Dimensions for a PVC F3 flute

Hi everyone! A few months ago I told you how delighted I was after building my first bass/baratone flute in F3 (175 Hz). Several folks contacted me from my Native American Flute Wood Working Yahoo group or at my blog asking for dimensions. I must say that every flute seems to have a mind of its own, so if you want a finely tuned instrument you are going to have to start with smaller holes and tune carefully... however, these dimensions will get you close! These dimensions are from my 6th F3 flute, so the hole sizes are getting pretty consistent after tuning - Yea!

I made my F3s from 1.5" Sch 40 PVC. The kind I bought is about 1.6" true inner diameter with .15" walls. It has a tough, shiny white exterior unlike some "flat" finished PVC that easily scratches and gets dirty like flat paint. This stuff is easy to wipe off and does not scratch easily. I belive the brand is Cresline (hard to read...).

In a recent exchange with Mike Jones from my group, he mentioned that an average human can not easily play holes spaced more that 1.6" apart... so, if you glance at the finger space chart below, clearly there is something going on here! I accomplish the 3.38" reach by moving the holes around the circumference, by skipping fingers and by placing holes 3 and 6 180 degrees around to the back! I play them with my thumbs. The right thumb plays easily, but I am still fairly sloppy with the left thumb. For some reason the left thumb is just not so eager to jump off the hole, so I get a pitchy note or sloppy transition. I am hoping to add a support ring or hand strap like bassoons have to convince the thumb that it can let go!

Keep in mind that almost every flute I make is tuned to a diatonic scale... Even my shakuhachis! So, these will not work with traditional fingerings. Nor are they like recorders. They are really like Irish tin "whistles". In steps it is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half - just like the white keys on a piano in the key of C. To play in various "modes", such as the minor pentatonic, I keep some holes covered and play some together (e.g. 2&3 together and 6 covered). (6 hole NAFs also keep certain holes covered except for cross fingering.) Of course, some other NAF/NASF builders also tune to a diatonic scale. I am sure that the flute builders group members could use flute-o-mat to redesign this for a more familiar NAF tuning schema if you want to.

There is no way I could reach the holes if I was trying to blow into the end of this thing! After all, the kids call her Big Bertha... So, I used a couple of 3/8" 90 deg elbows and some white 3/8" tubing to make a 9" blow tube. I drilled a hole in the SAC and pressed the elbow in. I use a little heat to install the elbows onto the tubing and I put a little soft tubing on the very end to avoid the sharp ridges on my lips. I can pop mine off and put on a new one if some one else wants to try playing it - fun! It is nice being able to adjust the position and tilt of the blow tube. It turned out that an end cap for 1" PVC makes a perfect end cover internal plug for the SAC! I routed a little channel and installed an o-ring to make a tight seal. I pop the top off to blow out condensation and for drying out. You can see more pics of F3 #1 a few posts back and I have not changed it much.

F3 (175), 1.6" Dia, 32.17" bore, K1=.5, k2~=3", Flue 1", 3/8"@45deg SAC vent
hole       4 winds   1       2       3       4       5       6       TSH
Pitch                G 196   A 220   Bb 233  C 262   D 294   E 330
From end   3.50      9.75    13.13   14.44   18.06   20.72   23.22   36.09
Finger Span          3.38     1.31            2.66    2.50
Hole Dia    .53       .50      .57     .48     .56     .50     .50   .22x.60
Hole placement       R.65            Rear     L.60           Rear

I took about 25 hours work to create my first "cheap" F3... my wife wants to know what I pay myself per hour... ya'know? Someone asked me how much I would charge for one and I said $1250. After the guy picked himself up off the floor I said, "well you have to remember that the PVC only cost $2, so I can keep the materials charge way down." I had to duck after that...

F3:

C4: Yellow Pine, composite tube

OK, so now I am able to crank them out at the astonishing rate of only 6 hours, so maybe $300? Some how I doubt people will pay $300 for a $2 PVC pipe... oh well... this is art, not business... They would probably walk away if I said $25! Now, I could probably build a $25 PVC flute in 30 min, but I would not guarantee that it would sound like an instrument!

