes and heard them played well in sessions (Including some first-rate Boxwood flutes). In my experience, Blackwood tends to be louder, it has more ‘Bark’ to the tone.
I own a & Keyed Murray flute.
I love its light weight it’s so confortable to play it that It became my main flute since several years ago.
I never had a single problem regarding bending o cracking. I live in the South of Spain (quite hot, as you know) and the flute looks the same , like the day it arrived 12 years ago.
It has a good power and I am pretty sure that any good player can get almost the same power that blackwood or cocus flutes.
Regards!
S.
And you can play around corners while avoiding the risk of sniper fire…
It seems quite surprising that the relatively small difference in density between boxwood (circa 1.0) and blackwood (circa 1.2) can produce noticeable differences. Whereas I’m not so aware of the difference between blackwood (circa 1.2) and delrin (circa 1.4). It’s lead me to conclude that once we get to circa 1.2, we’ve done enough. There could be better explanations.
In my earlier days as a less-confident maker, I made a number of flutes from Australian timbers with densities around the same as boxwood. Lancewood and Brigalow, from Queensland, and another acacia from Western Australia with the surprising name of Raspberry Jam. As soon as you cut it, you find out why. I still have quite a bit of these timbers, but it’s not worth using them for flutes when, for the same amount of effort, you can use something that will give better results. They still come in handy for workship jigs, trying out new methods, prototypes to check tuning, etc. I should probably try making them more dense artificially, as they are very attractive timbers.
I remain intrigued by the entire question of wood density and it’s perceivable impact upon the sound of a flute. And I also wonder about how and where it interfaces with specific flute designs, because it seems to matter less with certain types of flutes. Most makers and players on this forum are talking about and comparing the classic conical bore instruments that are typically made from very dense woods. And I admit, the conical bore flutes that I’ve made from the denser woods do sound/play better. I’ve made experimental conical bore flutes from curly redwood (stabilized) with surprisingly decent results even though the density of the stabilized wood was way down in the weeds (not even remotely as dense as something like boxwood). But with a nice, smooth hardening bore finish it did pretty well. But not nearly as well as the much denser woods. With other types of flutes I find that I get excellent results from some very medium-dense woods, so long as the bore surface is nice and smooth.
That boxwood xiao that I posted a photo of is one of the best sounding that I’ve made, which reinforces my love of boxwood . And I’ve made them from African blackwood, ebonite, cocobolo and a host of other dense tropical timbers, and none of them have been noticeably better than the boxwood (as an example). And I would say that I’ve made equally nice versions from un-stabilized maple, but I wouldn’t attempt a concial bore flute from un-stabilized maple for a multitude of reasons, including how well (or rather how poorly) it machines, relative to the dense, oily woods.
And this chat always makes me think of that article by Tom Ridenour (http://ridenourclarinetproducts.com/the-grenadilla-myth.html) where he examines the history of blackwood as the most favored timber for 19th century woodwinds and the reasons for its popularity. Good machining characteristics are obviously really important. And I wonder where the greater virtue lies: is it the physical density that matters the most, or is it the machining characteristics that are a feature of a dense, fine-grained wood? Undoubtedly its a bit of both. And one of the things that throws the whole density question into question is the fact that fine recorders (also conical bore instruments) are routinely made from medium dense woods (maple, pear, etc.), but I also understand they are often stabilized with some type of oil. Loren could probably jump in here and share some of his experience (I’ve always wanted to try the hot-oil bath for some woods to see how it works out). But I make conical bore flutes from resin-stabilized maple all the time and I think they perform every bit as well as something like blackwood, but I have yet to compare their relative density (short of hefting one of them in each hand and thinking, “these seem to weigh about the same…”).
Joints getting a little looser or tighter is fairly normal. I found that Mopane seemed to absorb water (and light oil) to the point where you could see color changes in the wood, and it had a bit more joint changes than I liked.
The latest interest seems to be Solomon Island Blackwood, which is described to have all the right flute-wood characteristics, hard, heavy, smooth, oily, with a brownish color similar to Cocus.
I really like the color of an aged raw boxwood flute. I have a one-key casual Firth & Pond that is really beautiful. I don’t like the stained versions so much.
Does a boxwood flute un-banana when you dry or humidify it?
Is there a humidity at which they are stable and straight?
Can you stick an iron rod up its, um bore, while straight?
