- Flutes - CDs - Mississippian Art - Regalia - Items for Sale - Ordering - Show Schedule - Guest Book - Awards - About Us - Links - Stories - Photos - Home Need a Web Site

It is important to care for your flute. When playing your flute for an extended amount of time, moisture from your lungs will cause condensation in your flute. This is unavoidable and is commonly referred to as "wetting out". This tendency to "wet out" will be worse if the flute is kept in a cold or damp place, when it is not being played. Some flutes will "wet out" faster than other flutes. This is usually a result of how the flute is made. Our flutes are sealed and finished with a violin varnish that we make ourselves. Each of our flutes is sealed on the inside and the outside with our violin varnish. This prevents moisture from absorbing into the wood on the inside of the flute.  Once the varnishing process is completed, we finish the flutes with 2 to 3 coats of a micro-crystalline wax.   Excess moisture in the flute can be removed by drawing air backwards through the wind channel by sucking hard one time on the mouthpiece, and/or swinging the flute with the mouthpiece pointed away from you. This will sling out any moisture that has built up during playing, and will allow you to continue to play. When you are finished playing, it is a good idea to remove the bird (block) from the flute so it can dry out completely.   Our flutes come with a cotton or flannel bag for storage. The bag you store your flutes in should be able to breathe. Leather bags look great, but unless the leather is true brain-tanned deer or elk skin, it won't breath enough to allow the moisture to evaporate. So, unless you have access to brain tanned hides, we recommend using a heavy cotton cloth or an old wool blanket for making a flute bag. It is always a good idea to keep your flute from extremes in temperature (especially heat), and store it in a dry place. For maintaining and protecting your flute, and to keep it looking new, we recommend using a micro-crystalline wax. As a second choice, you can use any high quality vegetable based paste wax made for use on fine furniture, such as Carnauba wax. We use Renaissance Wax on all of our flutes. This is a micro-crystalline wax that is used by museums, restoration specialists, and wood workers. We have tried most every type of wax on the market and found this wax to be BY FAR superior to anything else we have ever used.  This wax will work well on any type of wood finish and provides a much longer-lasting, and more moisture resistant top coat than any other wax or oil will provide. Over time, the finish on your flute may become dull from fingerprints. By applying a light coat of Renaissance wax to your flute, it will restore the beautiful shine and luster, as well as protect your flute from moisture. Renaissance wax is easy to use. Just apply a light coat to entire body of your flute and the bird. Let wax dry for 30 seconds, then buff gently. This wax dries harder than any other wax we have found and is very resistant to moisture. A little goes a long way. To give you an idea how long a can of wax last, a 7 oz can of this wax will last us a year and we use two or three coats on every new flute we make. You can purchase Renaissance wax from the restoration product web site:  http://www.restorationproduct.com.

Copyright © 2001 - 2008 Mountain Spirit Flutes - All Rights Reserved ® Email: info@msflutes.com We are located in Eastern Tennessee (1 hour from Johnson City, TN or 1 hour from Asheville, NC) Web site created and maintained by Paint Creek Web Creations