I think you need to rely on personal experiences and opinions from well respected people. You should just rely on one single list. There are TONS more repair workers that are as good as those people on that list and even better. It doesn`t make sense just to say "well i`m not going to this person because they weren`t on my straubinger certified list". Some of those people on that list probably aren`t the best repair people in the world. there could be a small shop near you that is WAY better than the people on the list.

But if you have no idea where to take your flute and no one to point out a specific person then the list is helpful.

I used to take my flutes to various people in the Los Angeles area to adjust my flutes and I learned that I must be extremely specific about what problem I was having as they did not have the playing capability to notice the problems I brought the flute in for.

I resigned myself to taking my flutes to a mediocre repair person that was conveniently located as the other alternatives were just as bad until I found the Straubinger list.

I first went to the closest place on the Straubinger list which had a 3 week waiting list... then I went to the next person who had a home shop and was an hours drive away and I still had to wait a couple weeks to get my flute back, but when I got it back it was in WONDERFUL playing condition.

I recommend a Straubinger repair tech cause after about handful repair shops... the Straubinger repair person, who focused only on flutes (and was backlogged!), restored my flute to a superb playing conditiion.

I can see how the list can help in ways, but all i`m saying is don`t limit yourself to only the people that are on that list. If you really want professional advice you could call up a flute player in your local symphony and see who repairs her/his flute.

I still think you are misguided if you attach much weight to a technician saying he is this or that. Any decent repair technician can work very well on ALL brands of instrument, from professional to the worst of the student brands. Indeed it takes far more skill to do a good job on a poorly made instrument.

A quite poor technician can go on a Struabinger course, and thence to a list to impress you, but a repairer who has impressed many local customers over many years is a far better bet.

If you want credentials you could also seek out members of NAPBIRT - National Association of Professional Band instrument Repair Technicians, and believe you are getting one of the best. But likewise, I only need to pay a certain amount of money each year and I too am a member. The local technician here with the poorest reputation integrity-wise. and some mighty shonky workmanship, boasts his membership.

Actually I see my mechanical engineering qualification as far more relevant to clued-up workmanship than any sort of certification the likes of what is being discussed. Even so, I regard it as rather irrelevant to my actual performance.

My advice to anybody seeking a good technician is to ask a range of local well-established players and teachers, until a pattern of recommendation emerges. Then you are targeting how the technician performs, rather than what certificates they may like to bandy around.

I have never advertised. My customers do that for me. And I am very happy NOT to have customers who put their faith in certificates rather than performance.

The certificates really do mean very little!

Thanks for the suggestion of NAPBIRT. I had no idea that they existed. No one on NAPBIRT is local to me though, but I think I recognize one of the names as a business one of my local music stores outsource to. I may test them out on one of my old flutes.

http://www.napbirt.org/

John Packer, I recognize that name for some reason. Maybe Im just thinking of paxmans in harold hill way.

sometimes it may just be better to write it off, sad as it seems.

Sorry if I misled you in presenting the NAPBIRT list. I regard it as not much better than any other list. my point is that if you can get on a list simply by paying some money, or by attending a course, then the list means very little indeed. Many of the world`s very best repair technicians will NOT be on any `list`, and their endorsers will not need to have been canvassed, nor paid for.

Heading for any list is NOT a reliable way of finding a really good technician.

Personally, I would feel it an insult to my professional standards to be on such a list alongside others who I knew were substandard technicians who had bought/attended their way to the list as the only way of gaining some credibility in the gullible eyes of the list-lookers.

DON`T TRUST LISTS!!! Find your good technician (no matter what field) by other RELIABLE means. Perhaps you have found a good technician through a list, but I believe that this was by chance, nothing else.

Well... got my Armstrong back and while it key sealing is better than what it was I can still visibly see that pads are not sealing completely and one of the keys that is unusually higher still wasn`t fixed. The rod screw was unscrewed somewhat when I picked it up!

Thank goodness I have a backup for my backup flute to test these things out. Oi!

That`s really poor. A leak has to be pretty bad before you actualy SEE it. This guy simply does not know how to adjust a flute, let alone the rest of the evidence of poor workmanship!

I would go and demand your money back.

I didn`t make a big deal about it as I kinda expected as much, it was a $20 adjustment. There are just waaaaaay too many bad techs in my area.

So have you researched yet, from SEVERAL well-established local players and teachers to find out which tech actually knowls his/her job?

Don`t stop until a pattern emerges in the answers.... Many players/teachers get kickbacks for recommending somebody who should not be recommended.

How knackered is it?? Have you tried any others that you like. To be perfectly honest I would look at what you could get for your money. Buffet clarinets are lovely, sadly buffet flutes are not! Don`t know too much about Armstrong, but your flute is a hybrid. It is worth putting a specially made head joint on a top quality flute, but lets be honset this is a mediochre headjoint on a mediochre flute. I appologise for being blunt but I would cut my losses and look at what is on offer.

I know it`s been a long time, but I wanted to tell everyone how it turned out, and I didn`t want to say it was fixed till I`d played it. I found a technician who didn`t want to write it off, and he has replaced the headjoint cork and rebuilt it and reseated the pads so they don`t leak anymore and didn`t have to be replaced after all. It kinda feels and sounds different in a good way. I think those pads must have been leaking for a long time with me thinking it was my fault. I think the tuning may have changed a little because there used to be a difference in pitch between the normal and alternative F# fingerings and I can`t hear one anymore. It is a hybrid student flute, and concert pitch is achieved with the headjoint pulled halfway out, which I`m told is unusual, but it`s important to me that I can compete with a guitar in my bottom octave, which comes out as loud and clear as the one above it when I`m concentrating, and I`m not a good enough player to justify anything more than a student flute.

Vicky