Chiff and Fipple Forums

Awesome thanks everyone! This is clear confirmation that I should order a 6 key. Eight should be great but not all makers do eight keys, six seems more of a standard thing now I guess. Thank you for so of your thoughtful and detailed responses!!

Which flute keys are the best keys? By keys I mean the silver things that open up accidentals and/or accidentally. (otherwise the answer to the question would be D mixolydian obviously.) I play Irish tunes. I am seriously considering ordering a proper keyed flute from a flute maker, but I wonder if ...

I’ve been playing a Forbes for a couple of months and I like it a lot. It’s easy to get a beastly buzz and growl from it and wow it is loud. Rob Forbes’s wait list is only a couple months. Copley is usually a first recommendation, too, as he was here. Other well recommended delrin flute makers are T...

Based on other threads I’ve read on this site, it seems that it isn’t uncommon for a wood flute to shrink and a silver ring to then fall off, requiring a bit of cloth to be added under the ring to make it tight again. I wonder what happens when this shrinkage happens under carbon fiber… carbon fiber...

Nevermind, I assume that if it was indeed all wood it would not be great, but e.g. Windward says in one hidden little spot on their site that their wood rings are reinforced with carbon fiber, so I guess it's really more of a carbon fiber ring with a wood veneer over it to make it look nice. I suppo...

I've seen that some wooden flute makers have an option for wood rings instead of metal rings around the joints, placed around the socket end to keep it from splitting open. Does a wood ring still fulfill the purpose of making the socket more stable so that it doesn't crack? It seems like it wouldn't...

A follow-up and a thank-you-all: I received a flute from Rob Forbes yesterday and it is absolutely perfect for me! It fits in my hands just right (though note that I wear xl gloves … the tone holes are very large) and I got some great sounds out of it immediately. It’s easy to fly up and down both o...

Oooh that mopane shorty looks really beautiful! Are you getting a similar sound and playing feeling out of them, or are there some big differences? This is a fun process to watch, thanks for posting!

I remember playing trumpet as a kid in school, our tuning slides would get stuck often so we’d have one person take the trumpet and another person would hold the side using a towel for a strong hand hold and the two of us would pull in opposite directions and each go flying backwards when the slide ...

I like a matte finish with Delrin, myself. In the past when I've used it, I've also rubbed it with fine steel wool, going "with the grain" to give it more of a wooden appearance as well as making it less slippery. Yeah I think I prefer the matte finish a lot, too. It really *does* feel mu...

Here’s what the Galeon Firth Pond & Co looks like after the small xacto beveling of finger/ tone holes followed by 0000 steel wool. Thanks for the help, Geoffrey and Terry, I like it much better now! https://i.ibb.co/6scW8Qk/IMG-2124.jpg https://i.ibb.co/ChQWcGn/IMG-2123.jpg https://i.ibb.co/X8s...

A fairly safe way to bevel the edge of a finger hole in a non-destructive way is to take some fine steel wool (000 or 0000), wrap it around a thin cylinder and gently rub the edges. When I do this I actually wrap the steel wool around a piece of 1/8" stock that fits in a dremel tool. You can w...

https://i.ibb.co/mCDrcdM/Tone-Hole-Chopping.jpg Okay, I take full responsibility for this. If I were not inclined to just go ahead and do things that I'm totally unqualified to do, then I never would have started playing the flute in the first place! I just went ahead and beveled them all on the to...

Maker Name: Andy Xu Hang / Galeon Maker’s model type designation: Firth Pond & Co., keyless, D Material type: Delrin Headjoint: Lined, with brass tuning slide Rings: Brass Number of keys: 0 Key configuration: NA Key mount type: NA Weight: 361 g Center of mass distance above the center of the top...

OK, but don't overdo it. At one point, I got it into my mind that for aerodynamic reasons, I should boldly chamfer the tops of all the finger holes. I then found I had to press much harder to close them! And they were harder to cover precisely, as they seemed larger. Just taking off the sharp edge ...