Wedge fell out

[In The Woods]

Lost the Fajardo wedge in my Tipple D, courtesy of Bigfoot the kitty-cat, who knocked the flute off a chair. (Yes, I know, it shouldn't have been on the chair in the first place...) I picked up my flute and heard a rattling noise coming from inside. Turn the flute up to look into the head-joint and the wedge fell out!

Now, what to do? I went to Doug's web site, and found instructions for installing(?) a wedge. I remembered it from a couple of years before, but it was nice to get detailed instructions for me. So I tried using something semi-permanent, such as a clear acrylic paint, kind of like Future floor polish, which I could removed without too much trouble. Let it set overnight. No go.

Plan B. More drastic measures are required. I break out the industrial grade epoxy, mix up a smelly gray batch, and apply some to the curved side, then inserted it into the head-joint, knowing full well that if I didn't do my job right I was out of luck. But I put it in anyway, and let it set over night.

Picked it up and tried it the next day. HOLY COW! The tone is stronger, fuller, it really improved my flute! So I saved the day, so to speak. Don't recommend this, but if your Tipple-Fajardo wedge falls out, all is not lost. Go to Doug's website and read the directions on how to install the wedge.

With best regards to all.

Stephen S. Mack

[Stuporman]

I've had a Tipple D for a couple of years, with the lip plate and the wedge. The wedge improved the flute so much that I attached it in the proper spot with cyanoacrylate glue in the beginning and it hasn't moved since. I was afraid that I'd lose the wedge. I rarely play it anymore but it still is a surprisingly good flute. I asked Doug at the time how to attach it permanently and he, like others in posts here, suggested attaching it temporarily with blue tack or something similar. It seems that a device that imitates the qualities of a conical flute would be a "factory installed" feature. It even works as a built in measuring device for proper cork/embouchure hole distance. What disadvantage(s) is/are there to attaching it permanently?

[Denny]

If Doug glues the wedge permanently and
if you do not blow the same as Doug.
You will not be able to move the cork
to compensate for your embouchure.

resale

glue it permanently

[Clinton]

I used pascal candle wax trimmings to affix the wedge for my Tipple in place. I heated the wedge with a hair dryer, smeared a decent layer of wax onto it, held it on a chopstick and placed it in place inside the headjoint. It easily stuck in place, then I ran the hair dryer to blow hot air up the tube for a bit, put some pressure on the wedge, and it quickly conformed to the exact shape of the inside of the tube. So far, so good. Though, i have not tried beating any hoodlums or fiddlers with it yet...

Clinton

[Aanvil]

DO NOT GLUE IT

Double stick tape.

You can adjust it and remove it for cleaning when its needed.

[jemtheflute]

I'm gluing the wedges in in my piccolos as part of the manufacturing process - and the stoppers too. Mind you, on a fixed pitch instrument there is no need to be able to move the stopper and, at piccolo sizes, I am mindful of the danger to small children of loose wedges and stoppers! I have previously recommended to Doug that his default design should be with wedges glued in, only left loose to special order; but he has his reasons for disagreeing.

I disagree with Aanvil's argument above: I don't think an individual's embouchure style will affect cork position. The correct or optimum stopper placement is purely a function of the tuning length. C19th flutes had fancy stopper adjusters because they had to be able to re-tune widely using a long tuning slide, so being able to adjust stopper position proportionately was essential for good octave tuning - hence the Rudall & Rose Patent Head. When we have very standardised tuning as we do today, and hence fairly fixed tuning lengths, the need to move the stopper largely dissappears.

The fact that one player may have to pull the tuning slide out a couple of mm more than another to play at 440 will scarcely affect stopper position. How many Bohm players ever (need to) adjust their stopper? How many ITM players even of top-line wooden flutes adjust their stopper when tuning down for very sharp-making atmospheric conditions in a sweaty bar sesh? Remember, the formula is: flatten the flute by pulling out the tuning slide, push the stopper IN to correct the 8ves; and vice versa. The stopper does NOT have any other significant effect on tuning within each octave of the scale - a common misapprehension: but it does affect the relative strength and tone quality of each octave; push it in for easier, brighter high tone, push it out for strong, humming low tone. As always, compromises have to be made.

