Wooden flute maintenance isn’t that big a deal, for me anyway. A daily disassemble and swabbing is probably less time each month than I spend changing strings on my mandolin, octave mandolin, and guitars. Although I probably do that more often than most.
For many of us it comes down to aesthetics. I’ve owned and played many musical instruments in my life, starting with piano as a kid, then kit drums in rock bands, then acoustic and electric guitars, finally mandolin and now flute (still playing mandolin). Every one of those instruments was made of wood. Well, I did have a fiberglass-back Ovation guitar at one point, but it was one of the worst-sounding guitars I’ve ever owned. So yeah, I like the look and the feel of wood under my fingers.
I would buy a Delrin flute if I needed one for travel, but I haven’t done much traveling lately, even before the current crisis.
Very good point. I do like the look of a classical simple system flute myself. But I’d never do with it, what I do with my aluminium flute. I play it in the kitchen while cooking or waiting for the coffee, I play it in the bathtub, in the garden, I basically carry it with me all day, even when going on walks with my wife (which is the only activity besides grocery shopping for which we leave the property at the moment). But I do like the “Mad Max”/Steampunk-look of my instruments and the simplicity (and the sound and handling). But I guess the aesthetics are not to everybody’s taste.
my 2 cents…
I have a Delrin that I play occasionally, but the tone of my wooden flute keeps me going back to it so, if I see the need to play if frequently, I remove the head after each play, and use a thread-attached-to-a-cloth swab I have and run it through very quickly 2 times. I leave all the other pieces attached.
Is this a good compromise? Is there any problem with leaving the whole body assembled and swabbing? Should I stop doing it?
if your going to swab it swab it,
i would not leave the “body section” together for any length of time other than a day or so, the moisture stays in the little section pockets of the tenons, constant water will soften wood, if left unattended , , if your going to swab it , do it right, , or just blow it out and at the end of the day swab it
my thoughts
Among other instruments I play the double bass and have a nice big solid wood (not plywood) bass. One night I woke up to a loud cracking sound and found the one of the lower ribs had split. It was winter, which means well below freezing much of the time, and forced air heating. and you really can’t humidify a double bass effectively unless you humidify the whole room. The repair was very expensive and involved taking the top off.
I have multiple guitars, several of which I made myself, which move a lot from winter to summer. I’ve done a lot of woodworking and have a fair idea of the effects of humidity changes on wood. So personal experience has made me leery of wooden flutes. Spend five minutes looking at used wooden flutes and the word “crack” show up constantly. It’s probably the worst possible combination–warm moist breath on the inside, cold dry air on the outside, metal liner for tuning slide. It’s like a recipe for cracking. This is why i bought an Ebonite flute–the memory of waking up at 3 am and looking into my bass through a big rib crack.
But flutes are much more easily humidified than guitars or certainly double basses, and I’ve got a mopane flute on order which I’ll be cautiously humidifying once it arrives, with fingers crossed
Just to remind you of my story above. I had a great Dave Williams flute which I thought I could keep together so I could just grab it. The place it cracked was the tenon joint between the G and F wholes. And it was a doozy in which a chunk of the flute above the tenon cracked so bad he ended up adding a half inch collar, and if I remember correctly some cracking in the tenon as well. (but my memory is fuzzy) It required a trip back to the UK, and months at his workshop while he brainstormed how to repair it.
My naive behavior was an insult to his work.
So is swabbing and leaving the flute assembled a good compromise?
Now, Just to play devil’s advocate here… Most 8 keyed flute cases are made to store the last two sections of a Rudall style flute together since handling and twisting off those joints add to the stress on the keywork. Some would argue that less moisture makes it down that far unless you have been playing nonstop in a three hour session. In long sessions we’ll often have drips coming out of the end of the flute. My compromise at home is to put it back in the case and set the case on its end like a book on a library shelf, so it drains. I have no idea if it is necessary, but I’ve had no issues.
I too resisted the act of actually putting away a flute, but developed the habit when I had that repair. It was also reinforced by the fact that I had three small children. It is literally a 2 minute or less event.
The best defense if you want to keep a flute out is a climate controlled room with even humidity away from pets, children, their friends who may think they are toys. If I am playing a long session and set down my flute I rotate it so the wholes are on the bottom. I have no idea if this makes a difference, but it is a habit that seems logical to me.
