Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Padding a Piccolo
Yesterday, we spent some time with our repair technician, Rachel Baker.
In addition to repairs, she also works on new piccolos built in the
shop. When we caught up with her, she was in the process of padding a
Powell Signature piccolo. Rachel mentioned that the pads used on the
Signature are Pisoni Star pads, which have a metal resonator in the
center. Unlike flute pad shimming, when Rachel pads a piccolo, she uses
shellac instead of glue to float the pads into place. She also uses an alcohol lamp to heat the key cups. Here are a few photos:
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I'm really interested in flute making... How does one go about getting the education necessary to do so?
ReplyDeleteThat is very impressive work!
Hello, jl. Thanks for the comment. Glad you enjoyed the post. There are essentially two options -- repair school or an apprenticeship. You might want to check out this page from the NAPBIRT (National Association of Professional Band Instrument Repair Technicians)website http://www.napbirt.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=57220&orgId=napbirt. NAPBIRT is a terrific organization with great information on their site.
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