Printing a Flute?

[treeshark]

On recent job I had occasion to investigate this technology. http://www.zcorp.com/Products/3D-Printe ... spage.aspx 3d Printing is getting better by leaps and bounds, there is no reason why you couldn't make an accurate 3d model of your flute and then print as many as you wanted, all the complexities of a particular bore or undercuts to holes could be copied. Once the material has been treated by wicking a sort of superglue into it is very strong or at least as tough as ebonite. I reckon you would get about 8 flutes in one print session so it would be pretty cheap too. It is only going to get cheaper and better as well.
A keyed flute could be done with blocks etc but the keys would have to be done the hard way!

[fearfaoin]

I've been thinking about this, too, recently.
Especially after seeing DIY fabrication machines such as this one:

http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

[s1m0n]

Surely you could do it cheaper with a injection-moulded plastic. I've never understood why someone--Aulos?--doesn't cast a mould from the best Rudall they can find, and start pumping out 'irish' flutes as cheap as a student recorder.

[Jon C.]

Surely you could do it cheaper with a injection-moulded plastic. I've never understood why someone--Aulos?--doesn't cast a mould from the best Rudall they can find, and start pumping out 'irish' flutes as cheap as a student recorder.

Tsk, tsk...

[G1]

*~!!! Who would sprinkle the magic dust?!!

I could be wrong, but I've never personally seen anything from a mold that has the precision and fine tuning of a craftsman's touch. There are always variables in the mold or the casting process. Even jewelry has to be finished by skilled hands, or it's just flea market fare.

[Cork]

@ G1

As a Japanese company, Aulos makes a series of "Baroque" flutes, in some sort of moulded hard plastic. They don't give them away, but the quality is right up there, especially on the better grades, and I suspect that Aulos potentially could produce a moulded "Irish" flute, too.

[Denny]

the magic dust would of course add to the cost...


an ya better hope customs doesn't notice it

[G1]

^:D

@ G1

As a Japanese company, Aulos makes a series of "Baroque" flutes... I suspect that Aulos potentially could produce a moulded "Irish" flute, too.

I would like to be a fly on the wall for that process. They must do some hand finishing to produce a viable instrument. Again, I could be mistaken - I've seen laser carvings that made a wood carving artist friend of mine cry.

[Gordon]

Surely you could do it cheaper with a injection-moulded plastic. I've never understood why someone--Aulos?--doesn't cast a mould from the best Rudall they can find, and start pumping out 'irish' flutes as cheap as a student recorder.

Bear in mind that the two Aulos model Baroque flutes made this way are not particularly cheap - on the $400 plus side, the Stansby model particularly so - based, I suppose, on the limited audience for such flutes (as compared to soprano recorders bought by the tens of thousands for elementary school children). Still, Irish flutes would not be in such wide demand, either. Also - as suggested by others already - while decent flutes by themselves, these injection-molded flutes are far from perfect, although they can then be tweaked into fairly impressive ones by a skilled maker. But then, the cost goes up again. Not sure you'd be further along than a well-made, traditionally lathed Delrin flute.

[chas]

The Aulos Baroque flutes also have an insert for the embouchure hole. I'm pretty sure it's CNC-made, but it may be hand-finished.

Injection molding can be pretty damned accurate. I know of one mass-produced, really cheap product that's being used as a reference for positional accuracy. It's really not difficult to mass-produce products with micron-scale accuracy; as has been pointed out, though, it really needs to be mass to be economical. Trying to recoup the likely seven-figure investment in design and molds for a Baroque flute costs a lot per unit when there are maybe a few thousand sold worldwide a year.

We should mount a campaign to have all school children learn the flute rather than the recorder/flotophone/tonette. Then we'd have inexpensive mass-produced flutes.

[Cork]

Rumor has it that Aulos flutes with the matte finish are better than those with the gloss finish.

I've successfully gone all around the circle of fifths on my matte finished Aulos Grenser model, so apparently Aulos must have done something right.

Ah, cross-fingerings, as the sound of distant ducks on a foggy day! :-D

[Cork]

The Aulos Baroque flutes also have an insert for the embouchure hole. I'm pretty sure it's CNC-made, but it may be hand-finished...

Yup, mine has such an insert.

The performance of this one-key piece of plastic is good enough that I've looked for signs of hand finishing, but I can't see anything obvious.

However, I simply suspect that some sort of hand finishing could be involved, even though I can't point to any evidence.

[Darren]

WOW! That is just nuts! I didn't know there was such as thing as 3D printing.

This doesn't look like it was meant to production runs though, so I don't think you would want to use it for creating flutes to sell. It is really meant for 1-off items such as prototypes. Pretty sure injection molding would be the way to go.

Of course, we already have Tipple PVC pipe...do we really need injection molded ones?

[fel bautista]

On recent job I had occasion to investigate this technology. http://www.zcorp.com/Products/3D-Printe ... spage.aspx 3d Printing is getting better by leaps and bounds, there is no reason why you couldn't make an accurate 3d model of your flute and then print as many as you wanted, all the complexities of a particular bore or undercuts to holes could be copied. Once the material has been treated by wicking a sort of superglue into it is very strong or at least as tough as ebonite. I reckon you would get about 8 flutes in one print session so it would be pretty cheap too. It is only going to get cheaper and better as well.
A keyed flute could be done with blocks etc but the keys would have to be done the hard way!

I've been thinking about this, too, recently.
Especially after seeing DIY fabrication machines such as this one:

http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

You can do it. And, I suspect it would be pretty good for a plastic instrument. It would look rough around the edges since it has to step each layer. I have access to a 3D printer at work; the step resolution is somewhere around 0.015 inches. One of my CAD learning projects is to model a set of uilleann pipes, rescale it to fit the print volume and make a set. I would think you would make the tone holes and bore slightly undersize and finish them by hand. If you had a high end stereo lithography machine, you could do some pretty impressive stuff, the finish tolerances would be somewhere around 0.006

The crucial thing is to get the CAD model of the instrument right.

[fel bautista]

WOW! That is just nuts! I didn't know there was such as thing as 3D printing.

This doesn't look like it was meant to production runs though, so I don't think you would want to use it for creating flutes to sell. It is really meant for 1-off items such as prototypes. Pretty sure injection molding would be the way to go.

Of course, we already have Tipple PVC pipe...do we really need injection molded ones?

Or experimentation. Vary the bore, vary the tone holes, see what happens. Its one of the best tools a mechanical engineer can have