I've always held American flutes from the early to mid 19th century in the highest regard, and a few really nice ones have passed through my hands, most recently this fine example by William Hall & Son
The stamp reads...
WILLIAM HALL & SON
239 BROADWAY
N YORK
... and it is hard to read, the impression being very light, this image being the best I can come up with even with photoshop.
The NLI entry indicates that he was possibly an apprentice of Meacham, and worked for Riley along with Firth, with whom he had a partnership, and also with Pond, as Firth Hall & Pond, in New York and later Litchfield CT between 1833 and 67. In 1847 he set up independently with his son James. He seems to have moved his workshop around quite a bit, and he was at the 239 Broadway address at three separate periods between 1848 and 58.
The flute is in really excellent condition, and only required new lapping on the joints, and new pads, to instantly play easily and beautifully down to the low C.
It did require a little surface cleaning, not unusually, but what the cleaning revealed was interesting...that the flute is not cocus, as I superficially suspected, but rather Platymiscium, making it only the second Amercian flute that I'm sure is made from this timber. ( see this blogpost )
Sometimes it is possible to convey how Platymiscium actually differs from Cocus by photography, but in the vast majority of cases, I rely on having the instrument in my hand to make the distinction. I'll come back to that, but for the moment here are some other images, displaying elements of very tasty, and in some cases perhaps, unique workmanship.
The keys for example are of a common kind with a shallow cup, and the key shaft brought to a point and tapered down to a thickness a little smaller than the cup depth.
It was only when I was re-padding and had removed the old pads and shellac, that I realised that the shafts were in fact riveted to the cups...
...a most unusual arrangement, which I have to admit to never seeing before, and all the keys were assembled in this way.
If you look carefully at the second photo in the sequence, you can see the distinct absence of solder in the gap between the shaft and the cup. This now makes me think...were in fact other similar keys by American makers also constructed like this, and I didn't just look hard enough? Comments welcome from those familiar with American 19th century flutes.
Blocks and seatings are neatly made with beautiful curved sides to the blocks
Unusually, the blocks on the foot joint for C and C#, and the short F also have curved sides, something again is rarely seen, but I have seen it on an American flute before...in fact the very Rönnberg referred to above.
And of course that Rönnberg was also made from Platymiscium, a wood which Rönnberg himself seemed to identify with what he called Grenadilla [see this blog post].
Although earlier I claimed that it's hard to distinguish Platymiscium from other timbers photographically, the very large size of the vessels, which is characteristic and normally observable on the end grain, can sometimes be noticed as a much coarser "grain" than is found with cocus. This can be seen in the two photos of the seatings above, but is clearly noticeable in this image.
It was only after I had noted the similarities with the Rönnberg flute that I re-read the "Rönnberg Continued" post and realised that he had in fact worked for Firth & Hall, before setting up for himself. There's surely a possibility that Rönnberg had a hand in the making of this flute. I'd be interested to find out if anyother Rönnberg flutes have riveted key cups.
I've been recently working on Rudall & Rose 3411, and it revealed a few things that even an experienced restorer might miss.
This flute is in essence a standard instrument of the period, cocus, 8 silver keys, repaired crack in the head (through the embouchure)
One aspect is unusual though. Note that the low C# and C keys, which on R & R flutes are almost exclusively pewter plugs, are here padded cups.
More on that later.
This flute was in generally very good condition, and not only that, it was clear that the work done on the flute was of a high standard. The head crack was beautifully repaired, except that it had failed to return the embouchure to its original shape, as the crack had just been filled, with no attempt to close it. Unusually, the crack had been filled with dark coloured shellac, something that I've never seen before, and even though there was no pinning of any sort, it had remained very stable. There were a couple of other minor and totally resolvable issues, a poorly reattached half of the G# block, and standard padding and joint problems.
