Home made aluminium nose flute, again!

After my test with a plastic samba whistle, I wanted to build an aluminium nose flute on the same principle (I love to work with aluminium...). As usual, no prior plans (I'm an empirical mind), just the idea of an horizontal cylinder, connected with a nose craddle. Well, I took an aluminium rod and cut a section, then filed the mouth hole.

Then I cut 2 circles in aluminium plate, and sanded them until they almsot fit in the cylinder ends. Finally, I stamped them with a mallet.



Then I cut and filed the labium, very sharp.




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Interlude

One reader asked me how large is my workshop... well, I have to say that I work on my desktop, in front of my computer, with very usual tools (a vise, 2 saws, a large file, some needle files, 2 metal saws, a drill, a mallet and a hammer, sanding paper, cutters, adhesive tape, and several type of glues.). Plus a shaving brush to wipe dust out and liters of great teas. I also have a buffing wheel in my "real" workshop.



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The mouth part being alsmot totally done, I cut some parts in order to assemble a nose craddle, pyramid shape, with deep triangular scoops for the base of my nose. Then I glued the parts together with a hard metal bicomponent glue.

Since I had decided to let the nose craddle totally opened, and didn't want the glue to be visible, I sprayed some red painting inside, inspired by the famous fashionable Louboutin shoes, with their recognizable red sole!
Finally, I filed the bit to "open" the end of the airway.



Then, problems began. I had to file the base of the craddle to glue it to the mouth cylinder, but didn't know the best angle. So I skyped Mr. Schuermans, and asked him for technical advices. Chris told me the labium should face the 1/3 of the airway height (uh... so easy when your airway is 1mm thick...). He also told me that making a supplementary chamber in front of the mouth was not a very good idea, so I decided to make the mouth hole bigger than I did, in order to lessen the "several chambers" effect. Chris Schuermans gave me other advices that I will put into practice the next time only : it was too late with this nose flute.

Well, I glued the 2 parts with Auto Weld and let dry for the night.



After the glue was dry, I filed and sanded it, then drilled the "trill hole" and I reamed it.

For sure, I added my "Louboutin" touch, with red paint applied as lipstick :

Done! Here is my Loboutin Hornet ("Hornet", because of the sharp angle shape and the very sharp tonality range) :


Finally, I added 2 short sections of aluminium rod, and glued a red cord to make the Louboutin Hornet hands-free :

On the sound side... The Hornet is very very sharp in its intonation. The positive points are that this flute is one of the most precise and probably the quickest flute I have. It is very powerful too, in the sharps... The "trill hole" works very fine!
The negative points are that I get some "parasitic whistlings" when I go down to the basses, and that I cannot reach very low notes.

But better is it to let you judge by yourself on this little 'free' interpretation, using the trill :