Your flute should arrive to you in a pristine and fully set-up condition from the factory in which it was manufactured. Flute maintenance once purchased is quite minimal and although it is a precision instrument, with the right care should give years of good service.
When assembling the flute, spread your hand over the keys of the middle section. Gripping the instrument with an even but firm tension, twist the head joint into the body; these parts should go together easily and not have to be forced. Line up the mouthpiece with the general alignment of the flutes keywork. Turning the flute over, as you have already done with the head, twist the foot joint onto the middle section and line up the flat keys with the lower keys of the middle section. You can tell if the middle section and foot joint are lined correctly by placing your right hand fingers on the bottom 4 keys. Your little finger should now be able to access the foot joint keys easily. To disassemble the flute, do everything in reverse order with a twisting action, again applying even pressure to the keys whilst twisting apart.
Flute Maintenance: Useful Products
The only products you will require for flute maintenance in order to help keep your instrument in tip top condition are a silver cloth, a pad saver, some key oil and a pull through rod. These products are all available to purchase in our Bolton store.
The rod is like a large knitting needle and only requires a lint free cloth (well washed handkerchief). Place a corner of the cloth through the eye of the ‘needle’ and pull the rod with the cloth attached through the inside of the flute, removing any moisture from inside. Repeat on the foot joint.
If you are free of clumsy pets and children, you may wish to consider a flute stand. It makes that impromptu practice session more appealing as your flute is already set up and requires no assembly time.
Over time your flute will become marked with grease and the silver tarnish, this can easily be removed with the silver cloth. GENTLY rub the silver keys and bodywork of the instrument. Try not to be too rough as you may unwittingly unhook a spring and whilst not ultimately too detrimental to the flute, you may have to take the instrument to a woodwind repairer as they aren’t easy to spot.
You may find over time the keys on your flute become a little slower than they used to be. A small drop of key oil can often remedy this, but should your flute maintenance budget allow an annual service by a woodwind repairer, this will keep the instrument at its optimum playability.
We hope you found our article on flute maintenance tips useful. If you would like to enquire about a full service, click to read more about our instrument repair service.
See also: Maintenance tips for SAXOPHONE | VIOLIN |
The Booths Music repair shop is located in our town centre workshop in conjunction with Studio Circle Office Space.