So, being a Class-A moron, I left my new Murray in the trunk of my GF’s car overnight. It was after a session, we went grocery shopping, and promptly forgot about it upon returning home. This has also been the coldest weather we’ve had all year, dipping to around 20’ nightly.
Fortunately it is stored in one of those heavily padded camera cases with lots of foam… It’s been taken inside but left in the case and bag that I usually carry it in. I won’t open it up until the case is good and warmed up to room temperature.
Wormy, it got cold in baggage hold of the plane that brought it here. It gets cold in the postal service warehouses and trucks where these things sit. It gets cold in old barns where sometimes antique flutes hang out, uncracked, for generations. It gets cold in Russia and they have wooden flutes there, too.
Just DON’T PLAY IT when it’s cold – i.e., until the flute warms to room temp inside and out – it’s the shock of a fast temperature change that kills.
(But I wouldn’t recommend leaving it out there on a regular basis) (And I usually play the whistle for a while 'til I’m sure the flute’s warm) (and of course, try to keep the thing under my coat if possible, etc.,)
But I’m pretty convinced that it’s the “shock” more often than not that causes a crack.
Just my .02 … though it is loaned from personal experience, alas.
Keeping fingers crossed for ya, and good news; you live near a couple of very good repairers if it does let go.
Terry McGee did an experiment in which he put a wooden headjoint in the freezer for a few days, and then played it straight out of the freezer. No cracks.
I think it’s more likely the dryness that’s a worry in your case, not the cold. Treat the flute as if it’s brand-new and blow it back in gradually, no more than 3-4 minutes a day for the first day or two, then 5-10 minutes, just as a precaution in case the wood has really dried out. You could try oiling it first too.
You’re doing the right thing by not opening the case until it’s fully warmed (avoiding shock as Cathy suggested), and the slower it warms up, probably the better. I wouldn’t put it in a very dry (or too well heated) room, if you have a choice.
It’s not likely that it got too dry, being that it happened in North Carolina, where it’s still likely to be 40-50% humidity outside, even in the cold weather. Same here in PA. Inside the heated house is entirely different-that’s where it can really dry out in a hurry.
But, doing as Brad suggested, and being cautious certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Hmmm, I’m still not convinced that Terry’s experiment is an across-the-board fact; my Murray was faithfully well-oiled, played regularly, had an unlined head (I think I recall Terry pondering lined heads as a factor?), etc., etc., etc. and the head is where it cracked nonetheless … I’d had a particularly long wait for a cab to a session in New York during a snowstorm. When I got there, I pulled the flute out of its case, let it warm for just a few minutes before starting playing, and boom. Split right up the back of the head; I felt it go.
(Meanwhile, the McGee I have seems indestructible. I still can’t figure out why – wall thickness? Wood cured in a dry-ish climate? Head shape? Grain? Just dumb luck? – but that flute’s survived every extreme like a champ)
But I do completely agree with your playing-in and humidity-management thinking, Brad. Better safe than sorry!
Yup, I’m banking on the “its the shock - not the cold” theory as well. I figured if I owned up to it immediately and acknowledged my sins, I might build up a little good karma. . . I hope.
I agree about Terry’s experiment, and on the other side of the heat equation I know a flute maker who left one of his flutes in the glove compartment of his car one rare sunny day in Galway, and came back after 8 hours to find the flute riddled with cracks.
Whenever I start playing my flute after it’s gotten cold, I warm it in my hands first, then blow just a little air into it, wait a minute and blow some more, until it starts to warm up. Better to err on the side of caution.
The dwelling in question is also the home of a freshwater aquarium and a [caged] green anole lizard - therefore, the humidity is quite a bit higher than it might be otherwise. I also have a tupperware + guitar humidifer + gauge setup.
The case went into the car within about ten minutes of me swabbing the sucker out. . . so I don;t think it dried out that much. OTOH I hope that no ice-crystals grew in any of the crevices!
That’s what I do … now. Talk about a painful lesson! Basically, I wait until it doesn’t feel inordinately cold to my hands.
