Last July, I purchased an old flute through ebay. Looked decent, and as I was deliberating, I ended up winning it. Alan’ll tell you my reaction was something like, “Oh, I guess I won that flute… oops…”
So, the description stated that the two top sections were stuck together and there was one crack along the length of the smallest section (or something like that).
When I got it, I discovered that there were TWO cracks through the barrel, not one. And one of them was a really big one (like, you could see the brass through it). The other wasn’t exactly invisible. Anyway, I told the seller that, but whether he knew or not, I didn’t really care, as I had gotten the flute pretty cheap. In the end, though, the second crack was beneficial.
The tuning slide was definitely seized. I soaked it for about a week or more (all told) in penetrating oil, WD-30, and ice and hot water. Not at the same time of course. But, this was all made possible, because I could take the wood barrel right off, since it was cracked on both sides, almost exactly opposite each other. I eventually gave up with the slide, and attempted to glue the barrel pieces together. This didn’t work, as the pieces had shrunk quite a bit, and more importantly, were very oval when together. So I used a piece of copper pipe and a pipe joint (3/4" tubing) left over from low whistle making days. This worked well, as the outer sleeve of the tuning slide became the inner, and the copper tubing the new outer. But it looked like crap.
So, I got a friend to give me a piece of boxwood (the flute is heavily stained boxwood) and I held onto it for a very many months, until this week, when I bit the bullet, went into the student shop, and made a new barrel.
This shows the whole thing. At the bottom is the original ring. I fitted it nicely, I think!
This shot shows the inside of the tenon end. (ie the end that attaches to the body.) Also where the ring is. Inside the barrel, you can see a little bit of discoloration where the socket ends and the “tuning slide” part begins. Normally, a piece of brass tubing would be inserted here with a lip to keep it from falling out, then a piece of silver/nickel/wood put around the end sticking out to keep up appearances.
Another shot of same. You can see the tapered bit at this end. I discovered I didn’t need to taper the entire thing, as the tenon is threaded, and is only larger for the last 0.3" or so.
This is a nice shot to show what vegetable oil does to the colour of boxwood. The small piece resembles maple in colour (sort of) whereas my nicely oiled barrel is a rich golden colour.
Below are two comparison shots of the old barrel. You can see first of all that the flute is a much darker colour than this new barrel. But you can also see that it is a stain by looking at the crack surfaces.
More photos of my flute are at:
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~nlbrown/Photos/Flute/
I also repadded it using the silicone method. Nice to do!
Basically, this flute is done restoration, althought at some point, I’d like to retension the springs.