The flute, even with the slightly distorted embouchure played quite well, but it was decided to try and resolve the distorted embouchure, by the standard method of pulling the head liner, clamping the crack closed, re-reaming to re-admit the liner, and glueing it in place with epoxy. This done, the embouchure distortion was still evident, and playability had not improved.
I decided to check for other factors that might be affecting this. One the most commonly missed, although easily found (if that makes sense) problems, is what I've come to call a "Fitzharris" leak.* In essence this is caused by air being able to pass between the head liner and the wood of the head, the air entering this gap when the player blows across/into the embouchure. What makes this type of leak so insidious, is that the effects are very subtle, and it's not easy to detect by the usual methods such as the blow/suck test. In fact in many cases, even a Magnahelic leak detector will not show it.
The only reliable way to detect these leaks should be evident from watching the video here...much easier than trying to explain in words.
Finding the leak is one thing. Doing something about it is another. As with all leaks this involves physically preventing the passage of air from the bore to the outside, but in this case the location of where the leak reaches the outside, essentially at the bottom of the recess into which the protruding barrel liner goes when the slide is closed, makes resolving it a far from simple proposition.
On occasions, it is possible to solve a leak like this by blocking it at the embouchure, particularly where a gap between the liner and the wood can be seen at this point. The idea here is to use low viscosity CA glue and let it wick into the gap. It has to be said that this only works very occasionally.
Otherwise, the idea is to use essentially the same technique to block the leak from inside, the difficulty here being how to get the "blocking agent" to the site of the leak. Here is not the place to describe how this can be done in great detail, suffice to say that access to the bottom of the recess is of overriding importance.
In the case of R & R #3411 I'm fairly certain that the Fitzharris leak was exacerbated by the crack through the embouchure. Think about it. A crack goes all the way through the wall of the flute. In an attempt at repair, the crack is filled from the outside, but if this is done with a material of too great a viscosity, even if the crack has been pinned, there is every chance of leaving a channel for air to pass between the head liner and the wood of the head at the bottom of the crack.
As I had decided in this case to re-do the crack repair, I had hoped that this in itself would solve the leak, but it was not to be the case. However, I did manage to seal the Fitzharris leak.
The result of this was disappointing. The flute played marginally better, but certainly not to the level to which I knew it was capable, so now I began to check the whole flute for other issues.
The title of this post implies that there's more to look at here than leaks, and in fact it was in admiring some of the great workmanship on this flute that I came across another unusual problem, the solution of which went a long way to finally getting the instrument back to its full potential. I had removed a couple of the double springs to deal with a little rust and dirt that had accumulated around them, and noticed that instead of the normal flat surface underneath the double spring, that whoever was keying the flute...stringing it in flute maker's parlance...had left the spring protrude over a little shelf or step, about 0.2-0.3mm in depth, which formed a fulcrum over which the spring could flex, the idea being, I presume, to make the action of the spring more precise.
Note from this image, that the springs are held in place with tiny screws, and of course holes must be drilled in the flute body to receive the screw, which is what we would call nowadays a self tapper.
Having solved the leak in the head, without any great improvement in playability as noted above, I began to look for other sources of leaks, using the Magnahelic leak detector. This device allows the user to detect very small changes in pressure, such as would result from a leaking key for example. I promise that I'll shortly do a post about this type of leak detector, how it works, and how to make one, but for the moment suffice to know that the gauge reads effectively zero if the output of air from it is blocked, as in a closed tube or a non leaking flute, and around 6-7 on an open tube or a badly leaking flute. Interim figures show a flute that is leaking to various degrees. Imagine my surprise then, when I checked the left hand ( upper middle) joint of the flute, and got a figure of 6 on the gauge! Pressing the keys down individually, which will often show which one is leaking had no effect. The keys were removed, and holes sealed with plasticene...and the gauge still read 6. Remember this was a flute that was playing down to the low C, admittedly not very strongly. Cue some serious head scratching.
There are two other potential sources of leaks, which although rare, and most often found on low quality instruments, I have encountered before. Both of these involve what are supposed to be blind holes, i.e. they don't reach the bore. The first of these is the small hole you can see in the photo here.
