frozen tuning slide-alcohol bath? not me, the barrel.

[BullFighter]

I've put my hands on an old french, having a frozen tuning slide, due to grease have become ...... glue.
i'm plannig to do this:




A partial bath of acetone or alcohol. What do you think?
If it doesn' work, i'll try a complete inmersion of the barrel. I think alcohol can´t harm the wood.. isn't it?

do you have tried another method?

[claudine]

i had a frozen tuning slide on my Dominic Allan flute. when I asked Dominic for help, he told me to do the following: take a condom and place it around the rim of the barrel, then push it inside the tuning slide. then put warm water in it, leave it there for a minute or so. then pour the water out, and try to gently move the tuning slide (carefully!). repeat the procedure a few times if necessary. this method may sound a bit strange but it worked very well for my own flute.

[jemtheflute]

I think that warm water in a condom trick is certtainly worth trying as a first shot, but would doubt its effectiveness on such an old cementation as bullfighter's probably is - fine on a young flute that's just got gunged up a bit, but a long abandoned accretion with sundry electrolytic additions? I have a similar challenge facing me in due course with the Wylde I acquired a few weeks back - the slide is rock-solid and there is no movement whatever between head and barel - which are quite pressed home, so little access at the joint, only from the barrel mortice.

I believe Terry McGee chronicled his graduated approach to a similar problem, either here or on his website, a while back. No time to search that out now myself, but worth checking for.

Also FWIW, I have previously soaked cocuswood barrels in acetone to remove the lining tube from the bore to work on cracks - with no obvious ill effect, though some lightening of the surface colour of the wood (which develops with age - and so although temporarily lightened, should eventually darken up again). Careful application of heat is also an option you can make the wood quite hot without harming it and of course the metal of the lining tubes/slide mechanism will conduct heat better than the wood, hopefully causing the gunk cementing the slide to soften or melt. You do have to be careful not the scorch the wood, but I have used the open flame of my gas cooker, an electric paint stripper hot air gun and steam from a kettle or steam cleaner in various attempts at such problems (liner tubes are often shellac fixed, so heat is necessary to release them). Steam also is unlikely to permanently harm the wood.

[Maihcol]

The condom in the barrel idea which I hadn't heard of before certainly sounds like the best first approach as it's easiest to arrange. If that doesn't shift it then soaking in alcohol followed by acetone if alcohol doesn't work can be tried after - the wood won't be damaged and can be oiled again afterwards. If it's still stuck then there is a trick that Hammy Hamilton described a few years back using an iron bar with a diameter near that of the bore and a soldering torch for heating the bar. The bar is heated to where it's "hot enough" - you'd have to be careful here now as you could scorch or even crack the wood...anyway when it's hot enough, the bar is quickly inserted in the bore and allowed to roll about - don't let it sit at any one point...Then you dump it out on the floor and quickly twist the slide loose...It's the same principle as the condom method but is a more extreme way of delivering more heat to break the bond between the slide tubes. You might be better to get a woodwind repairer to do this job though.

Garry.

[Ronbo]

I am not a flutemaker, nor do I play one on TV, so take my advice very carefully. It may cause more damage than it cures.

I have successfully used citrus oil (yep the same stuff that smells like oranges in the cleaners that the dude on TV hawks at 3 am). I use the purest stuff I can find. D-Limonene is it's chemical name. Anything else is cut with some solvents.

It is extremely good at penetrating all sorts of normally difficult materials. Beats WD-40 hands down on screws, bolts, etc., and has loosened up old paint, caulk, glues, and all sorts of other odd materials. If you can put it carefully between the metal parts of the slide, and keep it off of the wood, you may be able to solve your problem, assuming none of the other attempts work. Test it on the wood you are working on before applying to your flute. Might help.

[Jack Bradshaw]

Be very careful if the original grease was wax based......alcohol or esp. acetone will remove the oils and really solidify the wax into an impenetrable solid......don't ask how I (painfully) know this.......try penetrating oils first and only use solvents if you KNOW its soluble...wax isn't.....

Jack

[Aanvil]

Careful with that hot bar method. You might take apart more that you are wanting to.

