Flute Moisture

[outdoorwhistler]

Dear users, I searched about my problem (which is flute moisture) and I couldn't find very relevant topics. I'll elaborate my problem and I would appreciate if anyone can help me.

I've been playing whistles for three years and most of the time I do not have any problem with my whistles (although I should admit that Im relatively a wet player and that doesnt affect playing the instrument).

but it is months that Im trying to play flute but I have the problem of moisture. By that I mean after 15 minutes or so, the flute particularly under the embouchure gets loads of moisture which eventually unables me to play anylonger.

I wanted to ask whether there is a hydrophobic liquid I can spray inside the head? ( metal section under the embouchure)

Or, the way I play is wet and I should change it ( playing more powerful, diaphragm playing etc,

Best

[Terry McGee]

OK, so we're talking about a wooden flute with a metal-lined head forming a build-up of moisture under the embouchure. I'm imagining that the build-up is in the form of "beading", which then forms a roughened path for the vacillating air-pressure waves to have to negotiate. I'm guessing that that's due to the presence of a hydrophobic substance already on the inside of the metal bore, probably whatever oil or oils that have been used to oil the flute. I'd suggest we try to remove that coating, and see if we can get the excess moisture to run down the flute rather than bead around the embouchure.

Not knowing which oil or oils have been used makes it hard to guess what would best dispel it, but I'd go for this approach as the default. Most oils are easily dealt with using detergents. They don't dissolve the oil, as a solvent would, they emulsify the oil, making it let go its grip and making it susceptible to washing away. So, I'd put a piece of fresh rag in your cleaning stick, and soak it in a cupful of warm water with some household detergent added. Pull the head from the barrel, and also remove the cap and stopper if possible. Schluss the rag on the stick up and down inside the head, rinse the rag under the tap, soak up some more detergent water, schluss it around a bit more. Hey and repeat that again - what have you got to lose?

Now, rinse the rag a few times under running water and use it to rinse out the head. Indeed, run fresh water from the tap through the head - we want every trace of that oil gone. Now, put some fresh clean rag in the cleaning stick and dry out the bore with it. And dry the outside of the head with a clean rag too and set it aside to dry off if necessary.

Put the flute back together and try playing for a while. If things have gone well, the water should now trickle down the flute rather than bead in the head. Be aware of where it's trickling to. You wouldn't want it to trickle into the lap of that rather pretty fiddle player you've been hoping to impress....

[jim stone]

Other suggestions: 1. Put your fingers over the holes, your mouth on the embouchure hole, point the bottom of the flute downish and blow several times sharply. 2. Use a flute flag (search online) to swab the entire flute with one swipe. What you are running into isn't uncommon.

[pmcallis]

Terry,
Thanks for your explanation about how to get rid of "oil residue" that causes moisture beading in a fully lined flute head.
Do you have suggestions about how to reduce beading (which causes sound distortion) in a half lined flute head? I thought that you were supposed to use bore oil
on the wood to prevent moisture penetrating the blackwood but, if you use bore oil, it causes beading which causes sound problems...

[david_h]

I wonder if outdoorwhistler is also an outdoor flute player. If I practice in a cold room (or get banished to a woodshed for the long tones) I get a lot more moisture than normal. My tactic is to make sure the head is warm to start with and to take the it off and blow down the embouchure hole onto the palm of my hand every now and then.

[Terry McGee]

Terry,
Thanks for your explanation about how to get rid of "oil residue" that causes moisture beading in a fully lined flute head.
Do you have suggestions about how to reduce beading (which causes sound distortion) in a half lined flute head? I thought that you were supposed to use bore oil
on the wood to prevent moisture penetrating the blackwood but, if you use bore oil, it causes beading which causes sound problems...

Heh heh, as these are the kind of tuning slides I fit to my flutes, you'd think I would have a ready answer, wouldn't you. Sadly...

I guess the first thing to note is that the half-lined heads seem less prone to the issue, probably because they don't come up to and beyond the embouchure hole. At the embouchure hole, the vibrating air column starts out as a spiral (because we are blowing across the flute not along it), and so a build-up of blobs of moisture is more problematic than even a little way down the flute where the spiral is becoming more longitudinal.

I guess if you suspect a build-up of bore oil inside the slide, the same approach as I recommended for the full slide will work, just try not to run the detergent-soaked cloth up beyond the slide. But then it begs the question: "and how do I oil the head bore in future?" Which I guess suggests "by removing the cap and stopper and oiling from that end".

Sorry I don't have a brilliant answer. I guess we have to face facts that to keep moisture from soaking into the wood, we need to use something that repels moisture. But that something is likely to make the water bead. Unless we can come up with a sealant that doesn't cause beading.....

[Terry McGee]

I wonder if outdoorwhistler is also an outdoor flute player. If I practice in a cold room (or get banished to a woodshed for the long tones) I get a lot more moisture than normal. My tactic is to make sure the head is warm to start with and to take the it off and blow down the embouchure hole onto the palm of my hand every now and then.

I sometimes notice at a session that my flute gets a little stuffy about 20 mins in, so I just whip the head off it and run the cleaning rod up and down once. That's usually all it needs to return it, not just to where I started off, but I reckon to a little better than that. But hey, we're in subjective territory here, aren't we! Maybe I'm warming up too!

Once any beads have been banished, they don't seem to come back, possibly because the flute has warmed up.

[Terry McGee]

Hmmm, I sometimes wonder if the world is looking over our shoulders. Article in today's Guardian: "Scientists create world’s most water-resistant surface."

