Kokopelli, Part 2

Hello all, it's Wednesday!

On to the second session of the three classes for our Native American-style flutes, this one was much more about finer details and less about blister-inducing carving. Though there was still carving involved. (Read about the first session here!)

This is where we left off from last week.

Picking up where we left off last time, we retrieved our flute bodies, which had been glued, clamped, and set to dry, and listened to a little lesson describing the flute chambers and pieces all working together to produce sound.

The player blows into the mouthpiece (the end with the slow air chamber which regulates wind pressure and pushes air up against the block), the air moves over the plug through a narrow section called a flue, where the air hits a "knife," or splitting edge, which divides the air over the sound hole and into the sound chamber.

The science of the flute from Flutopedia.

Flutopedia has a couple neat gifs that illustrate airstreams moving through a fipple flute.

Let's just say there's a lot of places that airflow can go wrong.

Our lesson on flute airstream dynamics.

The first step today was taking a chisel and flattening the head end of the flute where the "bird," or block, would sit. We had to carve a little past the internal wall, or plug, which was a good 7" or so. I found this woodworking a lot easier to do than the carving we did last week. I have, however, discovered some inconsistencies through the wood--the head end seemed to be much reedier, almost stringy. There was more sanding involved.

After carving the head end, we had to move up our block lines, which indicated where inside our flutes our plugs were, and mark the flattened piece.

The head end of my flute is carved flat and I've transferred the lines detailing where my plug is inside the flute.

Next we took a chisel that was roughly a centimeter wide, center it to the plug box, and draw lines along each side to mark where we would drill to create openings to the slow air chamber and sound chamber. We used a 3/16" bit. I didn't have to drill very deep, I guess I flattened my head end a little too much.

The holes I drilled around the plug of my flute, these will become the slow air chamber exit hole and sound hole.

Then we had to gouge out the flue with the chisel, which was why we measured with the chisel width (it fit perfectly by the way) to a depth of about 1/16". I would say mine's a tiny bit deeper than that. Then I took that same chisel and punched out the wood between the drill holes and began to refine their edges.

We had a number of filing instruments. I set to work cleaning the rough edges and shaping the slow air chamber to a 45 degree slope up into the flue and the sound hole to a 45 degree slope down into the sound chamber. The latter took particular finessing because that leading edge has to be sharp enough to cut the air forced into it.

One student holds the flute steady while the other drills holes around her plug.

I got the holes prepped and opted to cut out my "bird" from a block of wood while the table was free. I grabbed a saw and cut off a three inch piece that would serve as my block. One student planned to do a frog, another is planning to do a buffalo. I'm planning on sticking with a bird if I can carve out some decent wings.

Tonight was actually our first opportunity to have our flutes make sound. The holes were there, the block was there, but as I said earlier, there are a lot of places that airflow can go awry. A poor seal seems to be the repeat offender though.

Our instructor and the guy who does woodworking both got their flutes to produce sound.

I and the other student who attended today did not.

On my first attempt I was told my splitting edge was too thick and I went to work sharpening that sound hole edge. Further attempts I blame on the bird.

I spent the second half of the class trying to sand down the head piece to be flat so that block would be flush up against the flute body. But every time I held up my bird against my flute, I could see light peeking through some crack. Some minuscule hole for the air to escape. I think I got close, but we were already a half-hour past the end of class, so I'll have to try again next week.

I believe the last class will be refining that flat edge, drilling the sound chamber holes and carving my block into a pretty bird. Wish me luck.

Our flutes at the end of the second session. Mine is to the far left with the bird "block" on its end.

 Happy weekend!