[Sillydill]

The Oil That Creeps!



This penetrating oil works! You can't even keep it in the can....it creeps out the lid.

Be careful not to get it on the wood and give it time to work.

Best of Luck!

[glinjack]

Hi,
I have had that problem quite a few times with some of the flutes i owned over the years including a Rudall & Rose at one time, I used what has been already mentioned, penetrating oils and thinning liquids etc, this helped quite well i believe, but not enough to let me pull the head-joint from the barell
i eventually used a wooden dowel just the size of the inside of the barell-tube
and gently tapp the dowel, then putting a little more pressure on the tapping,
but be very careful that the dowel doesn't go inside the head-joint liner as it would cause the liner to expand, and this you don't want to happen.
the idea is to break the seal, but use your own judgement in this matter,
just telling you what i did.

[Jon C.]

I usually use heat to free up the slide on the old antique flutes. I have never been able to free them up with solvents. To heat up the slide I use a metal rod that is heated with a torch, not quite red hot.

[Maihcol]

Hi,
...
i eventually used a wooden dowel just the size of the inside of the barell-tube
and gently tapp the dowel, then putting a little more pressure on the tapping,
but be very careful that the dowel doesn't go inside the head-joint liner as it would cause the liner to expand, and this you don't want to happen.
the idea is to break the seal, but use your own judgement in this matter,
just telling you what i did.

I'd forgotten this one. If you know someone with a lathe you can get them to quickly turn up a dowel to be a sliding fit inside the barrel slide tube. Thing is, the inner tube (attached to the head) is usually only around 0.8mm less in diameter than the outer (barrel) tube so, as Glinjack says, you have to be careful about the diameter of that dowel or it could jam in the mouth of the head tube and spread it making your jam-up even worse...

Garry.

[BullFighter]

Thanks alot to everybody!
a lot of replies!

The heat method has failed. I used a sodering iron with no results. I was moving it quickly inside the tube, stopping when it was hot enough, but the slide is still strongly frozen. (i also tried heating the outer tube and cooling the inner one..)
i've made a solubility test of the grease, and the whole piece is going to be sleeping in alcohol untill tomorrow morning.

(the alcohol in now preeeeeety dark, but there's no decoloration of the wood)
if it is still frozen tomorrow, i'll try using oils. maybe i shouldd try this first..

there was also a frozen endcap, but i could remove it!

a pic of the whole instrument:

[Jon C.]

Thanks alot to everybody!
a lot of replies!

The heat method has failed. I used a sodering iron with no results. I was moving it quickly inside the tube, stopping when it was hot enough, but the slide is still strongly frozen. (i also tried heating the outer tube and cooling the inner one..)
i've made a solubility test of the grease, and the whole piece is going to be sleeping in alcohol untill tomorrow morning.

(the alcohol in now preeeeeety dark, but there's no decoloration of the wood)
if it is still frozen tomorrow, i'll try using oils. maybe i shouldd try this first..

there was also a frozen endcap, but i could remove it!

a pic of the whole instrument:

Good luck! The soldering iron approach, isn't quite enough heat. I heat a 5/8" rod almost red hot, this has a little more mass then a soldering iron.

[Rob Sharer]

The condom in the barrel ...

Do I hear a tune title here somewhere?

Rob

[Maihcol]

Hadn’t realised that the head tube was detached from the head....That makes it more awkward to use the heat trick as you can’t really get a good grip on the inner tube when you want to twist it loose without the head being well attached to it first…

The solutions that appear to me, if the solvents don’t work, involve access to a lathe. You could just take the barrel to a turner or a metal workshop, along with a dowel of hardwood and ask them to turn the outside diameter to be a close sliding fit in the outside slide tube. That would be quick and should be cheap. Then you could use the approach Glinjack suggested above.

There’s also a way of making an expanding mandrel from a plastic dowel and a bolt to fit in the head tube which would grip the inside of the tube and help you to twist it loose and a turner or a woodwind repairer could make that up too.

Garry.

The condom in the barrel ...

Do I hear a tune title here somewhere?

Rob

I'll leave it to others to explore this!