I rest my case!

Maybe you don't want to glue the stopper in, but go ahead and glue the wedge in at the most-pushed-in stopper position you are ever likely to need (i.e. one bore-diameter back from the centre of the embouchure) or maybe 2mm further down-tube (at very most). A small gap between the top end of the wedge and the stopper face if you need to push the latter out a little will not upset the playing characteristics. On a Tipple flute you are unlikely to ever want the stopper pushed further in - you won't be main-featuring the 3rd 8ve or doing anything else that might make you want to do so. Besides, most folk playing a Tipple (with its other intonation limitations), or indeed playing ITM, just don't have that finnicky an ear!

[Doug_Tipple]

In the last year or so I have started to heat-form the wedge to the inside diameter of the flute, making for a better fit than before, where the curvature of the wedge was a little flat. I am no longer recommending blue tack or anything that will raise the edge of the wedge away from the flute bore, causing more turbulence in the headjoint. With a better-fitting wedge I think that double-sided tape is an easy solution for holding the wedge in position. You can press it into postion with a stick through the embouchure hole and easily remove it with the tip of a knife or screwdriver. The type of tape that I use is Scotch "removable" double-sided tape. This tape will leave no residue on the wedge or flute bore when it is removed. Non-removable tape will leave a sticky mess. Of course, the wedge can still be glued in place with either superglue, white bathtub caulking, or another glue.

A reason for not installing the wedge on a new flute is that you cannot easily change the postion of the wedge or the tuning cork once the wedge is installed with a permanent glue. As Denny mentioned, it is nice to be able to adjust the position of the cork, should you want to do that. It is also nice to be able to move the wedge. In the commercial flutes with the Fajardo wedge, the wedge can be rotated in the headjoint allowing some fine-tuning. A permanently installed wedge doesn't allowing for any re-adjustment or fine-tuning. Also, some people do not play with the wedge at all. They like the way the flute plays without the wedge. They bring the flute into pitch with alternate fingerings for upper second octave notes, notes, by the way, that aren't used that much for many tunes in ITM.
B = XOO OXX, C# = OOX XOO, D = OXX XXX.

[In The Woods]

I glued the wedge in so that it *wouldn't* fall out again, and maybe get lost somewhere as a play-toy for our kitty-cats. I figured if the intonation was totally off, I'd simply order another D from Doug. I think I'm planning to, anyway, one of his three-piece, eight hole Ds. I'm even getting to be able to play with more dexterity!

Anyhow, the deed is done.

With best regards to all.

Stephen S. Mack

[Aanvil]

I disagree with Aanvil's argument above: I don't think an individual's embouchure style will affect cork position. The correct or optimum stopper placement is purely a function of the tuning length. C19th flutes had fancy stopper adjusters because they had to be able to re-tune widely using a long tuning slide, so being able to adjust stopper position proportionately was essential for good octave tuning - hence the Rudall & Rose Patent Head. When we have very standardised tuning as we do today, and hence fairly fixed tuning lengths, the need to move the stopper largely dissappears.

The fact that one player may have to pull the tuning slide out a couple of mm more than another to play at 440 will scarcely affect stopper position. How many Bohm players ever (need to) adjust their stopper? How many ITM players even of top-line wooden flutes adjust their stopper when tuning down for very sharp-making atmospheric conditions in a sweaty bar sesh? Remember, the formula is: flatten the flute by pulling out the tuning slide, push the stopper IN to correct the 8ves; and vice versa. The stopper does NOT have any other significant effect on tuning within each octave of the scale - a common misapprehension: but it does affect the relative strength and tone quality of each octave; push it in for easier, brighter high tone, push it out for strong, humming low tone. As always, compromises have to be made.

