Description
Wm.S.Haynes Handmade French flute (1961) with tone hole adjustment by Trevor Wye.
Wm S Haynes handmade flute (#30535) for sale with re-tuning by Trevor Wye.
Haynes have been making flutes since 1888 when two brothers, apprentice jewelers, decided to experiment with metals and flute making. In 1989 they first discovered the process of ‘drawing out’ tone holes from solid silver tubes. Over 135 years later they are still one of the world’s leading flute makers.
In the 1960’s, Haynes had two types of metal flutes. They had the Commercial model with “Y” arms and drawn tone holes and a handcrafted French model that came standard with thinwall (.014) tubing and soldered tone holes. This was of course prior to the Cooper scale that most flute makers were adopting. The Cooper scale made more accurate determinations on exactly where the tone holes should be and their spacing. This was designed by Albert Cooper and Elmer Cole. The Cooper scale replaced the older Boehm system that was used for many years prior to this.
This flute has had the older Boehm system, was constructed in 1961 and then re-tuned by Trevor Wye. Trevor changed the position of certain tone holes to more accurately replicate the Cooper scale and bring the tuning to 440hz. His style was to use silver ‘patches’ to part cover the older tone holes and then build new tone holes around this (please see photographs). Whilst this isn’t the most finessed way of changing the tone holes, it was effective. This flute therefore shows a number of modifications by Trevor Wye to achieve his desired result.
Regarding the flute itself, it has been rebuilt by Andrew Oxley in the last month. We felt that it needed some tone hole levelling and one of the soldered tone holes had a minor solder leak that needed mending. It then went to Cheshire Woodwind Ltd and Steve Shaw repadded the flute and adjusted it so that it now plays very nicely.
This flute has an interesting provenance and is fundamentally a lovely vintage Haynes. The work that was carried out historically has left some scars but it is a lovely old flute and is solid silver throughout with soldered tone holes, inline G with an e-ring (Also fitted by Trevor) and C foot. It will be the thinwall (0.14) tubing of the handmade flutes from Haynes of that period.
Features:
- Handmade Haynes French flute
- Soldered Tone Holes
- Modified by Trevor Wye
- French Pointed Key Arms
- Inline G
- E-Ring
- C footjoint
- Repadded
History of Haynes – Haynes History
Also consider – Andrew Oxley Solid Silver Flute – Jack Leff Solid Silver Flute – Michael J Allen solid silver flute