I have a headjoint made of Solomon Blackwood: it is virtually indistinguishable from old cocus wood but… unfortunately for me, it is just as allergenic as cocus
Good questions (I don’t know the answer to any of them!).
One thing I have done recently as an experiment was resin-stabilizing it. Boxwood actually takes up resin better than many woods, so it had a pretty reasonable increase in density, and the resin does reduce it’s mobility a LOT. But…I don’t actually care for the effect on the wood. When I resin stabilize maple, I find that it adds density and stability but takes nothing away from the feel/sound of the flute. With boxwood, I didn’t care for the way it seemed to interfere with the tangible resonance (the way the flute vibrates in my hands). I don’t know that there is any audible effect from the resin, but I won’t be using it for boxwood again. There is something light and lively about boxwood that delights me, and I think that if the price of taming it is a reduction in that liveliness, then I’ll take the banana-wood
To my best recollection, once a boxwood flute curves, that’s it. Usually the instrument can be played as-is, but there’s no reversing the condition. Boxwood “going banana” is also a well-known event in the uilleann piping world, and that’s what they call it, too. I seem to recall that a boxwood flute or chanter gone curvaceous indicates that the wood hadn’t been seasoned/cured long enough prior to construction. I don’t think I’m off my rocker, here, but all the same I hope experts will fill it out.
The boxwood xiao that I showed was made from three separate sections of boxwood. These were pieces that I got from Octopus Woodworks in Turkey and they had been turned round and were sitting in my shop for many years (about five) and they were already dry and seasoned (in theory) when I got them. BUT…I did not “settle” them any further. Meaning, that if I was being properly fastidious I would have bored them out with a pilot bore and then let them sit for another few months. Then I’d turn the OD a bit more, let it sit. Then I’d bore to the finished size and carry on. I didn’t do that, but even so I was really surprised that it went bananas so much, simply because it was already in dry, stable rounded sections. I was sure that it would be very well behaved, and I was surprised that it went that crazy. But the guy who bought that flute absolutely loved the banana effect! And if I say it myself it made a fantastic flute–I came within a hair of keeping it for myself.
So with boxwood it’s more about how you construct a flute, and less about when (settling aside). Would a ten-year-old billet still banana (there, I’ve verbed it) if the flute weren’t left to settle? How does one know when the settling is done?
You’ve just nut-shelled it. Two can play at this turn-a-noun-into-a-verb game!
I’m certain that having the wood very well dried and seasoned is a good idea and very important to helping with the warping. But working the wood in stages is a really big deal as well. There are lots of makers here with much more experience than I have with this part of flute making. I tend to cheat when making any type of flute that needs things like corked joints or tuning slides by using stabilized wood or ebonite. It’s not realistic for me to do the whole work-it-in-stages type of process where I have a large stockpile of flute pieces in various stages of construction because I make too many different kinds of flutes. The planning and management of all that stock would probably kill me. So I don’t do it. The exception is when I plan on splicing together a few pieces to make a single piece flute (like that xiao). If I do that again, I’ll settle the wood properly ahead of time.
But Loren mentioned in another thread the process they used at Von Heune, and they have the whole work-it/rest-it thing going on.
I think that there are a lot of woods that are going to hang on to some amount of grain tension until they are actually finished and being played. Ideally, it won’t cause enough movement that you’ll notice it. My theory about the banana xiao that I made is that in addition to not resting the wood enough, I also made it into a long, skinny flute.
That thing has about a 1" OD and it’s almost 30" long. The walls are about .15" thick. When I make long, skinny flutes they definitely show more tendency not only to warp, but to warp visibly. A shorter, stouter flute might not move as readily and the bend won’t be as obvious.
R. L. O´Mealy made some outstanding pipes which were initially thought to be made of Boxwood. They were dimensionally quite stable. On closer examination, it was determined that the wood was Castello Boxwood, not a true boxwood. O´Mealy got this wood from discarded bobbins from the Ulster linen mills. This is an extremely fine grained and handsome wood with excellent tonal qualities. HOWEVER, I´m not at all certain its dimensional stability would be retained in the wet environment of being played as a flute.
. And I’ve made them from African blackwood, ebonite, cocobolo and a host of other dense tropical timbers, and none of them have been noticeably better than the boxwood (as an example). And I would say that I’ve made equally nice versions from un-stabilized maple, but I wouldn’t attempt a concial bore flute from un-stabilized maple for a multitude of reasons, including how well (or rather how poorly) it machines, relative to the dense, oily woods.