Three-D printing - a threat to flute makers?

[an seanduine]

Umm.
since this is a prototyping machine for jewelry, the keys would be a two-step process. Prototype in casting wax, then lost wax casting. Three-step if you include heat treating to harden the castings. . . .

Bob

[Casey Burns]

I'm not worried.

Might be a useful tool for testing designs. But I doubt if it has the ability to finesse a good flute into a great flute only possible with long practice. Also, the raw material is increasingly unstable and unpredictable.

Injection molding is another approach. But again - then there is the finessing. Just not practical if you have to move a tone hole .5mm to get it into a sweet spot.

Also, plastic doesn't age with time, the way wood does. Sort of the difference between a bottled energy drink made of chemicals and a good red wine known for longevity.

Casey

[Sigurthr]

Why are the Aulos Traversos so expensive still? It can't be that they still haven't recouped their investment, and even if so, would not the lowering of the price promote more sales? I'd really like to get one - one day, but I just can't bring myself to drop $400 on a mass produced piece of plastic. A good pvc or delrin flute has been worked over by a master, I don't think the same can be said for an Aulos, so I'm really not sure why they charge so much.

[bogman]

Two things, as Casey says about the materials are unpredictable, wood is not going to give an identical tone and pitch even though the dimensions are identical. Even with metal, as in whistles, Chieftain whistle are made to a jig and should be pretty much identical but in fact are a lottery. Colin Goldie hand tunes his whistles once they have been drilled by fine back cutting, is a machine going to do this?

But more importantly, any musician worth his salt and with a true respect for the music has a duty to support dedicated craftsmen who make quality instruments. Personally. I will always pay a bit more to support the bigger picture. Few top class makers are loaded, judging by the few I know, if you put care and time in to get the quality of instrument you're looking for then only so many can be made.

Down with the machines!!!!

[keithsandra]

Fortunately, (or not, depending on your point of view) the market for any kind of flute, keyless or otherwise, is not big enough to get serious attention from this new manufacturing method - yet. But when the price of these office size printers drops, particularly into secondhand figures, there may be a retired whistle craftsman with a penchant for new techniques who'll get in on the act, though whether it will ever be more than a craft hobby so far as a sustainable income is concerned will be dictated by the size of the market for flutes and whistles. Look at Yamaha and Aulos and other mass production wind instrument makers, they don't do anything in whistles or keyless flutes and have managed to keep their other wind instruments at high prices compared to the little they cost to produce - all because the market is so small.

As in all such things, new technologies and the market will decide what choices flutists and whistlers are going to have in the future. But the future certainly lies in this kind pf printing - just look at footwear production, for instance. Only millionaires can afford hand crafted shoes made of natural, unprocessed materials nowadays, even if they're not made to measure, even if they can find the craftsmen ... Let's hope there are millionaire flutists and whistlers interested in hand crafted whistles and flutes when economics eventually allows 3-D printing to take over our cosy little niche ...

Onwards and upwards.

K.

[Denny]

crow....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwHgszH0aqI

[an seanduine]

I think it would help if they got an actual flute player for their demo. . . .

The scary part is that they clearly have the resolution of detail to do a Rudall & Rose.
It's all gonna be 'the learning curve' from here.


Bob

[Sigurthr]

It definitely is possible it seems, though they do need a flute maker's/player's knowledge to proceed properly it seems. I still can't believe how oddly that guy in the demo was holding the flute, but perhaps he was trying to close keys that would not stay closed (like the two trill keys?) so he needed both hands up top? Personally I would have asked for some rubber bands and at least held the flute so it looked like I could play it!

[tucson_whistler]

that's pretty cool. i wonder what that first flute cost?

anyway, i don't think anybody needs to worry about it... Aulos hasn't driven Peter Noy out of business as far as i can tell... maybe it's even helped him? i would suspect Mr. Tipple has helped sell a lot of wood flutes in the long run.

cheers,
eric

[Casey Burns]

Crow probably tastes fine, cooked in the right sauces.

That machine currently costs $40,000 which is about what I clear in a good year. And then, there is the learning curve costs, the prototyping costs, etc. Then what is produced is made from the proprietary resins that have to be used with the machine.

