Native American Flute Making Classes
The next flute making class has NOT YET been scheduled at Woodcraft in Dallas, TX. (North Dallas) Stay tuned to this page for future classes. 
Please call Woodcraft at 972-241-0701 to sign up & to get driving directions.
Photos taken: July 17-18, 1999 Dallas, TX
The pictures on these pages were taken during the Native American Flute-Making Class taught by Terry Austin at the WoodCraft store in Addison, Texas (North Dallas Area). His classes are a lot of fun and students learn a LOT about flutes and flute carving over the 2-day weekend, and go home with a finely tuned, ready to play Native American flute!
Here in Terry's own words, is a synopsis of a typically fun weekend.
Click on any THUMBNAILS to see an enlargement of the photo.
Introduction
Earlier this year, I taught another flute making class at the WoodCraft store in Dallas (actually Addison) Texas. We had a rather small group, with only 4 students. I've set the limit at 6 so we could have handled a couple more but this was a comfortable size to work with. The classes have the luxury of using the workshop/classroom of this wonderful retail woodworking store. Any tool needed that is not in the workshop gets rolled in off the showroom floor. What a deal!
As you read this please keep in mind that we had students of all levels of experience in the class. One fellow is a master carver who teaches carving classes in this same classroom, one fellow was a very good home woodworker, one lady had taken my class before and is herself a wonderful intarsia worker, the final student was inexperienced with most of the tools we would be using - HER flute ended up being one of the best looking flutes in the entire class!
I had selected and surface planed the wood before the class but that is all the preparation done to the stock. Each student received a 25" long 6" wide piece of wood planed to 16mm.(0.63") and from that, at the end of the two day class, they had a flute made by their own hand. I should also say that I went through quite a bit of lumber in choosing wood for use in the class, trying to get the most interesting looking grain I could find while keeping it easy to work with. Read into that, I was trying to avoid knots, reaction wood and other trouble spots which could cause trouble for inexperienced hands.
Day 1 - Part 1
Knowing that many people look at a piece of wood and think simply "Wood", we discussed the grain of a few specific pieces. I pointed out features on one side of a particular piece that carried all the way through to the other side and described what it might look like if transferred from a flat plank into a rounded feature. At least one commented that they had never tried to visualize what wood grain below the surface might look like. Such internal features and their consideration play a huge part in my selection of wood for flutes. Students chose their stock piece from a nice selection.
From here we went to the table saw to rip the flute blanks. I must say here that WoodCraft is well prepared for the classroom experience. They have an information/safety check sheet for each and every tool in their shop. Before using each tool we ran down the features (in some detail) and each feature has a spot for each student to initial, then sign the whole before continuing. I know full well the store does that for legal reasons but it is still a good idea and it helps instructors keep track of what information has been covered.
Next step is layout... More discussion evaluating each piece, do I flip the left piece over the right or flip it under? What does each of those choices do to how the grain looks? Which end should be the mouth and which the foot based on what grain features you want to enhance? I provide each student a color coded story stick (to keep) with markings already laid out at the necessary spots. Marks are measured for rough router cuts, sound hole placement, airway hole placement, bore end finish marks (similar to router rough cuts but more refined), nest area borders (I make a recessed nest). From these you can see the students had to decide at this point which half is top and which bottom, as well as which side of each piece is inside (bore side) vs outside.
Once the layout is done, we proceeded to the router and cut the bores in multiple depth passes.
LUNCH!
When the first students finished the bore cuts I sent them off to lunch asking them to please bring the starving instructor a burger since it didn't look like I'd get away. Some were working slowly and deliberately which I ENCOURAGED! I didn't want anyone hurrying and either causing a problem with their flute or (heavens forbid!) hurting themselves.
Day 1 - Part 2
After lunch we cleaned up the inside of the bore with Dremel and hand sanding. One student accidentally gouged the sidewall of their (gender neutral!) flute and I used the opportunity to discuss several patching possibilities. This little scratch was filled with fine sawdust and thick gap-filling CA glue then later polished down. Even the mistakes become learning tools, it was GREAT!
We then rough cut the (now undersized) sound hole and airway holes from layout lines derived from the story stick.
At this point we were ready to cut away the excess material from the nest area. We measured bore depth, stock thickness, figured how thick we wanted the wall at sound hole and decided from that how deep to cut the nest. Nest cutting in class (and my shop) is done with a Dremel router table, it's a handy little tool!
Once the nest was cut each student used a flat headed detail sander, or a wooden sanding block (their choice) to polish the nest area smooth..
With the nest cleaned up students cut an initial ramp to the sound hole that would be refined later when voicing the flutes. This initial ramp was done with a foredom flex tool at low speed with a tungsten carving bit.
The interiors of each flute were examined, evaluated and discussed...
...with some changes being made to a few.
At this point the students had the opportunity to woodburn a signature or design inside the bore of their flute. I burn in a little Kokopelli, signature and date under the playing holes of all my flutes.
The flutes were ready for glue-up so we checked the alignment of each, laid out aluminum foil so we wouldn't stick to any of the nice workbenches and proceeded to glue our day's work together. I use polyurethane glue and discussed that choice with the students.
Once the flutes were clamped, we swabbed the bores to clean up the squeeze-out. Thanks for the suggestion, Dusty! I've used it ever since.
This was where we stopped on the first day, the flutes and students all needed a little rest.
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Updated: January 29, 2002
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