Rest in peace, dear Chris...

Dear nosefluters, we have a very sad news to share. Mr. Chris Schuermans passed away on 3rd of February in Pretoria (RSA), after a long illness, that he faced with courage and against which he fought like a lion. Chris was a very good friend of us, at Noseflute.org, and we mourn for his loss with all our heart.
 

Chris Schuermans was the designer and producer of the Bocarina^® nose flute, among other instruments. He began with clay models in the early 2000s, named Clarytone^®, which reached only a local market. But in 2011, after a huge work on the design and the fluid mechanics (including testing the shape with a wind tunnel modelization software), Chris launched the Bocarina^®, which quickly became available in the USA, Europe and Japan : a beautiful, sturdy and easy-to-play, yet musically efficient and powerful instrument was accessible for several Dollars. The Bocarina^® was indeed a high standard manufactured instrument, and has remained since the only nose flute with such capabilities in that range of prices.
 
Clarytones :
Bocarinas (Regular (in ABS) and early batches (in Polypropylene) :
Clay and ceramic Bocarinas :
Bocarinas experiments and "Glow in the dark" models :
 
Chris Schuermans could have stopped there, but he followed his researches on, and in 2016 began the production of the Bocarina Pro^®. The goal was to make an instrument in soft plastics, with the purpose of adapting to different types of noses and physiognomies. More, he designed a very new kind of fipple, with a wavy shape in order to expand the ambitus. Chris managed with a hard ABS "technical insert" (the wind way and fipple piece) inset into a soft body (nose hood and mouth shield). The global pitch was a bit higher and the nose flute a bit more tricky to manage, but above all, the manufacturing process was not satisfying (not fully reliable and expensive). That Bocarina^® II didn't convince as did the regular model.
 

The Bocarina^® Pro and its incredible fipple :
 
But Chris carried on, learning from mistakes. Trying 3D printing, 5-axis CNC routing, designing new prototypes and testing different materials, natural and synthetic wood, or rare and expensive other ones imported from different parts of the world. Chris, always very generous, sent us (The Nosy Diva and me) many of those rarities, and some sit among our very best nose flutes. For sure, these would have been too expensive to be mass produced. They were experimental objects dedicated to knowledge improvement.
 

Natural wood and Chemical wood (Necuron 651) :
 
On the ceramics side, Mr. Schuermans designed moulds to press clay, not necessarily to produce ceramic Bocarina^® in a wide number, but to ensure a regular quality. I don't know exactly how many different models were made in his workshop, but one day he had sent me another ceramic prototype (which plays wonderfully!), I asked him which one it was, and Chris answered to me : "this one should be Bocarina shape #7 or #8, I guess". Not many, but around a hundred or two of the clay Bocarinas (different shapes) reached the market, mainly in Japan (plus Chris' local one in RSA).
 

Different shapes of ceramic Bocarinas :
 
But that was not all. Already ill and sometimes very weak, Chris Schuermans had the idea to use the shape of a conch to amplify the nose flute voice. Progressing with "miss and hit", fails and wins, Chris built several prototypes, firstly from (medical) scans of real shells, then by CAD-designing a perfect shape according to acoustics. We suggested to call those "Concharinas", which name Chris adopted. He also wanted to produce some of them in ceramics, but the task revealed very difficult (too many cracks after firing the clay) but not impossible, since he managed to craft successfully some of them. Chris' strength was vanishing away, but our gentle and kind yet... stubborn friend kept on working on the Concharinas with all his heart between his stays at the hospital.
 

Medical scans of Concharinas :
Raw clay and glazed ceramics :
 
Chris' last project is a 3D printed shell-bodied violin, which he had just the time to complete. The "Conchiolin" ?
 

The Conchiolin :
 
Chris Schuermans' legacy to the nose flute world is huge. He simply re-invented the instrument with a high-tech approach, a real sense of aesthetics and a true and talented craftsmanship. More, he succeeded in manufacturing, ensuring a reliable and regular quality, making professional instruments accessible to anyboby. Chris Schuermans was a true Master, and has been inducted to The Nose Flute Hall of Fame, in the 'Producers' section, at the highest level.
 
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We will terribly miss our friend Chris. We had incredibly interesting talks with him, and funny ones too. He was a kind gentleman and a very sharp mind. We address our deepest condolences and warmest thoughts to his family, particularly to his brother Lodewyk and his children.
 

Custom 3D printed Nose Flutes

Some weeks after we posted an article about the chronology in nose flute 3D printing (check here), our friend and great whistle collector Piet Visser sent us a link to a new nose flute model on Thingiverse.com. In this Jun 9, 2016 entry, the author Samwell_II has redesigned (improved) the original model by Markbrocklebank, and explains:

Kind of a long process. I made one of these a while back and aside from a few problems with my old worn out print bed, everything worked great.

A few months later, I decided to make these for a family reunion. I wanted to put text on it along with a hole for a necklace or lanyard or anything like that, so I actually redesigned the whole thing. I opened the .STL in solidworks and simply remade it based on what I saw there and the measurements I got from the one I already printed. It took a couple revisions but I got a functional design and duplicated it so that it made me 6 at a time and printed out 30 or so. Overall, very happy with the design and I am very glad that someone else already made one.

Indeed, Samwell printed a nice bunch of nose flutes. Here they are, with his 3D printing machine (pictures © by Samwell P.):



So... I contacted Samwell, and asked if he'd wanted to make and sell me some samples. He kindly accepted for a very modest price, and even proposed to customize the flutes with 'noseflute.org' instead of the original '2016' logo. The process took some time, and a little adventure happened, while the machine run out of red ABS wire: in the following flutes, the two red ones are unfinished, yet work and sound as the complete ones.



The model design follows the shape of the wooden 'vietnamese production' type, and thus doesn't yet get the whole benefits offered by 3D printing. I mean, it took a (short) time to create new and specific designs for houses built in concrete: the first reflex was to copy shapes born from the use of bricks or stones. It is only after a little while, that architects understood how to express the "reality" and the essence of concrete, designing long windows and modeling shapes as they would have done with clay. Here, the 3D printed flutes repeat a typical nose flute design which came out from wood working, while they could have (they will, in the future) gotten the full advantage of the new tech. On that very point, these flutes are obviously early 'witnesses' of a production mean that just began.



At first, when I received the flute, I was very disappointed: I was not able to produce any sound from them. I thought it was because the airway was too thick... But finally, I got able to play the little red ones. And finally understood what was going wrong. It was my mouth position. I know how to toot nose flutes, including the Vietnamese type, but the problem was due to size of my 3D printed new babies! I adapted (placing my bottom lip much upper and against the back of the mouth shield, and any of them worked fine :) Indeed, these flutes are children sized.

Now, on the sound side, these ABS flutes are not convincing. Not because of the design, not because of a lack of care in the making (contrarywise, Samwell did a great job), but because of the limitations of the home-made 3D printing. Remember the time of the first inkjet printers that you could have on your desktop... The images produced then were rather blurry and inaccurate, compared to the fine photo quality they achieve now. It is the same for 3D printers. If you except professional ones, the detail granularity is not fine enough to build a correct labium, which has to be hard, sharp and precise. So, these flutes work, but they aren't great instruments. I would compare their quality to the current Humanatone production.

Details:




I want to thank warmly Samwell P., who very kindly and generously accepted my request and worked finely and quickly. Greetings to Murray, Utah.