I love how much you loves flutes. I disagree with you on some things, but i love how much you love flutes. I purchased a flute making tool from you over a decade ago and ive burned out maybe a thousand holes or so with it. ❤

Good video, Charlie. I concur that as a medium, 3D printing doesn't lend itself to creating a high-quality instrument due to material porosity, durability and longevity. However, I believe that it has it's place as a prototyping and proof of concept tool for exploring new flute designs and configurations. The tactile "feel", warmth and resonance that wood provides just isn't there, and I would imagine that the air leaks in the PLA printed version far surpass even the most porous Oak. Thanks for touching on this. Loves me some Blue Bear videos 😊

My entry into native flutes was actually when I was looking for instruments to print using my new 3D printer back in January. It took me by surprise to find this beautiful instrument. I've since fallen in love with the native flute and it's now my favorite instrument and sound in the world (keep in mind, this is coming from a pianist of 14 years). 3D flutes definitely have their weak points. I made sure to avoid the issue of air leaks by printing it with 100% infill with multiple layer walls (took 20 hours to print), making it essentially as solid as a PVC tube, no holes. But after buying a High Spirits first hawk while in the Blue Ridge smokies, there is just a reverberation and warmth of a wood flute that a cold piece of plastic can't fill, no matter its solidity. One of the flutes I hope to get next is your beautiful walking stick flute, looks awesome!

What a coincidence, I 3D printed your Cherokee whistle (following your measurements from the video you made years ago) just 2 days ago! Sounds great!

Wow thats amazing!

Hey Charlie, You made a flute for me a good while back. (Bernie) That particular flute is still with me. About the time you sent that to me in North Carolina I lost one of my sisters to Cancer and I would appreciate it if you would play a traditional Native American song on KZfaq in her honor. Her name was Eileen. I would be honored if you would do that for me. Thanks your buddy in Carolina Bernie.

in your slicer you need to find a setting called horizontal compensation. messing with that will make the flute parts fit much better

Just got a 3d printer up and running a few days ago, coincidence! Haven't had time to watch the video yet but filament with wood additive (usually from bamboo pulp) might work well for this. Thanks for the video!

Hey Charlie. I did try and make a tin whistle /flute head out of one of the more flexible and stronger than most filaments , NYLON. The NYLON was great, It was my lack of ability with the design that caused me a problem. I have decided to just build flutes from wood. 😁 Tom

Wow. Thank you for this great video. As always, you manage to explain all the details that fill in the gaps to understand the full picture. Thank you !! I had no idea what these were until I just came across a video of someone extolling them, saying how much cheaper they are, etc... However......the devil is in the details, and like everything in life, it seems that you get what you pay for. ( I loved where you mentioned about the heat, and it turning into a "wet noodle"....😂)👍

Last night I was pondering how an epoxy resin mold would work to pour a flute while I was brainstorming ideas for native flute boxes and stands.

PETG is the perfect material for making these out of. UV/chemical/temperature resistant, water proof and cheap.

Without wood it's not a native flute to me. Only wood has the living energie and the true spirit a native flute needs. 💜🙏

Petg filament would be better for flutes. Try increasing the reaction in your slicer, it will reduce the stringing and you should have to burn it off.

Hello sir I am from India, can you help me with flute making. And if you want I can tell you about Indian flute making

Can you send the link so I can try printing one?

I think most of the problems with this could be solved by just tweaking the original design. Remove the holes, add some grooves for grip, change some printer settings to get rid of the stringing. I imagine you could also just dip it in some sort of epoxy to seal it instead of working super glue throughout the whole thing; this would probably take a bit of trial and error to get working though. But yea at the end of the day you could do the same exact thing with PVC pipe and save an entire day waiting for your printer. I'm not sure any idiot could make a flute out of copper in the same amount of time nor would I argue that you couldn't; A 3d printer hobbyist could probably assemble that flute faster than you could just like you could probably put together a bird house faster than a computer programmer.

I uploaded the video Charlie, check it out when you have a minute!

I've watched most of this guys vids on how to make a flute. and a few things i've come to realize is these. 1. He uses imperial to explain all mesurements. 97% of all countries around the world dosen't use imperial. And thusly increases the amount and potential for errors along the way. Due to the wast majority of the world not using imperial, people have to use a lot of math to verifie that the mesurment is indeed correct. And as some one who is shit at math, i have to re do the math several times over, and then verifie it. This increses the odds of error significantly. Especially among people who have never made a flute before, and don't know how things really are supposed to be done yet. 2. He expect everyone to have tools made in imperial sizes. And or that there is a ecual to the size he uses. This rarely happens, unless you especially work with special machinery, and have higly specialiced tools/drillbits. Werry few imperial drillbit sizes are ecual or near ecual in metric. So this also creates issiues when making flutes as a first timer. 3. He never really explains how to really tune the flutes, or where the holes really should be. He makes the holes, seaminly expecting every one watching to know exactly where they are supposed to be placed. And when he tunes it, he never explains the prosses just does it. so yet agein, creates issiues when making flutes as a first timer. I currently have 7 different webb pages open, trying to figure this shit out. Is the holes correctly placed? are they big enough? are they too big? what is the tuining supposed to be? So now i sit here with a 2 day work piece i can't finish, as no one properly explain how the F you should tune the sodding thing, without having several decades of previous experience. You did an exelent job explaining how to MAKE the flute. but not so mutch when it came to the most important part, tuning it.