Chiff and Fipple Forums

Hello everone,
I'm wondering what the general opinion is concerning cracks in wooden flutes...
Do we 'compress' the tube to its original size and glue/repair ? ...or...
'Fill' the crack as it is ?
I ve recently bought a very old Boxwood flute in very bad condition...
The Headpiece (6"/150mm long) and the next piece down (2"/50mm long),which have the brass tube/tuning slide inside,both have cracks for the whole length of the pieces.The cracks are about 2mm wide..
The other pieces all have 'hairline' cracks...
I'm very much enjoying the cleaning up and restoring of this Flute and its my first attempt at this......I'd hate to muck things up at this stage....
Thanks to y'all.........weedie...

weedie wrote: Do we 'compress' the tube to its original size and glue/repair ? ...or...
'Fill' the crack as it is ?

Ideally neither. Best to get the slide out, close and glue the crack, ream out the wood to accept the slide without stress, glue the slide back in, carefully aligning the embouchure hole with the hole in the slide. I'll understand if that exceeds the resources you have available.

Full gory story: http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/headcrack.html

Terry

Nice one Terry..........as usual..
In the head joint,the tube does'nt go up as far as the embouchure...finishes about 15mm below it..
Is 2 part epoxy a good adhesive for this type of repair ??...and to glue the tube back in ?
I've got both pieces of tube out of the pieces..
Thanks heaps...

Eww, glad that head & barrel are lined if they're big wide cracks!

First of all, if any makers like Terry McGee, Casey Burns, David Copley, Loren or John C. post here, listen to them first.

If they don't .... I've only repaired a few cracks (I'm a budget flute/fixer-upper kind of gal myself), though so far my repairs have all held for several years and are pretty darned hard to spot. So here's what I do ...

Let the crack open as wide as possible by putting it in a somewhat warm, dry place overnight or a little longer (on top of the refrigerator was what one person told me, although it doesn't seem very warm above mine).

Get out the magnifier; it's a must! (I use one of those cheap knitting magnifiers that hangs round your neck)

Clean the crack with acetone, then mask as closely to the crack as you can with masking tape (don't use anything too sticky)

After that, fill the crack with a combination of the runniest superglue you can find (I've had good luck with the Loctite brand) and, if you can get it, appropriate (boxwood? holly? For some reason I fear pine) sawdust.

For the hairline cracks on the unlined parts you might just want to use the superglue alone (i.e., don't worry about cosmetics and attendant thickening/drying qualities of sawdust) so the glue can get as deep down into the cracks as possible. I've also swabbed superglue into cracks from inside the bore wherever I can reach the crack.

Also try to make sure you fill any cracks at socket and tenon ends, too.

Finally, when the glue's dry, carefully clean up excess and any superglue beading along the cracks with ultrafine (0000) steel wool and maybe a bit of acetone, but not too much -- it can lighten the nitric acid stain. For the inside of the bore, I just thread a swatch of 0000 steel wool through the eye of a cleaning rod and try to smooth the glue bead and crack edges with that.

I haven't had good luck with mineral spirits -- they seem to bleach the wood and dull the finish.

Good luck!

Ooops, I see Terry's already to the rescue with a much better solution than my field triage/bandaid surgery. Yeah, Terry!

(from Mr. McGee's site)

The discontinuous surface and the additional hurdle presented by the brass liner jutting into the hole gives the air molecules rather too much to think about as they rush past at high speed.

! I love your way with words, Terry.

So do I.. ...Brains AND beauty...for Mr McGee..

weedie wrote:Nice one Terry..........as usual..
In the head joint,the tube does'nt go up as far as the embouchure...finishes about 15mm below it..
Is 2 part epoxy a good adhesive for this type of repair ??...and to glue the tube back in ?
I've got both pieces of tube out of the pieces..
Thanks heaps...

Hi,
make sure you sand the bore out so the slide will if in nicely before gluing. I usually close the crack with hose clamps, glue and fill the crack with CA glue and blackwood dust, then bore it out so the slide fits smooth. Then I will either use gorilla glue or e two part epoxy. The gorilla glue is tricky, as it will foam up in places you don't want it to go, so should be used sparingly.

I think weedie mentioned the flute was boxwood, so I wouldn't use the blackwood dust (unless you want an interesting skunk-like effect!). But otherwise, what Jon said sounds good.

Terry

Here is a photo of the poor old dear...
The inscription reads :-
"This Flute was bought July 26th 1867 by E.Frees"...whoever did this inscription must have a lot of time on their hands...(in Gaol,Hospital ?? ) because all the letters are cut from .010" brass shim AND recessed into the flute !! I wonder what the story is behind these words ?

One of the cracks can be seen through the embouchure...

Terry McGee wrote:I think weedie mentioned the flute was boxwood, so I wouldn't use the blackwood dust (unless you want an interesting skunk-like effect!). But otherwise, what Jon said sounds good.

Terry

By the look of the "Boxwood" blackwood dust just might work!

weedie wrote:Here is a photo of the poor old dear...
The inscription reads :-
"This Flute was bought July 26th 1867 by E.Frees"...whoever did this inscription must have a lot of time on their hands...(in Gaol,Hospital ?? ) because all the letters are cut from .010" brass shim AND recessed into the flute !! I wonder what the story is behind these words ?

Perhaps it was owned by Papillon.

I'm sorry, hope this doesn't offend, but I just have to say, that's the ugliest flute I have ever seen.

Whatever possessed you?!?!?!?!?!?

M

Wow! That's wild!

Maybe it's like one of those "Needful Things" flutes. If weird stuff starts happening to your luck, weedie ....

Must figure out how to save this thread for future repair purposes. Thanks, all!

cat.

Whistlin'Dixie wrote:...Whatever possessed you?!?!?!?!?!?...

Perhaps for a reason similar to that of climbing mountains, simply because it was there.