Chiff and Fipple Forums

Around here, it is the emerald ash borer that is devastating the ash trees. https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/110639577/medium.jpeg We are fortunate in having other native trees that still thrive here, like black walnut, in the foreground, and eastern red cedar, in the backgroun...

I'm with Loren on two points: O'Riordans are love-em-or-hate-em whistles. I got some directly from Pat. They were wonderful for what they were, but I found the sound too pure and too loud. As a whistle maker (and Loren has been a recorder maker), I can say for sure, they are not a simple design. A l...

For years, I've been buying reamers from Gammons in Manchester, CT*. The cost has been well-worth the experience it gave me. My preferred design has a right-hand cut and left-hand spiral (RHC, LHS). Cobalt-steel costs a little more (and takes a little longer to deliver) but it lasts much longer; fo...

As far as I know, the main purpose of spiral fluted reamers is to help with chip clearing. I have found that the reamer needs to be removed from the billet and the chips hand-cleared from the flutes many times during the reaming of a single flute section. The other reason I like one or other to be ...

Well, folks, this is why I so often turn to the Chiffboard with important (and not-so-important, and even trivial) questions. I'll address questions and comments in the order they were posted. First, Loren, thanks for pointing to your post. It hadn't occurred to me that the Delrin Pratten thread wou...

Hi, all, I'm up to about six flutes made (five completed). Everything is going really well except for reaming the left-hand piece. The reamer vibrates, and this causes things to loosen. If I crank down hard enough on the wood in the lathe chuck, it's fine. I've put some flats on the reamer in the dr...

No complaints at all, David. I agree with everything I said, and I’m all for great flutes finding homes.

My "pry it out of my cold dead hands" flute is an old all-wood Nicholson rosewood by Pat Olwell. I have a fully keyed boxwood version that's close but not quite the same. For my arthritic hands, the weight or lack thereof is wonderful, but there's just something about the way it plays that...

Till this thread, I hadn't realized pau ferro was a sensitizer. But I looked it up, and it has the same compound as in the true rosewoods. Not a big loss for me, as the stuff is so resinous it clogs sandpaper and even files almost immediately, so I'd already decided not to buy more, just finish work...

I believe the NuStar mirrors were the first made with a really cool technique. X-ray mirrors can only reflect at very grazing angles, so to increase the collection aperture, they nest a whole bunch of mirrors. Each mirror is very thin. They've generally been made with electroforming -- electroplate ...

Thanks very much for this, Ben!

I'm much more music geek than ITM person. I have a few old collections including a photocopy of the first Neal collection and Joyce. So for me this is a gold mine. I'll be spending many hours going through these.

On the music page on Martin Doyle's website there is a lovely track of Desi Wilkinson playing the air My Lagan Love on a Martin Doyle flute made from Yew wood. :really: http://www.martindoyleflutes.com/music.html Now that is another wood that makes me nervous. I have had a large, lovely looking, Pa...

I am the former owner of Loren's current small-holed boxwood flute(s), and currently own an all-wood Nicholson in rosewood and also a keyed Nicholson in box. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend either, and it depends on what you're looking for. The all-wood Nicholson is the "pry it out of my cold,...

A true epoxy doesn't contain phthalates. But as you say, there are some resins out there that do contain phthalates. It's unusual, but not unheard of.

When a musician passes, I often listen to all of their music that I own. I did that with the Chieftains today. This was five of the first seven plus a few others. Along the lines of the previous couple of posts, I lost interest in them when they started doing all the stuff with guests. But listening...