'Nuther Dogwood branch flute...

I'm really liking the dead Dogwood branches I've found at this one place. I had already cut this branch in half and glued it before I realized I should take a picture of it. Too, just because someone had suggested it one time, I glued up the flute and then used lots of cheap electrical tape to hold it together instead of my army of clamps I normally use...(I greatly prefer clamps!)

In the picture, the mouthpiece is to the left and the exit holes to the right...the block and sound board area sits just to the right of the knob area, top left. Again, just a good ol' dead branch I picked up where I walk Mercy sometimes, with one significant crack/split that runs the length of much of the bottom of the flute.

First, the finished pictures of the whole critter (click on pics to enlarge). It's approximately 24" long...the SAC (slow-air chamber you breathe into) is about 9" long, 1" for the sound board area, and about 14" for the barrel. As you will see, there are getting to be what are my trademark tuning holes making this a short playing barrel, holes that I really like creating as they add another artistic flare to what is a truly unique flute...






It's in the key of high F (Verdi tuning), which explains the rather tight and staggered spacing on the 6 playing holes...interesting, too, to see a decent size flute play such a high key (the earlier Dogwood branch flute post was in the key of B, significantly lower but the same overall length. All a function of bore diameter and length of the 'musical' barrel, up to the tuning holes)...

Now, it just so happens that I've tuned all my branch flutes to Verdi frequencies...probably won't keep that up, however with this flute I didn't put it to a tuner until I took these pictures just yesterday (notice I've not even signed the flute yet). One reason why I didn't care about knowing the key is I make flutes for the joy of making them...I let this come into its own voice, and it's beautiful.

Consider the 'normal' A440 tuning that we all hear in virtually any music today...a note can be sharp or flat, sort of in between notes...however, that is basically where the Verdi frequencies are, the quarter-tones in between A440 notes. Sooooooo....putting those two ideas together, when I tune a flute, it's either going to be nicely in an A440 scale or an A432 (Verdi) scale. A bit simplified, but you get the idea...which is why I decided to let this flute (and a crop of others) come into their own voices and let their keys be what they are.

"Ooooh, I'd like a flute like that in high D#...can you make one?" Could, if I had the right piece of wood, I guess...but with these branch flutes I don't want to force the bird to land in any key tree, so I don't take such orders on. They are what they are...and this one has some neat details in it...

This is my tuning hole group...I cut the first one closest to the end (right) and check the flute's fundamental...through experience I can just tell if it's too low by the qualities of the root note. So I cut another....then another...until I found a really sweet, strong note that 'spoke' to me.

In the earlier Dogwood branch flute post I mentioned, I cut it along its major crack line and discovered some inherent problems compounded by doing that. For this flute, I cut the branch in half on a plane perpendicular to the large crack. I could have done the ol' cedar dust and runny CA glue trick as before to fill it in, but I felt like adding a splash of color this time. It's actually green Malachite, but I didn't compensate for the blue-shift in the shaded area I photographed in late yesterday...


The boring insect 'designs' made for neat patterns...this one the letter "V" which I'll say is for Verdi...the crack did go all the way through to the inside of the barrel I carved out, so I put a layer of thick CA glue on the inner opening to give me a base to pour in the crushed stone and powder from the outside.

The 'foot' of the flute is neat in that I opened up the two holes at the split...and learned the hard way that when you work with a flex-shaft power carving tool that you canNOT let the cutter head hit two surfaces at once, lest you eventually break the inner shaft from the resulting sudden torque and chatter when you get too tightly in on an area (should have gone to a smaller bit instead of one that was only a tad smaller than the hole).

"Hey, Bob, sounds like you broke the shaft!?!"

Yep. You live and learn, and I found a couple of affordable shafts on-line, now en route to me as I type. While I use a Wecheer, I've been told it's even a problem for the much pricier Foredoms...basically any flex shaft carver. They have powerful motors turning a core-shaft of tightly wound wires, and if the bit gets stopped hard by the material you are working on, the motor keeps turning briefly until the wire stops it...only if you do it repeatedly, the wire breaks. learned a lot in that lesson of a few days ago, I did...

