How much oil does a new flute absorb?

[Terry McGee]

Heh heh, love the quote about the quail, Casey!

Mother Nature seems to be playing little tricks with the experiment - this morning the flute weighs a whole gram more than yesterday (nope - checked the scales - the calibration weight still weighs 100.0 grams). The flute was standing beside an open window and a pleasant cool, moist change went through last evening, so that probably accounts for that. A very clear reminder though that even in a freshly oiled flute, moisture will still move in and out, hopefully moderated, but never stopped.

Anyway, the outside is now perfectly dry, so back into the oil for dunking #3.....

Terry

[GaryKelly]

Hmmm. Terry, d'you think the oil is being taken up almost entirely through the endgrain, as in SillyDill's dowel experiment (saturating a 1-inch hardwood dowel overnight...blimey!).

I'm wondering about the 'real world' oiling we do once we have the flutes in our possession - the usual 'swab the bore with an oily rag' approach rather than total immersion in an oil-bath.

After oiling, I usually leave my flute-parts lying at an angle in a tupperware box, with the ends sitting on a piece of kitchen paper in the bottom of the box. I reasoned it would give the oil a 'chance to soak in' and any excess would drain out on the kitchen paper.

Now, thinking about it from all the posts here, what's likely to happen is that any excess will indeed drain, but could well be sucked up through the tenons' endgrain by capillary action (unless the kitchen towel has a greater 'osmotic' pull on the oil, for want of a better expression).

Which begs the question, do the flute's dimensions change with oil absorption? ie will my tenons be a tighter/looser fit depending on oiling or not oiling?

[Terry McGee]

Hmmm. Terry, d'you think the oil is being taken up almost entirely through the endgrain, as in SillyDill's dowel experiment (saturating a 1-inch hardwood dowel overnight...blimey!).

It's a fair question, but I think not. When I've had reason to turn down a tenon AFTER oiling, I've quickly cut through the film of oil at the surface and hit dry wood under. If the oil had soaked significantly up the bundle of straws from the ead, there wouldn't be dry wood under.

I remember hearing somewhere a rule of thumb that water soaks 10 times faster up the straws than across them. We know the oil only soaks in a fraction of a mm - ten times that is still only a mm or so.

Also if we consider a head, say 170mm long, 19mm ID and 27mm OD, it will have 43 times the side grain access to the end grain access, so that would seem to overwhelm our ten times rule of thumb.

So to summarise, I'd agree that the oil penetration will be greatest at the end grain, but it still won't be much!

I'm wondering about the 'real world' oiling we do once we have the flutes in our possession - the usual 'swab the bore with an oily rag' approach rather than total immersion in an oil-bath.

After oiling, I usually leave my flute-parts lying at an angle in a tupperware box, with the ends sitting on a piece of kitchen paper in the bottom of the box. I reasoned it would give the oil a 'chance to soak in' and any excess would drain out on the kitchen paper.

Now, thinking about it from all the posts here, what's likely to happen is that any excess will indeed drain, but could well be sucked up through the tenons' endgrain by capillary action (unless the kitchen towel has a greater 'osmotic' pull on the oil, for want of a better expression).

Which begs the question, do the flute's dimensions change with oil absorption? ie will my tenons be a tighter/looser fit depending on oiling or not oiling?

Heh heh, another good question, and one that has been on my mind too. I'll try to remember to measure it before and after dunking the next victim. I'd suspect, given that not much actually soaks in at any one point, we won't see too much expansion.

Terry

[Terry McGee]

OK, the third oiling produced only a 0.3gm increase in weight, negligible when compared to the initial 6.6 gms, and the second oiling's 2.3 gms. My guess is that the first dose soaks in a bit and sets, forming a barrier, and the second largely fills any remaining space near the surface. The third hasn't much room to go anywhere. Hopefully the water experiences the same limitations.

So, at least on this timber, and with this mix of oil and gum turpentine, two overnight oilings seems to do about as much as we can hope for in a reasonable time. It would be interesting to leave a flute in there for a few months, but try explaining that to a customer!

So much more we should be doing to understand our materials better - trying the same tests on different woods, with different oils, with different periods, at higher temperatures and under pressure, a few long vs a lot of short dippings, etc, etc. Then testing the resultant flutes for uptake of moisture.

Sigh, always so much to do!

Terry

[GaryKelly]

Thanks Terry.

I was pondering whether or not my usual routine of oiling might result in the oil being absorbed by the bottom of the tenon where the excess drains, and thus over time throwing the tenon out of round. I'll look forward to your next report!

[Terry McGee]

OK, just oiled a blackwood flute (GLP keyless, MDT, Integral foot), which confirms our suspicions that blackwood absorbs much less than some other timbers.

You'll remember that the Cooktown Ironwood soaked up 6.6 gms in the first oiling. The blackwood flute absorbed only 0.5gm (I think probably more fair to say it adsorbed 0.5gm - given the significant surface area of inside and outside a flute, that wouldn't be a very thick coating!).

An 8-key in cocuswood is next ....

Terry[/b]

[Cayden]

Just an observation: I oiled a flute yesterday that was bought in the US by fiddler Paddy Killoran in the 1930s, brought over to Ireland where it was in the hands of one of the great players of the time. It was played continuously (being carried around in the coat pocket wrapped in brown paper) until the 80s when the owner had a stroke and subsequently died during the early 90s. It has lain dormant since.

This flute was never oiled at all in the past 75 years. The owner, like many of his generation, ran water through it before playing. His widow said yesterday: 'I never heard of anyone oiling flutes ever' (and she knows her fluteplayers).

