UGLY BOY FLUTES

 by Bob Child      

JULY 25 - Relentless, this summer’s heat. At close to 4,000 feet elevation, it’s rare that nighttime temps don’t drop below 70 degrees, but now it’s commonplace. Virtually no breezes, except around the occasional afternoon storm. Not great conditions for putting on flute finishes, but at least the shop is shaded and ‘cooler’.  The sunrises are almost always pleasant, and the pics I put at the top are usually from just a day or two prior to the date stamp. It’s my time of day, for sure.

My extra-long weather work ended a few days ago, and after another Monday-Tuesday go of it, I’ll have a bit of a break before more work in late August. I have not signed up for a single art show for 2010...Bele Chere is this weekend in Asheville, and the heat would have done me in had I vended there this year. I much prefer the wonderful support from online friends and adoptions!!!

Flutes are trickling out, but at the moment I’m more in my cutting and glue-up phase. Bought a board of some neat looking Macassar Ebony that will make one flute close to high C...it looks like chocolate sauce swirled through coffee ice cream. Lately I’ve taken such specialty boards and made ‘kids’....their prices are higher due to the wood cost (this piece alone was $45), but worth every penny. The Tamboti and Striped Gaboon Ebony high C round-bores are current examples of flutes from one-of-a-kind boards.

Think I’m getting ready to add to my tool set by jumping up to a much larger jointer than my little Delta table-top one...this will allow me to take logs and work them into usable form for flute blanks...I like reclaiming wood like that, and you can find some spectacular stuff if you can just get to it! Last but not least, there is a *NEW* webpage at the top of this page: “HOW...” which shows the basics of how an Ugly Boy is born!

NEW FLUTES! click on pics to go directly to pages

Low Bb (Bb3) Cedar log with painted Red-tail hawk feather 

High D (D5) in Brazilian Cherry with Sapele block 

Low D (D4) in Mansonia with Ebony heartline - ‘antiqued’ block is Sitka Spruce made in the style of a shaman’s Killer Whale bone amulet 

High B (B4) in Maccassar Ebony , leaping cat in Gaboon Ebony , Malachite inlay

Looking for that one-of-a-kind artpiece flute? go check out the ‘specialty’ page:   

(click on any picture to go to its link)  

gift certificates now available!

custom flute dvd now available!

SOUND SAMPLES: I may have figured out why on a few computers all the sound samples played at once...the culprits were the “Windows Media Player” files, not the “Quicktime” files. I used to load both to make sure all systems could hear them; alas, ALL FILES ARE NOW POSTED IN QUICKTIME, which you’ll have to have to hear files if you can’t already. It’s free and won’t mess your system up...simply an Apple platform, even though I don’t have a Mac.

Alright, for any and all questions, requests for pics, sound samples, you name it, here is my email addy to use: note that being a ‘Yahoo’ account, your computer MIGHT slip any return emails from me into your ‘trash’ or ‘spam’ bin, so make sure to check that if you’re waiting to hear from me....

weatherflute@yahoo.com