I rest my case!

Ah, Jem.

Typically you are very well thought out but, my friend, that wasn't my argument at all.

It was Denny's.

I won't disagree with your points on cork position.

I does seem to make a difference in the angle that the wedge however.

I believe the original Fajardo design allowed for some play in the position.

At least from the examples I have seen.

Doug also recommends double stick tape.

I rest my case as well.

[Denny]

It was Denny's.

I was going for the tuning slide being a good distance off from design.

[Doug_Tipple]

With regard to cork postion in a cylindrical-bore flute, it has already been said that a bore's length from the face of the cork stopper to the center of the embouchure hole is the standard position. This is where I generally set the cork, especially when I know that people plan to use the internal wedge in the headjoint. However, a little experimentation will demonstrate (at least to my satisfaction) that moving the tuning cork closer to the embouchure hole will improve the intonation of the uppermost notes of the second ocatave, and in some cases, depending on the chimney depth (lip plate or not) and cut of the embouchure, you will not need to use a wedge at all. Of course, moving the tuning cork will slightly affect the intonation in other ways, but I haven't found this to be a problem. If need be, as I mentioned before, alternate fingerings will bring in the notes easily. Alternate fingerings for the highest notes are not a problem for me, as I already have to learn alternate fingerings as I go between the recorder, Irish flute, and the silver concert flute.

[jemtheflute]

Ooops, sorry Aanvil, though I was also partially disagreeing with what you did say...... Rushing! I still don't think the overwhelming majority of users of Doug's flutes need to make adjustments that most of them won't understand properly anyway - and that's not being condescending. Most pro players find it all rather confusing if indeed they know about it at all! I think beginner types (and even pros using Doug's flutes for special effects) need an instrument that is known to be set up optimally for a good player, that does what it should when used well; then, if they have "issues", they know to look to themselves, not start trying to tweak the instrument!

All due respect to Doug, but when I was trying out his flute for the demo videos last year I simply could not find it usable without the wedge, no matter what physical adjustments to the flute or lipping-in I tried to do. Yes, I could lip-in or cross finger certain notes, but not satisfactorily at speed/in musical context, at least without spending very significant practice time on it: and reliably close to proper intonation without special effort or highly developed ears and embouchure control is surely what the main market for this kind of instrument absolutely needs.

[Doug_Tipple]

From his facebook posting I can see that Jem is off to session, so I can talk behind his back, so to speak. He may not see this until tomorrow morning, and I will be out of Dodge. I thought that I would add a couple of other reasons why I choose to offer my low D flute without the wedge or with the wedge unpositioned in the headjoint. One reason has to do with marketing. In the very competitive ebay marketplace for low-cost Irish flute, where previously I have sold a lot of flutes, I try to keep my base price as low as possible to seem half-way competitive with the imported flutes. In my ebay ad and in my followup email to successfull bidders, I mention the wedge and recommend it as an upgrade. Even then, I rarely get someone who chooses to bid on the buy-it-now auction unless they have heard about my flutes from other sources. For others I'm sure that my flutes seem high-priced compared with the attractive wooden flutes at bargain basement prices.

Also, since Jem has recently been conducting classes in piccolo making in the schools, he knows the joy of seeing young people discover something for themselves rather than just giving it to them. As an ex-high school teacher, myself, I also have the same desire when I send out a flute with the wedge merely taped to the side of the flute, obviously requiring some assembly. I think that it is a good lesson for beginning players to be able to see how the flute plays with and without the internal wedge. I frequently get emails telling me that they sure can see the difference the wedge makes. Of course, for anyone that requests it, I secure the wedge in what I consider to be an optimum position before I mail the flute.

[jemtheflute]

As I said initially, Doug has his reasons.....

(Yep, I'm back from the sesh - and I was watching while there via my mobile phone!)

[talasiga]

this is good jem.
a nice short post. try and vary them.
Not all posts need be detailed.