Branching out a bit... OK sorry for the bad pun. Making branch flutes is another avenue to explore. Believe it or not the people originally making these flutes 5000 years ago, or even 1500 years ago, didn’t have power tools like table saws and routers or lathes to make flutes with. They usually used materials that were already tubular, such as bamboo and river cane. However, some trees have an almost hollow centre, or at least a pithy centre than can be easily enough scraped out once you split the branch in half. Then they used pine tar or some other sticky sap to glue the two halves together, usually assisted by some wrappings of leather thong. Apparently, animal hide glue was also in common use.
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Here is some of my collection of branches saved for flute making. I have some driftwood, apple tree branches, eastern white cedar, alder, willow, maple, Balsam fir, and so on.
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Here is a branch that has been sawn in half lengthwise on the bandsaw. Then the two chambers were routed out on each half. Followed by a bunch of sanding and finally surface burning to remove fine wood fibres, harden the wood and seal the wood pores.
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The two halves have been glued together but I found I could not use clamps without distorting the wood because the hollowed out parts are fairly thin. The only place I could use the clamps was the two places where the inside of the flute is solid wood. Instead I bound it together with cord, and this worked very well.
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Here is my hollowed out branch ready for the rest of the process.
However, at this point the story takes a twist.
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I had an encounter of the unfortunate accidental kind between my finger and the router. Quite cut up but will recover OK. I won’t show you a picture of the actual cuts. There are about 10 or 12 scallop-shaped cuts all along one side and a couple on the other side, as well as the top corner of my fingernail gone and lets say my fingerprint recognition will need resetting. Knowing what this machine does to wood it is a wonder to me my finger came out as well as it did. A warning I guess. Acknowledged. So I’m out of flute playing for at least a couple of weeks. My finger doesn’t actually need the aluminum but I made it as a “bumper” because I kept hitting my sore finger on everything I reached for.
Edit: It appears I was mistaken about the number of cuts. While putting on a new dressing this afternoon i could see it more clearly. On the side I thought there were only a couple there are actually 8.