Kokopelli, Part 3

Hello all, it's almost the weekend!

I attended the last of my flute-making classes with a measure of optimism and concern since, I seemed to have fallen at the back of the pack in trying to get my flute to slice air into music in the last class. But it was a beautiful evening to get the details right.

The other students hard at work on their flutes outside of Majestic View's Nature Center.

I set to work with a wood chisel carving out a longer neck piece so air exiting the sound hole didn't push up right against a mountain of flute body. The extra space dug out an extra three inches or so. It was starting to look more professional--or as professional a first-time novice can get their crooked reed to look.

Peter, our resident wood worker, sands down the foot end of his flute. He brought a beautiful carved bird to class!

Then I went right back to the same issue I had had last week, which was my bird resting over the uneven flue. I was at that a good half hour until our instructor, Grover, came over to check on my progress.

He borrowed my flute and bird from me, gave the piece an experimental blow, readjusted, tried again, and made a couple recommendations:

First, I file the fipple, or knife's edge, to a better angle of attack with the flue. I had originally filed the knife's edge to a 45 degree angle, or close to that, but I ended with a 60 degree angle or so to better cut the air forced out of the flue.

Grover filing the fipple of my flute to line up with the flue.

Second, I cut the length of my bird down so there was less uneven area to rest on. He marked a few lines on the bird so its block would be maybe two inches long instead of three. I agreed with this assessment since the bird was causing me a lot of grief. Or I was causing myself grief because I can't wood chisel/sand straight to save my life.

Third, and this came later, was to add a spacer to close the distance between the air exiting the flue and entering the sound hole. A centimeter is a huge space to cross for that tiny jet of air and it needed a little help getting closer to that knife's edge before dissipating.

I did everything I was told to do.

I filed the knife's edge to a stronger, sharper angle, sawed around my bird's "feet" to make it better fit over the Slow Air Chamber, flue and sound hole, and sanded, sanded, sanded the heck out of a little spacer--height, length and thick-wise. That bit of sandpaper never stood a chance.

Sanding that spacer to the correct proportions was time-consuming, but that little nub of wood rewarded me for my efforts!

Meanwhile, other students were warming up orchestra style all around me. Me too, me too, just wait! I did let my neighbor borrow my phone because she wanted a specific pentatonic scale and I have an app with a piano keyboard. She found her base note (the sound the flute played without holes drilled into it) was an F.

Physics takes over at this point. The length of the flute, the thickness of the walls, the spacing and size of the holes, all has an effect on how a flute will sound. Just like a bass, the longer the flute, the deeper the tone. If the sound chamber is narrow, say because of thick walls because the carver was getting a blister, the pitch is going to be high.

A flute-maker may start with a certain base note, but as soon as holes are drilled into the flute, it changes the shape and therefore nature of the sound wave traveling through the sound chamber. A flute that started flat can end up sharp once all is said and done.

There was a lot of science going on as folks tuned their flutes. Our wood-carving expert Peter was strides head of the rest of us, he managed to get his flute to tune and play up a veritable octave of music. I was still struggling with my bird.

Sawing the bird was particularly challenging because as you can see, it's not a very big block of wood--there's only so much to grip while saw teeth bear down on your hand. And the side I sawed down on seemed to go with the grain, it was very difficult to make headway. It felt good to watch those pieces go flying.

My lumpy bird cut down to size and the sanded spacer set into the sound hole of the flute.

Prepped, I popped in the spacer, lined up that bird, took a steadying breath and...

SHE SINGS! 

Having secured my phone once more, I got a D5 out of the flute. A super high D because my sound chamber was so narrow inside. But for the moment I didn't care, I had music! Sweet, ear-screeching music! 

I was nervous about drilling the holes because a couple other students had and their flutes no longer made sound--something had gone wrong with the resonance in the sound chamber. One student even went so far as to use a machete to split her flute open again and carve out the interior.

Having spent the majority of class time making modifications, and watching a storm cloud roll in with these lightning bolts that kept getting larger and larger, I thanked my instructor for the class and took off at a jog with my equipment.

Safely at home just before the sky ripped open, I set right back to work with a power drill to carve out a wider sound chamber, consulted the almighty Internet for tuning recommendations and drilled some holes. So far, I've gotten the flute to play the first and second holes closest to the foot end. I'll have to science the rest.

But still, what a fun class. I would go so far as to say the experience was not about the flute itself, though it did serve to tie the whole package together. I got to learn a few more skills, a bit more about air and its properties, problem-solving and the importance of patience and perseverance--all things that will ultimately reward you with a tune in your pocket. 

The completed project, a flute in the style of Native American musical instruments.

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!