"The research team created solid silicon surfaces with a “liquid-like” outer layer that repels water by making droplets slide off surfaces. The highly mobile topcoat acts as a lubricant between the product and the water droplets.

The discovery challenges existing ideas about friction between solid surfaces and water, opening a new avenue for studying slipperiness at the molecular level."

We want what they're having....

[paddler]

The main cause of moisture buildup in flute heads is the difference in temperature between the flute and the player's breath, and the rate at which the air is cooled as it contacts the bore wall inside the flute, which depends on the thermal conductivity of the material. When you have a cool flute and a metal lined head, the player's breath cools very quickly when it contacts the bore wall and moisture condenses on the surface. The more moisture there is in the air, and the colder the flute, the more quickly you will build up moisture in the flute.

If you want this to happen less, then you need to pre-warm your flute to the same temperature as your breath. If you do this by playing the flute, then you'll get a lot of moisture initially, and will have to clear that. If you use other means to warm the flute it can remain dry. Unlined heads won't cause as much condensation as lined heads because metals tend to have thermal conductivity that is several hundred times that of the most conductive woods. In cool, humid, climates the problem is much more noticeably than in warm dry climates.

I agree that beading can also be an issue, but I think the factors above dominate.

[Terry McGee]

Been thinking along similar lines, Paddler. If motorcycle riders these days can avail themselves of electrically heated gloves, are we flute makers just not trying hard enough?

"Fire authorities believe that the conflagration that totally consumed the historical pub and music venue started when the heater windings on a wooden flute came into contact with the buttons on a metal-ended concertina." Uh-oh.

I wonder how hard it would be to play with a sachet of Silica Gel balanced on your tongue....

[Conical bore]

I'd just like to back up Jim's point above, that moisture buildup isn't uncommon and there are ways to deal with it. It's just a part of flute playing.

I see small beads of condensation on the metal-lined bore of my headjoint after the first few tunes in a practice session. That alone doesn't cause any perceptible difference in the sound of my flute. It may be more noticeable with a metal-lined headjoint but I remember seeing similar beads of moisture on my first wooden flute with an unlined headjoint.

What *does* cause a difference in tone is further build-up of moisture inside the rest of the flute as I continue playing, to the point where I start to notice the tone get muffled, losing the edge and bite of the notes. At that point I do what Jim mentioned, covering the tone holes with my fingers and giving the flute a good blow-out through the embouchure. Then it's back to sounding great.

A few warnings about that, however. Make sure your fingers are nice and tight on the tone holes or a little water may escape around the edges of one or more holes, making it a bit sticky under your finger until you wipe it off. You also don't want to blow so hard that you're lifting key pads or causing moisture leakage there.

You may or may not get away with this in a pub session, where the player sitting next to you won't appreciate being the recipient of the blow-out. I'm usually able to discretely aim the end of the flute behind my chair, but in these Covid-aware times it still might be frowned on. Terry's mention of swabbing out the flute might be an option, but I think I would just hold the flute vertically and tap the bottom of the flute on my pants leg, which does get at least some of the water out.

As an example of how normal this moisture buildup issue is, one time I was sitting in the front row of a concert by Kevin Crawford and Cillian Vallely playing as a duo. Towards the end of the concert, Kevin was playing with great fire and enthusiasm, waving the flute around, and the stage spotlight behind him back-lit drops of water occasionally jetting out the end of the flute towards the audience. Not close enough to hit anyone, but it was a good demonstration of how wet a flute can get.

[Geoffrey Ellis]

I know that players of fipple instruments sometimes use something like Mollenhauer Anticondens, which says that it is basically an organic detergent mixed with water that prevents beading. How easy it would be to deploy inside a flute headjoint (and how much would be needed) is an open question. I wouldn't be surprised if one could whip up their own bulk "knock-off" of the recipe. Swab the inside of the flute head with a bit before you play and see what happens.

[leydog]

How about a "spit valve" for a flute--mounted on the bottom, out of the way of the keys? As a former horn player I was jealous of the trumpet and trombone players. They had their little valves. And I had to take the mouthpiece off, twirl the horn upside down, then pull the valve tube(s) off and shake it (them). Note: I don't take a horn to sessions.

I don't seem to have an issue with my delrin flute--unlike the occasional droplets from the wood. Is there something about delrin that makes it less prone to moisture build-up?

[Moof]

I don't seem to have an issue with my delrin flute--unlike the occasional droplets from the wood. Is there something about delrin that makes it less prone to moisture build-up?

Plastics don't conduct heat/cold as well as metals, so you tend to get less condensation and possibly less beading too. It's the same reason plastic whistle heads are more resistant to clogging than metal ones.

If motorcycle riders these days can avail themselves of electrically heated gloves, are we flute makers just not trying hard enough?

I have a whistle warmer. I practise in an unheated room, it gets cold in winter, and metal low whistles take so long to warm up that it seems to take up half my practice time. I bought a soft heated mat designed for small animals and if I'm using a susceptible whistle, I plug the mat in and wrap the whistle in it 10 minutes before starting. It helps, but I imagine anyone turning up with it at a session would be skewered from all sides by enough creative banter to make a standup routine!

[Terry McGee]

Plastics don't conduct heat/cold as well as metals, so you tend to get less condensation and possibly less beading too. It's the same reason plastic whistle heads are more resistant to clogging than metal ones.

And delrin flutes are not normally oiled, so moisture is less likely to bead. Interestingly, some players maintain delrin flutes play better if oiled. Haven't investigated that one.