Leveling Tone Holes

We recently stopped by flute finisher Lindsey McChord's bench as she was marking the edge of drawn tone holes.  This sparked our curiosity, so we asked what she was working on, and she told us that she was leveling tone holes.  Luckily, we stopped by just in time to watch the process!

Lindsey was preparing the tone holes to be leveled so that they would have flat surfaces for the pads to seat properly.  She began by marking the top edge of the tone hole with a blue Sharpie.  She then took a special round filing tool and attached a delran ring to the file so that it would fit securely in the tone hole.  The delran ring serves as a sort of "anchor," and the top of the tone hole touches the file -- which has a rough surface of 600 grit sandpaper.  There are different sized delran rings that can be attached to the file so as to accommodate the various sized tone holes.  Once the ring is attached to the file, Lindsey locks it in place with a screw driver and then turns the file against the top of the tone hole.  She then removes the tool, and the mark made by the Sharpie is gone -- because the top of the tone hole has been filed!  To finish off the process, Lindsey takes a cork with a piece of (finer) 1200 grit sandpaper and turns it against the top of the tone hole -- just as a finishing touch.  Then, she's done!  The tone hole is leveled and ready to go!

Tone holes marked with Sharpie

File with delran ring in place

Turning the file against the tone hole.

Tone hole on the left leveled -- sharpie mark gone!

Finishing with the cork tool.