This hole holds the small cork bumper which prevents the key clicking against the body of the flute, and is usually situated under the spring rivet. It's normally about 2.5mm in diameter. I've on occasions come across one of these holes which has been drilled too deeply, but given the size of the hole this usually produces a very obvious leak. This needed to be eliminated though, so Plasticene was again employed to seal these holes (the bumpers themselves having been removed) but to no avail - still 6 on the gauge. It was only after I had removed the double springs that I thought of the little holes for the screws holding them in place. Sometimes it's possible to see where a hole like this penetrates the bore simply by looking up the bore against a bright light, when the hole can be seen as a small dark spot against the polished surface, but not in this case. So I tried probing the spring screw holes with a needle, and although the G# was fine, the Bb screw hole allowed the needle point to pass into the bore.
Was this my leak? A small nubbin of Plasticene was soon applied, this time to great effect. I had a different flute in my hand.
Sealing this leak permanently was simply a matter of introducing some CA glue into the hole, Not to the extent that the hole was completely "filled in", letting it harden, and reattaching the double spring with the original screw.
Finally, even though sorting all the non too obvious leaks, had improved the flute immensely, I decided to bush the embouchure, which I did with some nice black horn from our local buffalo herd. This was the final improvement...the flute was back to its wonderful best.
One final observation.
Although there is at least one other flute by Rudall & Rose ( # 1418 ) that has padded C and C# keys, this one, in contrast to #1418 has obviously been modified from original pewter plugs. Here's an image of #1418, where you can clearly see the machined pad seatings under the C and C#.
What I found interesting is that this conversion of the striker plates to accept pads on #3411 has been done in a very sophisticated way. Have a look at this image...
The original striker plate was completely flat, and the seal, when closed, was formed by the taper ( normally 60 deg. ) on the pewter plug, fitting into the similar taper on the striker plate. You can see in the image, that in order to form seating suitable for a pad, that the striker plate has been machined to produce a raised edge that will form the necessary impression on the pad. Note also, that though the screws which hold the striker plate in place impinge on the machined surface, they must have been removed before the seating was machined, and replaced afterwards. It's beautifully done.
I think it came out well.
* Flute virtuoso Tommy Fitzharris came to me with several flutes that had this problem. He figured out this way of demonstrating it. Remarkably, it requires quite a bit of blowing pressure to produce the bubbles, much more than the blowing pressure when playing. Something strange is going on acoustically here.
Attention given to the English 19th century simple system flute, has been to a great extent dominated by the firm of Rudall & Rose, and their later manifestations as Rudall, Rose & Carte, and finally Rudall Carte. (for all interested in this area, Robert Bigio's "Rudall Carte and the Art of the Flute in England" is required reading.)
There is of course, very good reason for this. Their flutes were superbly made, and as astute businessmen they remained at the head of the market from their founding in 1821 until the early 20th century. Along with the great deal of interest that collectors in modern times have shown in these instruments, and the very large number of instruments that they made, and the fact that they successfully navigated the new world of the Böhm flute, their dominance becomes less surprising and thus no surprise that some of the other makers have been ignored or neglected.
In a previous post I talked about how George Rudall set up in business in 1821 with the Scottish maker John Rose, and how before this date, as a teacher, he had flutes made for his pupils by John Willis who was one of the most important and best makers in early 19th century England. At that time I also speculated as to why George Rudall had then begun to have his flutes made by John Rose, who at the time was an unknown maker. With a little more thought I might have realised that John Willis' dates might have given a clue. Born in 1782, he died at the early age of 41 in 1823. Was it possible that Rudall was aware of Willis' potential health problems at this time? Arguing against this is the fact that the Willis workshop continued to produce flutes of the highest quality after John Willis died.
Among which, is the flute that's the topic of this post, belonging to Garry Walsh, who has kindly allowed me to feature it here.