Anyhow, the flute was actually in quite reasonable shape, even though it look terribly neglected before oiling. There was some surface cracking both inside and out but only very superficial.

The almond oil I put on disappeared into it like a shot, I oiled the outside twice in the space of an hour , both layers of oil were mostly absorbed (I did the inside as well ofcourse, thickly but the bore seemed to absorb more slowly).

Just for the fun of it, the flute in action during the 1930s:

[Cathy Wilde]

Cool, Peter! Just for curiosity, what is the flute made of? This is only observation on my own, but I've noted that my cocuswood flute absorbs the least oil, the blackwood flutes don't absorb much but they do vary with humidity and individual tightness of grain -- and the boxwood flute just sucks it up almost like bamboo. I know nothing about ebony .... BTW, there's no chance that flute is ebonite, is there -- oh, if it's got superficial cracks, probably not.

And you say it has no cracks through it? And the joints feel pretty solid? [I'm asking all these questions for my own edification, which is (hopefully) better explained below]

I've been pondering all this for about five years now, ever since I read Fintan Vallely's advice against pouring Guinness into your flute. I thought it was wacky at the time, but .... John Skelton once told me he has a photo of a Breton player holding his bombarde up to a running garden hose. And I saw Damien Stenson pour a little bottled water into the blowhole of one of his (I think bamboo) flutes during a Teada gig. And I've definitely noticed a difference in wet flutes vs. dry .... for example, my flutes always feel a lot better about a half-hour or hour into a session and I'm pretty convinced it isn't just me sucking less ; I really do think the swelling from the moisture seals up any tiny leaks and perhaps even smooths the bore grain? So perhaps wetting the flute is just a faster way to get there, esp. if the flute has a hairline crack or loose joints/tuning cork or funky pad seats or what have you.

After about 10 hours' total playing St. Pat's Day my blackwood flute was pretty thoroughly soaked -- despite a good oiling the night before and periodic swabbing throughout the day -- and was more responsive and easier to play than ever.

So there's what I've been thinking about for a while -- moisture causes swelling, which can be helpful if you have leaks.

But nope. I still ain't dumpin' no flutes in the stock tank. And I ain't advocatin' that anybody else try it, neither. Not on your life.

Anyway, hope I haven't wasted anybody's time here; just curious and thinking out loud ..... (always dangerous!)

[Cayden]

Cathy, it was a blackwood flute, the cracks didn't seem to go all the way through the, lined, head joint was fine, there was a hairline in the barrel and a few hairline cracks in the body of the flute. There was one that seemed fairly wide on the inside but it didn't go through to the outside. The joints etc were all pretty good actually. The flute played.

Pouring water, or Guinness, is something I have heard about often. Apparently the old players thought it worked wonders. Martin Rochford told me one story of how the Tulla ceiliband did their first radio appearance in 1948. One of the fluteplayers took the flutes to the toilets and flushed tapwater through them. Willie Clancy was furious as he thought the flutes had changed pitch and causewd the band to play out of tune. Martin added 'and they weren't asked back to play on the radio for another 25 years'.

Oiling is not something the old guys would have done. I was looking at Peter Horan's flute last summer and thought it probably had never seen any oil or maintenance ever. It certainly looked that way.

[Wormdiet]

Anyway, hope I haven't wasted anybody's time here; just curious and thinking out loud ..... (always dangerous!)

Oddly, I've noticed similar effects even with my polymer flute - it's friendlier when wet. Which makes little logical sense. It's probably just the placebo effect.

[BrendanB]

Peter,

Pardon my ignorance, but who are the players in the photo and where was it taken?

Thanks,
B

[Cathy Wilde]

Anyway, hope I haven't wasted anybody's time here; just curious and thinking out loud ..... (always dangerous!)

Oddly, I've noticed similar effects even with my polymer flute - it's friendlier when wet. Which makes little logical sense. It's probably just the placebo effect.

I don't know; if it's got cork lapped joints I'd bet the cork can swell a tad? Sometimes even thread lapping soaks and makes a difference (hence Caterall's advice for wrapping tenons with polyester thread rather than cotton) .... Ever noticed how it can get pretty hard to take a wet flute apart?

Thank you for the story, Peter -- that's hilarious! And I wouldn't be surprised if it changed the pitch a bit .... probably put the flutes at true concert pitch for the first time in who knows how long, and ruined everyone's life!?

[Cayden]

Peter,

Pardon my ignorance, but who are the players in the photo and where was it taken?

Thanks,
B

They are Junior Crehan and Josie Hayes playing at the Dunsallagh Feis (just outside Miltown Malbay) in 1936. They were a duet that spanned 60 years and in their heyday they were, in the words of Joe Ryan 'lovely, they were better than Sean Keane and Matt Molloy'. They also inspired 'In Good Company' which was dedicated to them.

Time to get back to the regular oil absorbtion of a new flute it just surprised me how much an old flute took.

[Jayhawk]

Wormdiet - I think polymer flutes, and other flutes, play better when the moisture is flowing. At first, the condensation seems to form little doplets that don't move much, but once a certain moisture level is obtained it flows more freely.

That's my unscientific observation FWIW (which isn't much).

Eric

[s1m0n]

Heh heh, love the quote about the quail, Casey!

Mother Nature seems to be playing little tricks with the experiment - this morning the flute weighs a whole gram more than yesterday (nope - checked the scales - the calibration weight still weighs 100.0 grams).

Next time you do this, use another unoiled flute as a control--it'll tell you how much of the variation you see is atmospheric moisture.

Err, actually, you'd need controls at all three stages--unoiled, one coat & two coats.

In fact, that would be an interesting experiment in itself; seeing how much difference oil makes to a flutes ability to absorb amtospheric moisture.