Eventually the price of the machine will come down with popularity. But the resin will remain expensive, as the real money to be made will be selling the resin, not selling the 3D printers. Just look at the prices of Inkjet ink compared to Inkjet printers!

I wonder how long it took to measure up a flute and convert it to CAD.

It would probably take someone a few months to one or two years of learning curve and practice to get to the point where they were producing regularly with this. Unless they already had CAD experience. I base this on the experience of a friend who did this with a large CADCAM machine that is now part of his production cycle (he runs an instrument manufacturing plant).

During that learning curve time, one might find themselves struggling with a recalcitrant machine (anything computer-based is going to be recalcitrant, and subject to crashing). In the meantime they are not concentrating on what makes an instrument work really well. Their focus is misdirected. Thus after two years investment they would end up producing a crappy instrument with no clue how to make it any better. And they could (in the case of this plastic flute) make an impressive 584 crappy flutes a year, at 15 hours a pop.

The flute player in that video illustrates my point well. He can get a tone out of it but clearly has little flute playing experience. Certainly the technology used to produce that flute is amazing and wonderful and the fact that it produced a flute-like object is also amazing and wonderful. But wonderful machinery is no substitute for artistry. I've seen this before where people without much of a clue about an instrument they want to make using some amazing computerized machinery, think that the amazing machinery will eliminate the need for a learning curve or replace the necessary understanding of what makes an instrument work well.

For flutes, the possibility of inexpensive computer aided manufacturing has actually been around for some time, in the form of 3 and 4 axis computer controlled milling machines. A few makers are using this even. These have much lower price tags (under $5000 even, aimed for the hobbyist market) and the learning curves are not as steep. With some the cutter is even replaced with a feeler which can then measure a part to be copied, generating the machine code necessary which is then adjustable. I know of a nearby workshop that is set up for everything from prototyping to manufacturing with such machinery. Yet none of them are flute players or makers (and they have run out of other ideas of things to make apparently, and are waiting for someone with new ideas to walk through the door) and so this machinery is idle most of the time.

At 29+ years into this, I'll probably stick to my old analog methods. A computerized mill would be handy for generating block mounts. But for turning a simple profile, I can still do that in a matter of minutes. In any material I prefer to work, rather than some expensive proprietary resin that I would have to buy from HP or some other manufacturer. And the computer between my ears that controls my machinery is still pretty good at this!

Casey

[Denny]

point is some twits done it




makes it a matter of time not possibility

ah, there's other videos of another twit with a recorder like object

and wasn't I on the they will not bother side?

[Feadoggie]

crow....

Yum! We have seen the future.

ah, there's other videos of another twit with a recorder like object

That one is not worth watching, truly a twit. He knows how to use a 3D printer but has no clue about the instrument's design and it's use.

[Kirk B]

"Tell you what, if you study flute making for at least the next ten years and really become a proficient craftsman, we will allow you to make computer generated flutes (and play the unicorn song). But only after all of us have grown old and died off."



Cheers,

Kirk

[jemtheflute]

I think it would help if they got an actual flute player for their demo. . . .

I checked out the vid. I think the test player knew exactly what he was doing - towards the end there are comments that support what might be deduced from his actions, that the mechanism is not properly operative. He obviously understands the mechanism so that he can readily use both his hands within the normal scope of the L hand to effectively close the faulty mechanism down to G to demonstrate the sound, but he'd have needed an assistant to go further. At one point he holds the instrument conventionally and comfortably - but clearly it won't play thus. He also produces a very decent tone and knows what he's talking about re: the embouchure. Not a twit!

It is really a rather impressive, even if an incomplete project. If they can get near the mechanical complexities of a Bohm flute thus....... and clearly they can sort out the problems that clip illustrates. But that doesn't mean, as others have said, that it is anywhere near heading for commercial viability.

[tucson_whistler]

i thought too, if he can blow a flute embouchure, he must know something, even though i couldn't see what he was doing with his hands.

i'm curious why they had to break it into 3 sections, and why. that implies there are still limitations to what they can machine at one go...

and that thing didn't exactly look like a regular Boehm flute to me, which implies, again, more limitations...

just curious what they are; no to contradict anyone, as has been stated, the twits have done it.

cheers,
eric