An experienced eye would immediately place this instrument in the same group as those that Willis made for George Rudall. The overall lines, and particularly the silver sheathed cap and foot end are characteristic. With this one though we can be sure that it is a Villiers St. product.
But the stamp initially suggests otherwise...
...as it clearly reads.
FENTUM
78 STRAND
LONDON
1240
The mark above though, is revelatory. This is the "Villiers St. lyre" which appears on very many flutes made in the Villiers St. workshop. Not all flutes made at no. 25 have this stamp, but all that have it were made there.
The attribution to Villiers St. is, in this case, easily confirmed by the stamp on the foot which gives the game away by confirming that not only was it made in Villiers St., but was made by Willis & Goodlad.
Although it is not in the least unusual to have a flute purportedly made by one maker in reality to have been made by another, it is unusual to have both "makers"
full names and workshop addresses on the same flute.
As in the case of the flutes made by Willis for George Rudall, the Willis stamp appears only on the foot.
In this case the stamp is that of Willis and Goodlad whose dates are 1825-1834.
The patent stamp? I have to say I've no idea to what patent it might refer. The whole area of flute patents in the 19th century requires research. Patent stamps appear to have been thrown around like snuff at a wake in 19th century London.
As might very well be expected, this flute is a wonderful player, responsive, with a particularly rich tone, excellent volume, and courtesy of the small holes, accurate internal tuning.
The work I carried out was simply to replace the crown and screw cork which had been replaced by a domed monstrosity.
...and in case you were wondering, the Google Maps screenshot at the top, shows the very central location of 25 Villiers St. (red pin).
It's now a Prêt à Manger, and I'm beginning to wonder if there's some pattern here..
Dollard's old premises in central Dublin is now a pizzeria.
As I referenced in the last post, William Rönnberg is a very well documented maker largely due to an interview which he gave to Baldwin's Musical Review in 1879. I don't believe any other maker has spoken in such detail about their work, and from as many different aspects.
In looking around at what Rönnberg flutes were in collections, it became clear that not only did he make a wide variety of woodwinds, but certainly in the case of his flutes, and particularly before he began to concentrate on Böhm flutes, no two of his flutes appear to be similar.
Here's a list of links to what appears to be in public collections, and also a couple that were, or are, for sale.
1/ What appears to be a rather fancy flute with a B foot. They claim that it's "clad in tortoiseshell", but I wonder is it just stained to resemble tortoiseshell. He was known to stain box wood, to make it resemble other timbers. Have a look here
2/ This one, about as different as you can get from the first, sold recently on eBay. Have a look quickly as these listings don't remain available as long as they used to...See it here
3/ Expand the photo on this one, and it actually looks a bit like tortoiseshell too. I think in this case, that this flute is made from Platymiscium, which can at times have that sort of pattern. Again, distinctly different. Look here
4/ Don't pay too much attention to the blurb with this sale...
5/ 6/ 7/
Finally three from the DCM in Washington DC. The first, DCM 0490 resembles to a large degree 1/ down to the unusual triple trill key. The final two DCM 0837, and DCM 0051 are examples of his Böhm flutes. He is generally considered more of a maker of Böhm flutes than simple system.
The flute that I wrote about in the last post is in fact the only "standard" 8 key flute by Rönnberg to which I can find any reference.
Following is the full text of the Baldwin's Musical Review article. I apologise for the mixed up line spacing etc. This is due to the fact that you can't export dictated text from Word except as an image. Weird huh?
This has to be one of the more interesting flutes I've restored, both in its own essence and structure, and how it came to me.
Firstly, though, let's look at what we know about the maker, William Rönnberg.
The NLI gives the usual basic information. Here's a screenshot, a bit bendy, but faster than copying it all out:-
In fact Rönnberg was one of the best documented of makers, and that through his own words. More of that later, but for the moment onto the flute.
