Casey Burns "Honker" for sale

[Julia Delaney]

Casey Burns Flute



More pictures on the auction site.

[Casey Burns]

Some details about that flute. Yep it is one of mine, from about 1986-87. Closer to a Pratten than my current flutes. I was using a set of machinist stamps back then. The moniker "Honker" was applied to these flutes by a number of players so I thought I would add that to the flutes.

The wood is some lovely curly Olivewood. Some history of this tree. It was from a large Olive tree planted at Chico State in Chico, CA, removed for building construction. Then they went "Ooops!!!" It turned out they cut down a historic tree, the oldest in the state and originally planted by the first Spanish missionaries. My friend Del Stubbs, a wood turner living in Chico at the time, got much of this wood and shared it with his friends. It is lovely wood to work, I have a little bit of thios left, all of which I am keeping for my own instrument projects.

Later on I lost count and stopped stamping numbers on flutes. My current total is a rough guess based on a yearly average of 150 flutes per year since 1981, minus a few years during the first Bush Recession when I took a break to build my house. Do the math. Also, multiply this by (250)+(310)+(90), divide by 25.4 and divide again by 12 and the result is the total number of linear feet of flute produced in my career. Someone do the math for me. My eyes are blurry from driving from Seattle to Sacramento last night (down here on our way to Valencia where we are dropping our daughter off at college (CalArts) and then taking the rest of the week as vacation.).

That is a nice flute. I might bid on it myself! I love that olive wood and wish I saved more of it!

Casey

[jim stone]

What's olivewood sound like?

[Rob Sharer]

Kinda salty, with oily overtones, especially when green. Also, don't forget to remove the pimento from the bore before you play.


Rob

[whistleboy]

Hi Casey,
Good looking flute! Dumb question, but why is the mid-section of the flute considerably darker than the head & foot joint? Also, what type of wood did you use for as the accent pieces?

[Julia Delaney]

The back of the middle piece is the same shade as what you see on the head joint. The head and middle sections were cut from the same continuous length of log. The foot-joint is different, but it is obviously from the same log as well. There is a band of darker wood that runs through the head and middle section and it just so happened that Casey drilled the holes where the wood is darkest. If you turned the flute with the holes down you would see that the color matches on the two joints. Had he drilled the holes on the lighter part of the wood the color match would have been perfect.

[Jay]

Casey Burns Flute



More pictures on the auction site.

I really like the grain pattern on top of the headjoint. That's a beautiful flute. Good luck on the sale.

Jay

[pipersgrip]

That is really beautiful.

[pipersgrip]

I tried to bid, but lost.

[Aanvil]

I tried to bid, but lost.

Plenty more where that came from.