Here is a little sound sample of my 3rd F3 playing a background and my new C4 (wood veneer) playing a lead over it. Very fun.

(Click to play mp3)

C4 and F3 Duet (Improv)

Charlie

New flute material - wood veneer tubing

New flute material - wood veneer tubing

I had an interesting trip to the Colorado Renissance Festival this Summer. I was walking by the elephant ride... you all know where that is... right? There was this bamboo flute stand...

Rod Baird ( Sound Creations ) has been making flutes since 1974 and coming to the festival for a while but I think not every year. I don't make it every year either, so I may have missed him and I did not remember him. We got to talking and I mentioned that I make mostly PVC flutes. We compared notes about several styles we make... side blown fifes, shakuhachis, Native American style flutes... I said I really like working in the PCV medium but it is certainly not beautiful like a lovely wooken flute...

Then Rob said... "Oh, you are going to like this..." He pulled out a lovely wooden flute, but said this is "wooden PCV pipe"! Actually, hardwood veener prefabricated tubing! Whoa! Was that beautiful! And as easy to make a flute as PCV pipe!... almost...

Well, mechanically it is as easy, but there are differences too. Like, that I can save the time to craft the tube, but I still have to finish the wood which is not needed with PVC! Sealing and protecting the wood tube is obviously a very important part of this flute material, but it is basically the same as a fully hand crafted flute in regard to sealing the sound producing mechanism. Wooden and PVC flutes will both "wet out" by condensation obstruting the "flue" and cutting edge which ruins the sound until it dries out again. With wooden flutes it is a lot more serious problem especially if the wood is not adequately sealed and the wood expands from absorbing moisture, which PVC does not do! So... I would have a new experience making my first wooden flute! I have made a few bamboo flutes, but bamboo is not as sensative to the moisture as wood!

Over a few days I searched the internet for suppliers of wood veneer tubing. It turns out that there are many uses for the stuff! One of the really nice uses is to cover metal or 2x4 columns and change them into a beautiful wooden column! It is very structurally hard and strong even with 1/8" walls which make it very light. It also uses our dwindling hardwood resources very efficiently. I connected with Ed Nash at Lenderink Technologies ( http://lenderink.com ), and as luck would have it, they were making some smaller tubes! Ed said he had some 1" (cedar), 1.25" (Southern Pine) and 2" (Walnut) tubes available right then! Cool!

It took a few weeks to save my pennies (although it was not expensive, it was not as cheap as PVC!) then I had to lay out a design. I decided to do a 1.25" C4 flute first and I had never built that key flute before. I usually figure that my first flute in a new key will be a throw away. I get the design close, but by the time I get it tuned there are usually one or more finger holes that are too big to play reaasonably. This time I was delighted to see very consistent and easily playable holes! Woo Hoo! It sounds pretty good too!

Here are some pics of the C4, 1.25" Southern Pine flute. The sound mechanism is similar to the system used by many Native American and pipe organ flutes. For you flute afficianodes, the diameter/column ratio is 19.74 which in the acceptable NASF range. There is a pre-chamber (SAC or slow air chamber), then a short "flue" that shoots a jet of air onto a cutting edge. If you look carefully at the end shot you may be able to see the wood and glue laminations. The inside and middle layers are poplar on the pine tube. Click the thumbnails to enlarge them.

The sound samples were recorded hastily with my Zoom H4 and also hastily cleaned up with Audacity. For the first sample I just recorded one track of the traditional hymn "Oh Sacred head Now Wounded". For the second sample, I laid down an adlib background track, then adlibed a lead track over that. I think it came out nice for one-takes. It reminded me of the woods just as the campfire is dieing down. So it is "Evening Forest".

(Click to play mp3)

F3_BF1_Evening Forest (original)

F3_BF1_OhSacredHead (Hymn)

I hope you enjoy it Ed and Rob! Thanks Ed for giving me the opportunity to try out this amazing new-to-me material!