I actually don’t know of many instruments besides electric keyboards and metal whistles that don’t require maintenance. Pianos, guitars, saxes, trumpets, clarinets, violins, guitars, and yes, stand up basses, all need climate control, string changing, pad care, humidifying, you name it. The delrin flute is a great compromise, but I have heard few that sound as good as their wood counterparts. I have a delrin flute that has lived in my car and currently assembled in my sock drawer, and did have a very good ebonite at one point with the idea I would leave it out to grab, but it ended up getting ignored.
Not to mention being careless with an investment. And I’ve been there myself in my own way, so I’m not pointing fingers here. Your case was particularly catastrophic, and a caution to all. If the flute won’t be played for a couple of hours or more, disassembly and swabbing shouldn’t be seen as a pain in the ass. It’s an act of respect.
If someone insists on leaving their flute assembled long-term, I suggest Delrin or similar for the purpose.
Earlier someone asked if cracking can be due to climatic conditions, and my answer, without hesitation, is yes. PB+J’s bull fiddle should tell it all. Many of us live in regions where humidity swings wildly with the seasons, and when the indoor average gets below 45% relative humidity, that is the time to start managing things. While my patch of Minnesota tends to be pretty humid when the weather’s fine, winters are bone-dry - sometimes it’ll even get as low as 10% RH outdoors - so humidifying wooden instruments at such times is an absolute must. I’ve had them crack when I didn’t, and it’s a common story hereabouts. Those who don’t humidify during our winters are either inexperienced or foolhardy. You also need to take into account where a wooden instrument was made: finished structure is very much a product of the environment it came from, so an instrument made in more humid climes will absolutely need to be humidified during arid conditions. There’s no getting around it. Unless you live in an environment with a fairly steady and instrument-friendly level of humidity, anything else is just relying on dumb luck.
Depending on its construction, I suppose it might be possible for a wood flute to settle into year-round desert conditions, but if it’s not made there, I wouldn’t gamble on it - especially if it’s got a lined head.
Right it’s simply not possible to keep our house humidified in the winter, and I don’t have a hard case for the bass, so there’s no way to keep it humidified. Even a guitar in a case is hard to keep humidified. I’m assuming I can manage a disassembled flute
Is it not possible to keep your musical instruments in one room that you can humidify with a room humidifier? I understand the expense of whole-house humidifiers, but room humidifiers aren’t that expensive, you just have to refill them every few days when the heat is running in Winter.
I admit that I live in a climate here in the Pacific Northwest USA that’s not as severe in Winter as some other areas like the upper Midwest USA, but we do get cold snaps where the relative humidity could drop below 30% if I didn’t run room humidifiers.
If you can manage the environmental control, I think the risk to wooden flutes isn’t as severe as some might think. I play a wooden flute that was made maybe 15-20 years ago in Switzerland, then played until a couple of years ago by the original owner in Italy, then I bought it and shipped it out here to the Pacific Northwest USA. It has the dreaded fully lined metal headjoint, but I take care of it with humidity control and it’s still in perfect condition. These things just aren’t that delicate in my experience, unless you can’t control the surrounding environment.
Right. I’m not here to be an alarmist, but to state the necessity for proper conditions, whether in climate or in storage. So long as either of those are met, a flute should last indefinitely, and in good condition. But in some environments - like mine in winter - a little neglect can have rude consequences, and in short order. You have to pick your battles.
I choose delrin (or aluminium) flutes, (also brass for piccolo), because I don’t want the hassle of wood, & I don’t think that I’m missing out very much sound wise, especially at my level of playing.
A few years ago I tried to humidify a single room. I put all the instruments in a single room, my office, which left little space for much else, and got a room humidifier. I used a Selmer style guitar as my test. The Selmer always needs a different bridge in the winter. Despite keeping it stored in a humidified room, it ended up reverting to the ambient humidity very quickly when it left the room. We have a drafty old uninsulated house and the humidifier has to run nonstop to get close to the target 40%. That made the office very uncomfortable.
If I took the guitar or bass from a humidified room out into dry, below freezing weather and then into a gig in a hot dry room it seems to me I was likely doing more harm than good.
My conclusion about this was that I was better off just letting instruments move in response to humidity, and repair any damage that resulted. The bass, for example, cracked once a decade ago and not again. The selmer gets a winter bridge. everything else gets adjustment tweaks. Most instruments in use today were designed in a time when humidity control was not possible. I’ve got a lovely 45 year old archtop guitar that has stood the test of time and I don’t humidify it.
