When you’re not playing, it’s a good idea to keep your flute broken down and stored in its case, rather than leaving it fully assembled. A good, padded flute case should help protect your flute from temperature changes and other potential dangers. Wrap up your flute if you have to take it into the cold and leave it wrapped for a while at room temperature to warm up if it has been outside for long. Don’t do these things if you value your instrument.Ĭracks can occur with sudden temperature or humidity changes, as metal and wood expand differentially. Legend notwithstanding, it is not a good idea to pour Guinness down the bore of your flute or leave it to soak it in a barrel of water. Patrick recommends oiling a new flute at least once a week. Again, this makes sense intuitively and is unlikely to cause any harm, so give it a try. Patrick Olwell and several other flutemakers maintain that oiling the bore (the inside) of a newly made flute can improve its tone, by filling up the pores in the wood. Your flute will probably sound a bit different after you oil it, but will quickly regain its normal tone. The flute will have a nice sheen but should not look or feel oily. Let the oil soak in for a couple of hours, and then wipe it off with a dry cloth, being very careful to leave no traces of oil in the bore or the joints. (If you have a lined headjoint, obviously you shouldn’t oil the metal lining!) You can oil the outside with a few drops of oil as well, being careful to avoid getting oil on the keypads. When oiling your flute, cover the thread or cork on the joints with tape, cover the keypads with small squares of kitchen plastic wrap, swab the tone holes with a Q-tip dipped in oil, and then run a lightly oiled cloth inside the bore. In fact, flaxseed oil from the health-food store is good for oiling flutes keep it in the refrigerator so it doesn’t go rancid. Linseed oil is made from flax the residue left on your flute after oiling isn’t toxic, and it’s safe to use. Boiled linseed oil will gum up the bore of your flute and may permanently ruin its tone. If you use it, be very careful to use raw linseed oil, not boiled. Linseed oil is commonly used on wooden flutes. Another flute player, Peter Heinlein, recommends buying cosmetic-grade almond oil rather than food-grade, which tends to oxidize faster and may gum up the bore of the flute. Larry has had good results with this oil. Larry Mallette informs us of a recent article in Woodwind Quarterly (vol 6 pp.44-59) which imples that mineral and petroleum-based oils should be avoided, and recommends almond oil with 1% vitamin E oil added as antioxidant. People have used a variety of oils for this purpose, including raw linseed oil, almond oil, mineral oil, orange oil, and commercial bore oil. There’s a wide range of advice from flute makers: some say oiling is unnecessary, others advise you to oil your flute frequently. Still, oiling does no harm unless you slobber oil on the keypads (which makes them sticky), so the best advice is to play it safe and oil the inside and outside of your instrument periodically, especially when it’s new and also during the drier months of the year. This seems to be based more on word of mouth and logic than scientific evidence. The conventional wisdom handed down from many years of tradition is that you must oil your wooden flute to keep it from cracking. Use a different color thread for the outermost strands so you can see it more easily if the joint gets tight and you need to remove thread. This is good for the base winding, though you may want to use a thinner thread (silk is ideal, though harder to find) for the outermost strands of thread that you use to fine-tune the fit.
One flute maker recommends 100% polyester thread made by Gütermann, available in most fabric stores. If you have thread windings instead of cork, be careful not to use cotton, unwaxed hemp, or any other fabric that is likely to absorb water. Occasional applications of cork grease on the joints will help your fittings last longer. Swab out the inside of your flute with a soft, dry cloth after you play. Wooden flutes require much more care than metal ones.
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