I reconstructed a wooden flute from the mid 1800s!
 
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I reconstructed a wooden flute from the mid 1800s!  

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CamStLouis
(@camstlouis)
Eminent Member
I reconstructed a wooden flute from the mid 1800s!

Yeah you read that right, I printed a three foot long instrument on a Prusa mini+. I'm a madman, I know.

"Irish" flutes are really just the concert flutes of the 1700-1800s, discarded in favor of the silver flute. These now-cheap instruments found their way into the hands of Irish, Scottish, and Breton players who basically played them like a bagpipe.

This was done over several days on a Prusa mini in Jet Black prusament, 0.1mm layer height and with limits on the Y jerk and acceleration. The embouchure inserts were printed on a Formlabs form 3, though I'm reprinting them in PolyCast on the Prusa to cast in silicon bronze. The final instrument will be made in carbon fiber.

You can hear the final result in this thread.

Posted : 15/06/2022 12:22 am
CamStLouis
(@camstlouis)
Eminent Member
Topic starter answered:
RE:

If reddit is still glitching out, I reupped to Youtube:

 

Posted : 15/06/2022 12:28 am
jcjames_13009 and liked
hawai
(@hawai)
Reputable Member
RE: I reconstructed a wooden flute from the mid 1800s!

This truly deserves to be in this part of the forum!

 

It sounds really nice. Although I'm not a musician myself I happen to live with one (let's call her very ambitious amateur) so get to hear a lot of early music.

Looking at the photo it seems to me that you just printed the head and the first part and attached it to a wooden body?

How would a completely printed flute sound? Would the difference in density and resonance behaviour of the materials make for a different sound/character? I remember that quite a while ago somebody was posting his experiments with printed reeds. Using different materials and print settings he achieved a wide variety of characters of the resulting reeds and how they sounded.

Even with the same material I guess different print settings could make for interesting variations in character. Trying to simulate inhomogenous density by variations of layer height, extrusion width could be a starting point...

 

Posted : 20/06/2022 8:43 pm
CamStLouis
(@camstlouis)
Eminent Member
Topic starter answered:
RE: I reconstructed a wooden flute from the mid 1800s!

The video is of me playing a completely printed flute! The wooden middle joint in the picture is just from trying the headjoint against a different bore profile (from my main performance instrument).

The material of a flute makes more of a difference to how the player perceives the sound than the audience. While this flute is perfectly playable as-is, it's really just a test for a carbon fiber model I will be making soon. I love carbon fiber for woodwinds, it has a bright, resonant sound without being harsh.

Don't bother getting caught up in the minutia of wood grain and entrapped air pockets - the material a flute is made out of transmits only a tiny amount of sound compared to the air column in the bore. It's really more for the player - stiffer, lighter materials transmit more to the player, while heavier, squishier materials transmit less. In my opinion, a good flute transmits a lot of sound to the player and noticeably vibrates under the players hands when 'in the notch.'

Material characteristics matter a lot more for stringed instruments, as a significant amount of the material will be moving to amplify and reflect the sound. The whole front and back of a violin, for example, experience a lot of motion over significant surface area - far more than the flute.

Can you link me to the reed thread? I am developing a synthetic material to replace reed cane but haven't really investigated printing reed blades themselves. I print the staples (metal bit the blades are tied to) on a resin printer to help align the blades for my various bagpipes.

 

Posted : 21/06/2022 8:32 pm
hawai
(@hawai)
Reputable Member
RE: I reconstructed a wooden flute from the mid 1800s!

Here you go: https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/english-forum-awesome-prints-hall-of-fame/clarinet-reed/#post-349612

On second reading not that much but I'm sure the OP of that thread is happy to discuss further.

 

Thanks for the little excursion into the physics of musical instruments. I extrapolated simply from strings to wood winds. But with your explanation my mistake is now obvious. Assuming from what you said the significant sound difference between a real and a plastic recorder is more due to the shape of the head and the bore?

Posted : 23/06/2022 8:21 pm
CamStLouis
(@camstlouis)
Eminent Member
Topic starter answered:
RE: I reconstructed a wooden flute from the mid 1800s!

Thanks for the link!!

That's correct - much of the difference in plastic vs wooden instruments can be attributed to the level of care with which they were made, not the material. A plastic recorder, to use your example, is limited by the constraints of injection molding and the amount of finishing work that can be done while still making a profit. A wooden recorder will have hours of careful work put into it, along with the surface finish and slight shifting of the wood that gives each instrument a unique character.

Again, it's not that the material has NO effect, just that it's subtle and really only detectable at close range.

Posted : 02/07/2022 11:26 pm
hawai and liked
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