I did a series of experiments using plywood to build hollow body instruments. Below is a hollow body bass I made using plywood
.
I picked plywood because it was going to be amplified anyway, the acoustic sound was not the point, and plywood is very resistant to damage related to cracking. I built a guitar on the same lines
The goal was to make a simple to build, durable instrument that gave me the amplified sound I wanted with minimal impact from climate. They both work well and sound good and I gigged with both, especially the bass
The flute seems like a special problem because again the tuning slide. Differential expansion from the heat of playing and then the wood absorbing humidity and the slide doing nothing or the kind.
The environment you live and play in does need to be considered. I live in a
part of Montana that gets 9 to 12 inches of rain annually. Temperatures range from high 90s to well into sub zero F. Low and variable humidity is a given here and not helped by the fact we do all our cooking and heating with wood.
I, like many here, love the look and feel of wood and wooden instruments but just could not bring myself inflicting so much stress onto a beautiful wooden flute. I was trepidatious at first on ordering a delrin flute but after receiving my Copley I feel that it was the right choice. It has wonderful tone and potential and like I said earlier, no worries. I can just play it to my hearts content where ever and whenever I want.
one thing about humidity , it causes mold, and rust , i would never humidify a room, i even tried humdifiying a my sax reeds, , mold happened, personally if humidity is an issue with flutes , more or less oil swabbing needs to happen, controlling humidity is harder than controlling the item itself, now temperature is easily controlled
Wood , if its in your house i would think its stability should be , fine, , , just oil as needed and keep the wood satisfied , i too love wood and everything about it , and honesly a wood flute sounds better than plastic, i dont think one can fake wood, in my humble opinion , i also play sax and used to do bagpipes, the reeds have been tested not one plastic substitute has arroused my ear, all this talk about having reeds last longer and less maintenance , thats shit is for lazy people, ,not to say certain makers Delrin is bad, i too have a nice delrin being made, but i think there is an art to the delrin version, , too thin the plastic comes out, some have made them out of ebonite, very warm
This is only good advice if the room is hermetically sealed. So long as you have enough air flow, mold shouldn’t be a problem.
I beg to differ, and strongly. Two reasons: First, oil cannot replace lost moisture; moisture is water. They are not interchangeable. Second, while oil might be good for the wood, it can also be useless: my blackwood flutes were already so naturally oily and resinous that they never absorbed any oil; it just sat there. So what good does oiling do in that case? All you do is waste it. But even blackwood loses moisture in arid conditions; lose enough of it, and it can crack. Mine did, and others have the same story to tell. Do you mean to say we’re all lying? Suggesting we’re making much ado about nothing is irresponsible advice to those who live where seasonal humidity levels vary drastically over the year.
No, controlling humidity isn’t that hard, and there are many ways to do it. I live in an old building with dodgy windows, and in the winter dry I am fortunately able to humidify the whole 2-bedroom apartment to a constant 40% RH with just one little ultrasonic unit, and guess what? No mold or rust. But being made in Seattle, my flute still needed - needed - additional humidification in the case. Without it, the rings fell off. Oiling doesn’t fix that. You need humidification. Period. And the proof of it is when the outdoor humidity gets up to better than 55% (I don’t air condition except in the bedroom, and even that seldom), the rings are dependably nice and tight because the flute’s body has swelled back to its ideal condition. In summer here, no wood instrument owner worries, because the humidity’s up to 80% - 90%, easily. If only it could be like that all year…
If you think humidifying is too much work, maybe you should ask yourself if being a steward of instruments is for you.
And what does this even mean?
It’s been evident for some time that you have and promote a no-need-to-hassle-yourself attitude about instrument care. That’s fine if you have the luxury of an ideal environment, and judging by your notions, apparently you must. But like many others, I don’t have that luxury, and I have the cracked instruments to prove it. If you do have this apparently ideal environment, then lucky you - but your experiences cannot apply to everyone. If I followed your advice, I’d still have cracked instruments, because your way is exactly the way I went about things until I wised up the hard way. In places like Minnesota, in winter you have to humidify your instruments somehow, or eventually you pay the price. So stop with this “don’t worry, be happy” nonsense. Maybe you could learn something about our very real experiences instead.
so, if I see the need to play if frequently, I remove the head after each play, and use a thread-attached-to-a-cloth swab I have and run it through very quickly 2 times. I leave all the other pieces attached.
, or just blow it out and at the end of the day swab it
