Bb flute

[NicoMoreno]

and that's just bad form.

Well, I don't think so. It's pretty typical of this forum, and its culture (waves at MTGuru), and it's really the main reason any thread gets past page 1. It's actually probably pretty typical of any discussion forum.

[Gabriel]

As a short follow-up, I received my second-hand Ormiston Bb with eight keys today and really love it. It's a great flute and plays very easily. Also the stretch seems not worse than on the Aebi I had, maybe George changed something...to put this into context, I like it just as much as I liked the Grinter 8-key Bb I was able to try last weekend. The Grinter had more back pressure when playing, which I like, but also more "difficult notes" than the Ormiston. All in all it's a tie.

[jemtheflute]

I bet Grinter's keywork is a whole load classier, though. Ormiston's sucks IMO - aesthetically at any rate, though they function OK. That said, I think Grinter could do better with his foot keys - his plain (and rather thin-shanked) hockey stick touches are a cop-out, IMO.

[bradhurley]

If you want keys on a Bb flute but are concerned about weight, you could go with boxwood. I have a four-key Bb flute in boxwood made by Chris Wilkes and it's lighter than my 6-key D flute in blackwood. The only problem of course is boxwood's sensitivity to changes in humidity; mine doesn't warp lengthwise but the tenons get oval-shaped if the humidity drops below about 45%.

The tuning issues with a conical-bore flute tend to get magnified with longer flutes, so I would be cautious about getting a Bb flute without the long C key (using the standard note names for a D flute rather than giving the actual notes on a Bb flute), because the C# (all holes open) tends to be very flat on most Bb flutes. You'll need the long C key to bring the C# into tune unless you're willing to do some serious lipping-up (which is what I do on my Wilkes, since it doesn't have a long C key). Tom Aebi and Casey Burns have both done a good job at bringing the Bb flute closer into tune with itself, but most other Bb flutes I've tried can be challenging to play in tune, especially the C# but also the E (which tends to be sharp).

[NicoMoreno]

Dogwood is also a good choice if weight is a concern. My B flute is dogwood. It also has some humidity issues, but not so much ovaling or warping, but rather just shrinking and expanding. John Gallagher makes great flat flutes, especially the B. (Well, it's the only one I have a lot of experience with)

[Cathy Wilde]

I'll put in a "happy owner" vote for John Gallagher's Bb though mine's keyless.

I'd also say that dogwood like Nico has seems like a dandy idea. I played John's prototype Bb that he'd made of holly from a tree in his yard and I really loved that. I think it's kind of a funky wood, though, which is why he just uses it for experiments. I was also impressed with how light Nico's keyed B is in the few brief moments I ran off with it.

Alas, I know for the oval boxwood tenons. You get used to it .... mostly ....

[Gabriel]

I bet Grinter's keywork is a whole load classier, though. Ormiston's sucks IMO - aesthetically at any rate, though they function OK. That said, I think Grinter could do better with his foot keys - his plain (and rather thin-shanked) hockey stick touches are a cop-out, IMO.

Yup, the Grinter looked very pretty, especially if you're a block mount and pewter fan, which is what I am. But for the price I paid I didn't care much about the looks of the keys...and they indeed work very well, as the flute does...and that's what I require a flute to do. Looking pretty is just a bonus.

[Loren]

As the owner of what is very likely the oldest Dogwood flute from a modern maker (Olwell delivered in 2004), I'd recommend against the wood unless you have allergies or some other reason for needing to avoid some of the more stable woods. My dogwood Olwell has remained quite straight and the wood is tough, but the top tenon has ovaled to the point that the there is wood on wood contact between the socket and tenon when the flute is dry. Once you play for any significant length of time......well, forget about taking the flute apart for a while, it ain't gonna happen. In addition, dogwood seems to be more susceptible to looking dirty over time, and the grain of the bore raises significantly. But of course once the flute ovals, re-reaming is not advisable, or often even possible, so sanding becomes the only recourse, or living with a somewhat compromised tone and response.

So, like many woods that modern makers experiment with, down the road these woods often turn out to be not so suitable in the long run. Takes a few years for the flaws to show up in many cases though. Many years ago at Von Huene they made a number of instruments from lignum vitae. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I mean the wood had been used for submarine propeller bearings or something. Well, I was told that virtually all the lignum vitae instruments that were made eventually cracked, ouch.

I'd say unless some instruments have been out there 10 years or so in a given wood and you know how they hold up, you may want to avoid the spending a lot of money on relatively untested wood.


Loren

[NicoMoreno]

I will definitely watch out for those things, and in fact should be sending the flute back to the maker for it's one year check up (it's older than that now, I'm just reluctant to part with it).

However, as far as it looking dirty, that definitely has not been an issue. John did stain the wood. It's also pretty stable, but I keep it humidified. There hasn't been any sign of ovaling, and I know this is also not at all the first flute he has done. I think it's a very viable alternative to boxwood.

[Nanohedron]

From my own experience I can corroborate what Loren says about dogwood's characteristic of swelling when being played; I owned that very flute before he did, and found that it would swell so markedly - and soon - that I had to threadlap it so that in a desorbed condition the fit of upper tenon and socket would have to be rather loose (to a fluteplayer, disconcertingly so) to allow for the difference; otherwise, as Loren attests, once the wood swelled you wouldn't get them apart for a couple of hours at least. Absorption and swelling from loose to an acceptably firm fit would generally take only about 10 minutes or so of steady playing, IIRC. That's pretty fast. Also, I found myself regularly polishing the bore because, as Loren also says, the grain rises with the humidity of playing. You would think that this would eventually find its balance, but oddly enough it never seemed to happen.