A few years ago, I was given the task of clearing out the workshop of a long retired woodwind maker, and selling what was saleable. Among the 'debris' was a bag of old pieces of flutes, which on first glance appeared to be the sort of thing that all makers have - pieces which are kept in the hopes that they'll be useful someday. They rarely if ever are.
This bag, as is the fate of most such things, ended up in a box, under a bench in my workshop, where it kept company with several other similar bags, and probably a dozen one keyed Bb band flutes, in similar states of disrepair, and which were not even accorded the dignity of being in a bag.
Sometime later...at least a couple of years, if memory serves ( and to be honest, it often doesn't), I had occasion to root in this cornucopia, and again opened the bag, and glanced in. What caught my eye initially was a fully keyed foot. Despite being incredibly dirty, there was something about it that spoke to me, something unusual in the proportions of the keys and blocks.
So on this occasion, I looked at it a bit more closely, which confirmed that it really was quite unlike the English and continental simple system flutes with which I was familiar. I began to look a bit more closely into the bag, and eventually found what could potentially be the other two joints of the body. After consideration though, I decided that the lower middle was from a different flute, but had probably been pressed into use at some point to try and make a playable flute. That joint was a complete wreck, cracked through from end to end, keys missing.
For a day or two, I thought no more about it, but then I began to think that someone had really wanted to keep this flute playing, and maybe there was more of it in the bag. Searching again produced what now appeared to be the correct lower middle, based largely on the style of the keys.( and the style of the dirt! ) Now I had a fairly complete flute, in reasonable condition, importantly with all the keys present. Most importantly, a little cleaning showed that the three joints I now had were stamped RÖNNBERG NEW YORK.
There's a story told about a father who had an extremely optimistic son who wanted a pony for Xmas. The father decided to test his optimism and bought him a big pile of manure which he put under the Xmas tree ( It's a story ). Father comes down on Xmas morning to find the son digging in the manure. Son turns to father and says "There's gotta be a pony here somewhere!"
So when I realised I had all of the flute body, I, too, went digging and came up with a head and barrel which had potential, but which looked wrong in certain aspects. One thing, though, finally convinced me that the head was right, and that was the type of wood.
I've spoken in some of my other posts about a type of wood that has been used for flute making a lot more extensively than is generally realised. This wood is from the Platymiscium genus of trees, and I believe it may be the original meaning of grenadilla, before that term came to be used to mean African blackwood. Rönnberg himself had something to say on this matter, which we'll look at later, but for the moment I was happy now to confirm that I now had all five pieces of the original flute.
Here's what it looked like.
One of the things that initially fooled me about the head, was that the original rings had been replaced. I also eventually came to realise that the barrel, although apparently from the same wood was not the original.
Stripping the flute down showed some interesting features. The head was cracked and required the removal of the liner in the course of the repair. This revealed a beautifully even oval in the liner, the result of a very even undercut to the embouchure.
Stripping the dirt and finish from the wood, also confirmed that it was Platymiscium, as it revealed the "chatoyance" ( cat's eye) effect in the grain which is so typical of this wood.
It also revealed the care that Rönnberg took in concealing some small defects in the wood.
Here he inset a plug to replace a knot
or small grain defect, rather than simpler fill it with shellac as was the common solution.
In close up....
And here a small chip on the shoulder also has a carefully inset piece to build it up.
Interestingly, although this little insert has the grain in the correct orientation, the plug shown above is end grain instead of the more disguiseable side grain. The flute had a heavy shellac finish which effectively made these little repairs invisible.
Bad and all as the condition of the flute was it was certainly very restorable. The head was the really the main area of concern. Pulling the liner to fix the crack is a standard procedure, and studying and measuring the embouchure, I decided that it had probably been slightly enlarged, albeit neatly enough. I bushed it with horn.
The barrel, although not the original one - as indicated by the fact that the tenon was too short for the barrel socket - I'm inclined to think was a barrel from another Rönnberg flute. The wood was the same, and perhaps what clinched it is that the the fit between the head and barrel liners was precise. Using that tube, I made another barrel from Platymiscium. The rings on head and barrel had to be made anew, matching the existing ones on the lower middle and foot.