Well, that's all for now. I've also been salvaging older flutes that were collecting dust, unfinished for some technical design or musical issues, and have had good successes 'repairing' them. Been kinda sorta like the old adage I'm reminded of...

"There are no 'problems', per se, just opportunities for solutions."

Have a blessed day, all y'all!

"Coming full circle..."

(click on pics to enlarge)

You can go back to blog entries from late 2006 to early 2007 and find my pics of my winged Soul partners, a brace of Red Tail hawks that frequented the edge of a nice little forest tucked between a YMCA and an interstate beltway. Many a day Mercy and I would go romp about and often catch the pair in one tree or another, surveying their domain for a meal...or curiously looking at an off-duty weatherman and his furry four-legged companion...

"Whatcha doin', Weatherman???"

And then, at the snap of a finger one day, the tree rippers were there and going at it whole hog. And I must say, in the greater scope of downing timber, this was one of the messiest harvests I've ever seen. Worst yet, it wasn't to make way for building of anything...apparently the landowner had some dispute with local authorities and did a "I'll-show-you" move to take the timber for quick cash. I cried, it was so ugly and so disrespectful of the environment...

February 5, 2007

Kind of a shocker to see it all happening - I walked in the now-clearing, anyway, that day over a year ago. Safe to say the hawks left and basically did not return. Oh, you see 'em once in a while, but it's fairly uncommon anymore. Copious weeds and shrubby growth have moved back in, making it a challenge to get through it on a walk, especially for Mercy.

March 7, 2007

The timber miners did their work in the course of just a few days...and the above is how it was left. By this time I was beyond sad...I was a bit angered. And not because I'm anti-development, but because the land was handled disrespectfully...and until we learn that we are intrinsically a part of All, we'll never 'get it' that what we do to the environment we do to ourselves. Chief Seattle was only one of many to say as much.

And so I had this idea to walk in and salvage some of the Eastern Red Cedar and, out of curiousity, some of the Dogwood...to take it home and let it cure. My plan was to use that wood in some of my flutes, so that what was once 'wasted' would be transformed into art and music that could beneficially add back positive energy to this weary planet we steadily beleaguer.

March 15, 2007

These are some of the Dogwood logs I cut and brought home. Had I the space, I would have collected more, but for the bigger pieces from which to hopefully make flutes, they'll need to dry 2-3 years. Many of the trees were cracked lengthwise from the massive tree cutting machines, and a few I cut up into shorter pieces for blocks, like the piece pictured below...

OK, I'll grant you a lot goes on from this point to the next photo set...I took the flat bottom and sketched a rough view of what I saw the block looking like from straight above - the outline. I first sanded off the bark to get to the woody core, which allowed me to draw my sketches of where I needed to cut as it looked from all angles.

No plans here, just going inside my head and playing it by ear as I went along. Band saw, scroll saw, Dremel tool, and orbital belt sander, using whatever was best for the step at hand. Oh yeah, and a whole lot of sitting and looking at it going "this is certainly new territory for me!"

And so just last Saturday I released my first Dogwood 'effort' to a new loving home. In honor of my hawks that moved to some other vacant area before it, too, gets ripped down, I kept with a 'stylized' hawk-in-flight motif for the flute's block. The choice was obvious.

I've already used the cedar a lot for blocks in other flutes, but the Dogwood was new. Never talked with anybody that used it, and so I began to experiment. In short, I'm now a huge Dogwood fan. It's quite light in color like Holly, and has a very tight, dense grain - works like a charm and this piece was far from fragile. I fell in love with the sturdy wood, though being hard it takes a while to sand out.

Technically, I first started using Dogwood on another flute for a friend who ordered another 'special' flute...you may remember the "Jonah and the Whale" flute I blogged about last year...same fellow. However, I'm attempting some really tricky things with his flute and Dogwood pieces, and this hawk block was much more 'straightforward' for my brain. Hang in there, Mike!!! It's a-comin', I promise!

Thanks for reading this lenghty entry...it means a lot to me. Always try to make lemonade from the lemons, friends. Makes life a bit more user-friendly!