I have an Armstrong solid silver flute at the moment, and I can`t afford to upgrade the entire flute, so i`m looking into different headjoints. What are some good headjoints to try?? (NOT drelinger..i`ve seen them at flute conventions and dislike them very much) Also, does anybody have an Armstrong with a different headjoint? are there any that I could try that I wouldn`t have to resize first? Thank you!!

Here are some good ones that I have tried, but not an Armstrong flute, so the sound and response will vary. I am with you on the Drelinger headjoint, I despise them.

Powell
Muramatsu
Brannen
Sankyo (the NRS-1 is wonderful and not too pricey)
Emmanuel (Love!)
Nagahara
Arista

I have a friend that has a huge lot of used headjoints (good pro brands) that will send them to you for a trial at no cost for a week or two. If interested let me know. I don`t want to give his number out on the net.

I forgot to also add Williams and Sheridan are good also. There are so many out there to try that I haven`t yet.

Be careful about resizing a headjoint. I have an old Armstrong I tried to resize a silver head to and I ended up ruining the head trying to reduce the headjoint size to fit the flute.

The headjoint must fit in the bore of your current flute. It cannot be larger, but it can be a little smaller. You should be able to have the headjoint sit securely in your barrel with at most a single layer of scotch tape.

For security make sure the place you get your headjoint will also size the head joint to fit your flute. Test the extremities of your range. My adjusted silver headjoint cannot play above an E without insane amount of air pressure... as it`s now officially "conical" lol.

Also do try out the headjoints. Don`t for instance buy the used Muramatsu wing headjoint for $650 because its an amazing deal and it`s a well known brand without first testing it against other heads. You may find that the non-wing headjoint superior or even some other odd brand like Mitsubishi, Samsung, or Yamaha <G> you never know till you play `em.

I`ve found that high quality silver is highly tarnish prone. My head inside is getting a golden hue while my lip is getting black where my breath passes (and I clean it after every use). Doesn`t affect playing, but I hate having to break out a silver polish cloth every now and then to un-tarnish my lip plate.

I had a Muramatsu flute a while back that tarnished really fast the same way your headjoint does.

You can put Hagerty`s silver polish on it that contains the R-22 which prevents tarnish for a longer period of time. I put that on my Muramatsu and after a year later it still didn`t tarnish and the problem was solved. They make them also in convenient wipes.

I think that some are just prone to tarnish faster than others. Or maybe it is the polishing process? Maybe Mr. Anonymous might have an idea or theory.

I don`t have a problem with tarnish on any of my other flutes like I did with the Muramatsu and they have the same amount of silver content in them.

It would make sense that the more silver content, the faster it would tarnish. Most flutes are .925, but then there are the .958 Britannia silver. Piko, I wonder if your headjoint it .958?

The tubing can be a little bigger than your bore size, but not too much or you run into what Piko has spoke about.

My Natsuki head has .951 silver content. I guess there is such a thing as too much silver.

If my flute body tarnished that quickly I would go crazy. I guess .925 is that sweet spot that doesn`t really tarnish.

"...The headjoint must fit in the bore of your current flute. It cannot be larger, but it can be a little smaller...."

Pico, I`ve adjusted many heads that were too tight to go into a receiver, and they played just fine.

I agree that a SEVERE shrinking would probably have a significantly detrimental effect on acoustics, but slight shrinking is not a problem in my experience.

Was the head damaged by severe sandpapering until the metal was too thin, or something? What was the damage? Did somebody not have the appropriate specialized tools?

Tell me more!

Pico wrote "...I`ve found that high quality silver is highly tarnish prone. My head inside is getting a golden hue while my lip is getting black where my breath passes ..."

Interesting. That is very different from my own experience. My flute body is Sterling silver (92.5% silver) and my head is Britannia silver (95.8%). Neither part tarnishes any differently from the other.

I guess we cannot make generalisations form single examples.

BTW, many sterling silver flutes are actually silver plated as well. (Manufacturers seem to seldom if ever mention this.) The plating, to my knowledge, is normally pretty pure silver.

I wonder if your experience comes from the OTHER ingredients in the particular alloy your head manufacturer used.

The "technician" I that adjusted my headjoint did mention having to sand down the headjoint, the surface at the end looked pretty bad afterward. This was a Gemeinhardt head being adjusted to fit an Armstrong body. Not much of a loss, but now I know what not to do in the future.

This is Natsuki (Japanese should translate with link):
http://world.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fhomepage2.nifty.com%2fnatsuki-f%2f

Maybe there`s some special protectorant that is used like in Kara`s silver polish?

he appropriate tool, specialised specifically for shrinking flute heads, does not remove material, and does not damage the finish, if used appropriately. It is a routine operation seldom taking more than 3 minutes.

The tool is a must for any technician working on flutes. I made my own, copying a catalogue picture

"Maybe there`s some special protectorant that is used like in Kara`s silver polish?"

Yes, it is called R-22 which is a tarnish preventative.

"BTW, many sterling silver flutes are actually silver plated as well."

Yes true, I do know that Powell is one of the exceptions that do not do this. Some say that the sound is better on the Yamahas because they do this, but I am not sure if I could hear a difference myself.

Kara,
do you think you could email me the number/name of your friend that I could contact to try some different headjoints out? my email is arp05c@garnet.acns.fsu.edu
Thank you so much!

Sure, I will go email you right now.