Finally, the whole thing was refinished to match as closely as possible what little of the original finish remained.
Result?
I think it turned out well.
The neatness and attention to detail which I had first noticed on the foot further revealed itself when the flutes was restored. This picture of the foot with keys removed makes it easier to see them.
Note the acutely angled volcano type seatings, which are so smoothly finished. Also, most unusually, the sides of the C# and C cup blocks, are curved, a feature which I had incorporated latterly on my own keyed foot joints, but had never seen on an old flute. Ecclesiastes said it...there is nothing new under the sun. These curved block sides in unusual places are also present on the short F block, again something that I did myself. Maybe I was channeling old William Rönnberg!
Other nice details, include the way in which the springs hug the profile of the underside of the key.
Here on the long F
and on the low C#
Finally, two other innovative and rather neat design features, both also on the foot.
Normally, the linkage between the low C and C# keys relies on the C touch overlapping the C#, so that when the C is pressed, the C # also closes. But on this flute, looking from above the two touches appear to be separate.
Take the keys off and turn them over, and you see what Rönnberg's solution to this was.
He simply extended the spring on the C# under the C touch ensuring that depressing the C closes both keys.
Since the keys are padded, any adjustment need to ensure they close simultaneously is achieved when burning in the pads.
Finally, something which I've never seen on any other flute.
Hard enough to see from the photo, the slots for the C# and C touches, don't run all the way through, but rather curve up to meet to shoulder, meaning that the floor of the slot curves up from the body of the flute to the top of the block.
Of course, a flute is more than an assembly of pieces of wood and silver. What does it sound like? How does it play?
Answer:-
As you might expect from a flute which was obviously made with such care, it plays very well.
Remember that although dating from at the earliest 1834 (the first date he's listed as being in New York, and the flute bears a New York stamp) the flute has very small holes for the period...at least from an English point of view. From the top down they measure... 7.1, 7.1, 6.5, 7.2, 7.4, 5.5mm
Unusually for a flute with small easily covered holes, the E hole is angled downwards, decreasing the distance between it and the F#.
The sounding length is 591mm again rather long, I would have thought for, such a flute. I will readily admit that my limited knowledge of American flutes doesn't allow me to make a proper comparison.
Suffice it to say to my admittedly sharp blow, it plays easily at 440 with a very small slide extension.
The internal tuning is also rather good. Here's a read out from the RTTA tuning app which shows that apart from the flat F# ( here played as 1234, and not in the vented fingering 1234 with either F key open which would bring it into pitch) and a slightly flat D, also standard, the tuning is excellent. In fact I've rarely seen one as good.
All in all a very interesting and unusual flute.
I referred above to the fact that Rönnberg was well documented as a maker, and this is due to an article which was published in "Baldwin's Musical Review" in 1879. (Vol 14, no 3, pp6, 7Sept. 1879)
This is a detailed interview in which Rönnberg talks about his life and work in considerable detail, and rather than quote from it to illustrate some of the points in this post, I've decided to give it in full in the next blog, along with a discussion of the various other flutes that are known from this maker.
Wylde is one of those names that constantly appears in any discussion of the English simple system flute in the 19th century.
I think it's important to realise that many of the great "flute makers" of the period never in fact made flutes. The common pattern was for a professional flautist who was engaged in teaching - most of them were - to team up with a flute maker, to provide flutes initially to their pupils, and to the general public.
Rudall & Rose are probably the best known example of this. As detailed in a previous blog, George Rudall initially worked with John Willis, and those instruments, made just either side of 1820, were stamped G. Rudall, and the only acknowledgement of the actual maker was a small WILLIS FECIT (latin for Willis made it) on the foot. Although Rose, after he went into partnership with Rudall in 1821 in all probability made some of the earlier instruments, I suspect it's more likely that his role was increasingly as a workshop supervisor, managing the production of flutes by a group of workers at different skill levels.