And then there were the college band-trips to Michigan when we’d put our piccolos and flutes under our armpits to keep them from freezing to our lower lips!
I’ve worried about that before when I’m looking for something to keep me up at night. Aaah, the special pain of Murray owners. But I’m better now, honest.
FWIW, my boxwood just came back from its restoration and sat in the USPS warehouse when the temps were like, 8. I waited until that night to play it, and it seems fine. Of course, it had cracks when I got it, so maybe it’s already released the tension? I’m pretty sure this flute’s from that lot of old Persian boxwood that sat in Belfast for 50 years or so, so you can’t say it wasn’t cured!
It’s pretty amazing to compare the flutes, actually - the working dimensions are identical to the naked eye, even with a ten-year age difference. OTOH hers has soaked up enough oil that it looks basically like plastic - black and shiny. Mine still shows a lot of grain even after a thorough oiling. Then again, mine still has some of that new blackwood smell, which I really like
Cathy, the cracking of your flute was caused by something called “hoop stress”. This will happen with a unlined head that is more subject to moiture. The inside of the head is saturated with moisture, but the outside is fairly dry. The inside of the flute expands, but the outside remains contracted. As the wood expands it puts pressure on the outside. When it reaches the threshold, that the wood can maintain i.e. 90 psi, it cracks. I had one blow up on me once, it sounded like a yardstick hitting a table top! Wack! There is less of a chance of this happening with a lined head, but with the lined head you build up pressure by shrinkage around the metal liner…
OK, that one fits maybe a bit better, Jon – thank you! But it cracked within a minute of my starting to play – I can grok the condensation of my breath inside a cold flute forming much faster than inside a warm one, but that fast? And was it just bizarre coincidence that it happened in those circumstances, or was it a combination of factors, do you think?
(But I’m over the trauma. Really. )
Thanks again. I’d forgotten some of the hoop stress discussions from a while back. They got long and somewhat contentious as I recall; I must have blocked them out.
I got home around 6:00 after getting the car serviced (With an unexpected $300 charge. It was a long afternoon, to say the least.) A visual inspection on the flute yielded nothing out of the ordinary - no hoop stress cracks anyway.
I oiled her and put her to bed. . . sonic/playing test tomorrow afternoon.
I would think of it as a micro injury, where it was about ready to happen, and that was the last straw… I think this is the case with a lot of flutes out there, especially the lined ones, ticking time bombs! It is amazing when I close a crack on a head and find that the diameter has shrunk by 1mm, that is a lot of pressure to put on wood. Then to make it even worse, the liner is scored with blade like burrs, that the maker scored in the tubing to keep it from turning at a later date, and guess where the crack follows, those burrs.
But don’t worry, be happy…
I figure dumb luck, has a McGee GLP for awhile, didn’t crack. Had a Hoza way back, cracked. Had a Brewer whistle crack (very slight), have had an old Copeland, no crack. Had an old Metzler (kaboom!). And my current two, one a Mopane Dekyzer, the barrel of which cracked on the way to another fippler, so I refunded his money and he has sent it back. And a restored Hall and Sons with a new head and barrel from Jon C, small crack happened in the barrel. Basically, I think it’s dumb luck, but mostly climate. Thank goodness for a local instrument repair guy who can fix a crack like it’s nothing in about 4 days. Let’s face it, flutes crack, it’s only a big problem anywhere other than the barrel.
I now consider barrels to be casualties of war, and I have them repaired and go on, they’re not worth replacing until their a piece of metal with some wood held to it with hockey tape!
Basically, I wait until it doesn’t feel inordinately cold to my hands.
But I’m better now, honest.
And was it just bizarre coincidence that it happened in those circumstances, or was it a combination of factors, do you think?
)
It is amazing when I close a crack on a head and find that the diameter has shrunk by 1mm, that is a lot of pressure to put on wood. Then to make it even worse, the liner is scored with blade like burrs, that the maker scored in the tubing to keep it from turning at a later date, and guess where the crack follows, those burrs.