Today I'm back at the bench
trying to get a flute out the door before I go away on a two week
retreat (more on that later). This is the "Magic Flute" telling the
story of Mozart's opera. It should have been in the hands of it's
new owner weeks ago but it had a baffling problem: no
matter how solid the padding was, no matter that the tone holes had no
leaks, the low notes were weak and unresponsive.
Without going into the long procession of tests key by key down the flute, it turned out that it was suffering from a case of too much creativity. You see, chasing and repoussè are hard on the silver. The process pounds, bends, shapes and distorts the metal to create all the images that tell the flute's story. By the time I got finished, each cup had gone from being round with a flat top (which seats a pad nicely) to misshapen and uneven. This, we surmised, must be allowing enough air to escape so the flute wouldn't play.
That won't do. A flute that looks fabulous but doesn't play is not a flute - it's a statue and a waste of space. In the end, I replaced 7 cups. I soldered the chased tops of the originals onto new perfectly round ones. This made them less of a padding nightmare, making Meredith much happier, saved all the original artwork, making me happy, and reclaiming the beautiful resonant sound of the flute, to make us all happy.
Today I'll buff up the body so it sparkles like new (which it is), we'll run it through a couple of last minute tests and then call up the patient owner so she can come and claim her flute.
Without going into the long procession of tests key by key down the flute, it turned out that it was suffering from a case of too much creativity. You see, chasing and repoussè are hard on the silver. The process pounds, bends, shapes and distorts the metal to create all the images that tell the flute's story. By the time I got finished, each cup had gone from being round with a flat top (which seats a pad nicely) to misshapen and uneven. This, we surmised, must be allowing enough air to escape so the flute wouldn't play.
That won't do. A flute that looks fabulous but doesn't play is not a flute - it's a statue and a waste of space. In the end, I replaced 7 cups. I soldered the chased tops of the originals onto new perfectly round ones. This made them less of a padding nightmare, making Meredith much happier, saved all the original artwork, making me happy, and reclaiming the beautiful resonant sound of the flute, to make us all happy.
Today I'll buff up the body so it sparkles like new (which it is), we'll run it through a couple of last minute tests and then call up the patient owner so she can come and claim her flute.
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