We see a very similar pattern with names such as Sicama, Pratten and Nicholson in England, and Tulou in continental Europe, where these performers either had flutes made to take advantage of their popularity, or were approached by established makers who wanted to associate their wares with those of famous performers.
Wylde belongs to one of a group of makers who although they did trade under their own names, produced many more flutes for others than under their own marque.
The flute I'm showcasing here is one of Wylde's so let's look at it in detail.
Ostensibly a standard enough cocus and silver 8 keyed flute, a closer examination shows some details that indicate that it's a cut above the standard. The address, 15 Newington Causeway indicates a date of 1835-36, or possibly 1832-38, but certainly the 1830s.
Firstly the wood, cocus, is a suberb example of the best quality timber, with straight even grain, and a wonderful richness and depth of colour - although this last is partly due to the finish.
All three tenons are supported at the tip and base by silver rings.
The design and working of the key slots and seatings, again shows great attention to detail. The key slots are lined, and the double spring (of blued steel) is neatly incorporated by riveting on to an extension of the liner.
The pad seatings are beautifully executed in doughnut form, which as you can see in the image above, makes an efficient impression on the pad. Note also the neatness of the spring rivet, and the profiling of the spring itself.
The screw mechanism has an ivory screw through a silver sheathed crown.
Ivory screws are commonly found on good quality flutes, even where ivory is not otherwise used. I've come to the conclusion that the reason behind this is that forming threads both external and internal, with the types of woods used in flute making is not an easy task, as the fine points of the thread tend to shear off, resulting in a "blunt" thread, which is not very functional for fine adjustments. Using ivory, on the other hand, results in a strong well formed thread which is very durable.
An unusual feature is the number stamp, which only appears on the foot, and which I read as 508.
The flute came to me in fairly good condition. There was the almost standard crack in the head, conveniently in this case, not through the embouchure.
The main problem was the severely damaged block on the foot, holding the Eb key, and the C and C# touches.
Looking from below, it doesn't look too bad...
But from this angle, you can see that the block has been replaced...and badly!
So badly in fact, that there has been no attempt to provide a side to the Eb slot. Look at the angle above, where you can see that the flat bottom of the block replacement simply sticks out as far as the original edge of the slot.
This didn't become obvious until the Eb key was removed.
So the block had to be replaced, and in doing this it became obvious why the replacement block didn't have a proper side to it. As you can see in the pic below, milling out enough material to allow a block replacement going across far enough to make a proper Eb slot means the base of the slot going through the bore of the socket.
This makes the job a little more complicated, as profiling the block to fit the socket bore couldn't be done until the block was glued in place.
The other issue with this replacement block was that of course the slots were unlined, which they were on all the other blocks, and certainly were on the original. So this meant making new liners, milling the slots wide enough to take them, and gluing them in place.
Just a note here about the whole concept of lined blocks. They become reasonably common in the late 18th century, contemporaneous with the appearance of multi keyed flutes. I can't think that I've ever seen it on a one keyed flute, but not saying that it doesn't exist. Many think that the purpose of the lining was simply to make the action of the key smoother by operating between metal as opposed to wooden sides in the slot. I don't believe that this is the case. My idea is that the real purpose was to prevent the block splitting at the level of the axle/pin hole, as the block liner would take all the pressure, as opposed to the wood. Evidence is that you never see a lined block that is split at that level.
Here's the new block replacement....
...and a view showing the block liners.
One other small detail of this flute I thought unusual. The number 210 is scratched on the head and the crown, but nowhere else on the flute.
All in all, a very nice flute.
The sounding length, at 596mm is on the long side for a flute of this period. Compare 586.5 for Prowse Nicholson Improved #3929 from approximately the same date, and much later Rudall Carte & Co. 7183 at 566mm. The embouchure measures 12.14 x 11.00, and head diameter at the embouchure is 27.5mm.
Special thanks to Simon Waters for information on the date of this flute.
