The Adventure Series represents a bit of a departure from my normal flute making, notably the fact that I’m using completely different materials: aluminum and Delrin (a hard, machinable plastic).
Why “Adventure”? Simply put, these flutes are made from very robust materials that are impervious to temperature and humidity, and are tough enough to be taken on the road, on the trail, in your kayak, etc.. This doesn’t mean that they are only for outdoorsy folks! Read on and you’ll see what these new creations have to offer.
This project started some months back when my friend and colleague Jonathan Walpole sent me a photo of a Delrin and aluminum flute and said, “Have you ever considered doing something like this?”. Well, I hadn’t ever considered it, at least not that specific idea. In the past I have made flutes from Delrin, which is a rather amazing material in many respects, but I stopped because I had concerns about the plastic waste and my exposure to the dust of plastics. And I’ve used aluminum before as bore liners, but never as the primary material of the flute. And I was never sufficiently intrigued by them to pursue their use. But Jon’s question got me to thinking, and the more I reflected on it the more I saw a lot of potential in this combination.
To make a long story short, the first thing I did was implement new shop protocols that allowed me to capture all of the plastic waste and dust so that it could be safely disposed of. Once that was in place, I began making prototypes.
The nice feature of these flutes, apart from their toughness, is the fact that I can make them with a tuning slide. Rather, the head joint is designed in such a way that it can move slightly up or down to adjust the pitch, and the stiffness of the slide is controlled by the player via the application of some simple, teflon plumber’s tape. This is a very desirable feature for many players, but when implemented on wooden flutes it adds quite a bit to the cost. On these flutes, it is much easier to provide such a feature without driving up the cost too much.
The other thing I realized was that using this design approach, I could make Adventure Series versions of many, if not most, of my flutes! So I now make an AS version of my Essential Flutes, the Selkie, the Quimera, the xiao and the shakuhachi. I might expand this over time, the only limit being the availability of tubing of the correct dimensions.
There are other Delrin and aluminum flutes on the market, and quite often they are budget priced and represented as being “practice flutes” or “good for beginners”. This may be due to some design simplifications or some limits on their function, and many makers might give into the widely held perception that such materials are inexpensive to use and therefore should be relatively “cheap”. My Adventure Series flutes do not fall into that category. These are fully realized, high quality instruments with performance characteristics that are the equal of anything that I make. And Delrin and aluminum tubing are not inexpensive by any means! In fact, they cost as much as some premium exotic woods do. And even though the aluminum tubing is pre-formed, in the end there is no saving of time and labor on these flutes because they have to be carefully machined to accommodate the tuning slide. Therefore they end up being on par with my wooden flutes in just about every respect. So the prices you see for these are also on par.