Aromatic Red Cedar Flute

New Hand Crafted Aromatic Red Cedar Flute

Close Up Of Carved Eagle Head (Cedar)

Another shot of the Flute

Today I am posting a couple of photographs of the completion of my latest project that I started after getting out of the hospital and have been working on while I recuperate from my latest heart attack.

I carved the Eagle Head (Bird) out of Aromatic Red Cedar, which took several days of hand carving and then wood burned in all the feathers and details.

I started out with a 1 1/4" square block of Aromatic Red Cedar which was then cut in half and a sound chamber routed out with a 3/4 inch router bit, then the two pieces were tightly glued back together and the 6 holes for fingering drilled and the other holes for the air channel and sounding board drilled and shaped. Then came the time to shape the flute by sanding it into a round shape, except for the place the "Bird" (Eagle Head) sits on , which must remain perfectly flat, and also rounded the area ahead of the "Bird" and tapered the area for the mouth piece and drilled a 1/4 inch hole there to blow into the flute.

Next came the "Tuning" part..which consists of determining the total length of the sound chamber and sizing the fingering holes to get it in tune. This flute is in the general range of Gm key.

I next sanded the entire flute down with descending grades of sandpaper to 600 Grit and then followed with 0000/ steel wool for a wonderfully smooth finish.

I next sealed the entire flute, both inside and outside, with Danish Oil Finish and again steel wool and then gave the whole flute a good coat of Paste Wax.

The "Bird" is held tightly with a tanned Deer Hide strip and also has a small channel cut into the bottom to allow the air blown into the mouth end of the flute to be channeled over the sound board just ahead of the Eagle Head to make the sound.

You can click on the photographs to enlarge them for a much better viewing.