These characteristics were my only real disappointments with the material. Otherwise it's unbelievably tough; "as nails" would definitely apply, although it's also quite light in weight. Its tone had an assertive edge. Due to its nature of rapid expansion in the presence of moisture, though, IMHO it is not a good first choice for mouthblown wind instruments. But that's me; I can't speak to Nico's own experiences. There was no ovalling I was aware of when I passed the flute on to Loren.

Loren, would a metal ferrule covering the full extent of a dogwood tenon be of any theoretical good in mitigating this problem in future instruments?

[NicoMoreno]

I wonder if John has done something to his wood supply to mitigate those issues. Although there is some swelling, it is not nearly so extreme, and is not at all a problem. It's about the same as my cocus (or rosewood) antique flute, although because it's B, and the tenons are bigger, that likely means it does in fact swell / shrink more than the D flute.

[Nanohedron]

This is very interesting to me. It may be that there are different qualities from tree to tree. The lumber that Loren's flute came from had been sitting idle in Olwell's back yard for at least ten years, if I remember correctly, so proper seasoning wouldn't be an issue in this case.

EDIT: Olwell also pressure-treated that flute with linseed oil, and I too regularly oiled the bejesus out of it, particularly where the grain ends were exposed - and it drank oil like crazy - but obviously all that made little dent if any in the wood's water-absorptive tendency.

[Cathy Wilde]

A lot of the dogwood issues/characteristics you describe are familiar to me from my boxwood flutes & pipes. Oh, those stuck joints! I have a weird theory that as trees were in life, so their wood is in the "afterlife" ... riparian-type trees that live near water are more porous, while arid-climate trees like blackwood are harder and perhaps even moisture-resistant, at least to a point.

This is probably apropos of nothing, but I'm pretty sure it was John Gallagher who told me the reason it's so blasted hard to get boxwood logs of sufficient size and grain/straightness is because boxwood often grows along streams and thus curves upward.

I'm still curious about the idea of seasoning boxwood in the microwave. I can't remember who does this ... is it the Olwells? Some piper types have been experimenting with nuking cane slips for reeds to get the excess moisture out, too.

Anyway, it's all interesting; much more interesting than this brochure I'm presently writing but I guess I'd better get back to it.

However, I've got a yard full of cut water maple if anyone wants any, and it's been plenty hard -- at least as far as the chainsaw's concerned.

[Nanohedron]

I have a weird theory that as trees were in life, so their wood is in the "afterlife" ... riparian-type trees that live near water are more porous, while arid-climate trees like blackwood are harder and perhaps even moisture-resistant, at least to a point.

Of course the extremely resinous nature of Dalbergia spp. heartwoods is a prime factor in their slower response to moisture. Like boxwood, dogwood has nothing resinous about it that casual observation can see, so super-dense as it is (and it's surprisingly hard wood, too; Loren's survived a fall from table to tiled floor when I owned it, hitting the end cap no less, and there was no sign on the fine tooling that it ever happened!), it drinks it all in, be it water or oil. By contrast, my blackwood flute even resists oil which pretty much just sits there until I get tired of waiting for it to do anything, and so I wipe it off after a couple of hours and wonder why I bothered. All I ever do now is monitor the humidification.

The disappointing fact is that resinous woods suitable for flutemaking just don't exist in the northerly climes; the best we could hope for in the resinous category would be pine fatwood, probably, but of course it lacks the dense tight grain we need and look for.

[Loren]

This is very interesting to me. It may be that there are different qualities from tree to tree. The lumber that Loren's flute came from had been sitting idle in Olwell's back yard for at least ten years, if I remember correctly, so proper seasoning wouldn't be an issue in this case.

EDIT: Olwell also pressure-treated that flute with linseed oil, and I too regularly oiled the bejesus out of it, particularly where the grain ends were exposed - and it drank oil like crazy - but obviously all that made little dent if any in the wood's water-absorptive tendency.

Heya Jason, glad you're chiming in: I thought to mention you as the original owner of the flute, but figured I'd leave it to you to speak up if you wanted to. Interesting that Olwell pressure oiled the flute, I didn't recall that, if I ever knew. Do you know if he added anything to the oil? Without something additional the vast majority of the oil simply comes back out of the wood. Patrick probably knows this however. We added a couple of additional things, that I am not comfortable divulging, which kept some of the oil put and sealed the wood. I get the sense from this flute that Pat doesn't use exactly the same formula, but it may just be that the Dogwood is much more porous. Who knows, maybe John Gallagher does use the same formula we used - I believe Rod Cameron communicated with the Von Huenes over the years, so that formula may have been shared. We also used an additional treatment for our bores, something that completely sealed the bore, as in totally waterproof. Needless to say we didn't have issues with our Boxwood instruments swelling. This is essentially what I think Dogwood will need in order to work for flutes long term: Waterproof sealing of the bore and end grain. I tried sealing the top tenon end grain of the Dogwood Olwell with superglue, but the bore absorbs so much moisture that sealing the end grain didn't make a dent in the swelling problem.

Loren