Kokopelli, Part 1

Hello all, long time no write. But with summer around the corner, I finally have time to do more extra curricular activities again.

Now I have the distinct advantage of working for a newspaper, I trawled through a local section (before it went to print) and stumbled across a class for making wooden flutes. Having taken a class making candles from various materials like wax, animal fat, oil, from the same instructors, I knew I would come away with new knowledge, a couple more skills and a neat trinket I made myself. Sold.

I snapped a quick picture off of the then-unprinted information detailing the time and place of the wooden flute class.

The wooden flute making class, pattered in Native American style, is a three-part class hosted by the Sarqit Outdoor Living School. These folks do all sorts of neat survival classes, including tanning hides, blacksmithing, a ton of crafts and general wilderness survival skills. I can attest our instructors are an interesting pair.

For the first day of class, we learned our flutes would be made from sotol, a member of the yucca family, which was harvested in Arizona. I imagined we would have had something much smaller to work with--a flute body that was a foot long or so. These yucca "trunks" were cut into roughly 18"-24" pieces with roughly a 2" diameter.

Our instructor went on to tell us we would clean the pieces, split them down the middle, and hollow out two matching chambers on the interior.

We get lectured on the steps of making a flute for the first class.

We had four students appear today, myself included, and we each chose a piece of sotol to carve.

The raw stalks of sotol that are destined to become flutes.

 Clean and halve

We all watched as our instructor took a machete and raked away all the dried growth on the outside of the stalk. Then he lined up to blade at the top and used a sturdy, heavy stick to set the machete into the head of the wood and continued to pound the opposite end of the blade until the stalk cut cleanly into two. (Master note: It's a good idea to keep the handle lower than the tip of the blade for better control.)

Then it was our turn. I was sitting there thinking, 'We really get to wield a machete?' 

We did.

I'm pleased to report I didn't loose any fingers or suffer any bodily injury while hacking away at my stalk. It was actually a lot of fun. I asked where our instructors got their machetes, to which they responded the pieces were gifts. And most machetes sold in stores are a bit more of the showy variety rather than the functional sort. And a saw-machete was somewhat useless, though having a machete and a saw often go hand in hand so it's a good idea to have both, if separate. Good to know.

Drawing lines

Next we had to mark up what needed to be carved out. Native Americans used a lot of hand measurements like their hand widths and fingers for carving, which was exactly what we did. The compression chamber (the recess a player will blow directly into) was measured to the size of my fist. The block was about an inch in length or roughly my first knuckle. The sound chamber comprised the remaining length of the stalk.

We also had to mark a 1/4" line along the edges of both halves as guidelines for the hollow of the sound chamber, as well as mark the compression chamber and windway.

The beginnings of my wooden flute pictured beside an example piece brought in by our instructors. You can see the narrow windway, the compression chamber, block, and sound chamber outlined in purple.

My stalk was a bit of a challenge because as you can see, it curves. I was very careful tracing my lines, but I still messed up a bit in a few places. But I figured so long as I understood what needed to be cut and what needed to remain, I felt I'd be all right.

It needs a hook

The pictures cut out immediately here because I became so engrossed in what I was doing. Carving out wood turns out to be very labor-intensive work. Our tools were knives and hook knives.

A hook knife, carved knife, crooked knife, bent knife. It cuts wood.

Feeling very much the caveman, it took me a solid half hour before I figured out the trick was to pull the blade toward yourself. The opposite was exhausting and much less effective. But when I finally got it, I was soon sitting in a pile of wood shavings. Not to say it was easy, it wasn't, but I felt I was making a dent in the work. Literally.

We chatted while we carved. I had a few good rejoinders when I was paying attention, but I was chiefly set on widening that darn hollow. It took the majority of the class time and I was last to finish.

Sanding

Having cut the compression and sound chambers for both halves, I joined the other students in sanding down the rough edges of the chambers. We used a 100 grit. My hand was red from the carving and intense heat from friction didn't help it much. Another ten minutes to smooth out the interior and I asked if I was ready yet for gluing. Our teacher told me one of my halves was too thick on the foot end of the flute. I agreed. This was the second half I did and I was struggling to thin that foot-to-head end.

I sat back down and went back to carving with the hook knife (gave my pointer finger a new blister) and sanded it all down again. Because heat and friction really are good for--yeah.

I got approved for the second round. Thank goodness, class time was already over and I was holding my poor instructors from going home.

Gluing

The final step of the night was gluing that narrow 1/4" seam for both halves of the flute. Our instructor was pleased to get to this step because we would have more time to create our birds. (See next post.) I was last to glue, but I stuck the pieces neatly together, wiped off any beads on the outside and we put five clamps on the body to keep everything in place. 

It has a week to set.

To be continued next week.

Happy weekend.