The hex-flute experiment
There was a recent thread on the Native American Flute Woodworking Yahoo Group that I read about making square flutes. It made me remember a subject I wondered about a while ago. I searched the group files to see if this had been discussed before, and did not find anything... maybe this will be of interest to others too.
Many of you probably know that until recently most fly fishing rods were made from split tonkin cane. So, they are not one piece of cane, but are actually little strips of cane split to size and then glued together! It was quite a shock when I first found that out... I just did not notice it. All of my fly rods have been composite! : )?
My dad had a fine old cane rod that he passed on to me before his death. So I dug that out and sure enough it is strips glued together! Each strip only needs to be as long as that section of the rod, with usually 3 or 4 sections.
Anyway, I wondered about making a flute like that. Either from 1/4" wood or from bamboo. It should be a lot less likely to split, but you have a lot more potential for glue seam leeks! I figured one could make a hexagonal or octagonal cross section pretty easily. You can get router bits with the correct angles. Or, I thought about building a "trough" with the correct angle, then sticking sand paper to the inside. Rough out the shape with a common 45 degree bit, then finish forming the bevels by sanding them in the trough. Finally, glue them together et voi la - a flute blank! Many drums are made this way... as well as barrels! You could leave them as shaped on the outside or turn them down to a cylinder... no need to change the inside.
Interestingly, one strip of a hexagonal flute would be almost exactly 1/2 the diameter... the perfect size for the TSH! Insert a hex plug to form the SAC which would also hold the shape while gluing with a dowel inserted a tiny bit into the south end. Of course you would build the wind way features into the final strip. After you made a few you might be confident enough to rough out the holes before gluing too. As the group mentioned before, this method would allow you to dress the inside of the finger holes. Wrap a rubber band or length of surgical tubing around it to hold it while drying.
One reason I thought the group had discussed this was in the back of my mind I remember someone talking about making a tapered square flute this way. Of course, that is exactly what the fly rod makers are doing, but with more strips! The angles are the same the whole way, so you should just be able to cut each strip on a taper, run all sides past the router bit and glue them up! The fly rod maker has a harder problem because each strip also gets thinner as it gets smaller.
As I move deeper into bass flutes, I wonder if tapering north to south would squeeze another note or two out of my limited finger stretch... ya'know? Especially if I put holes 3 and 6 on the back of the flute... Keys? I don't need no stinkin' keys! The hole placement geometry should be interesting to figure out...
I can here you already... Interesting! Give it a try and let us know how it works out for ya...
Charlie
