Silver Plating an Old Flute with Pits |
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Modern flutes are generally constructed of metal. Common metals for flutes
include nickel-silver or similar alloys, nickel, silver, and gold. Less commonly,
platinum is used, or even palladium and others. With inexpensive flutes, a certain luster is sought by plating the non-silver pieces of the flute with silver - it is bright, although not the most durable finish. For durability, rhodium may even be used for the finish. The subject of this plating project is an old flute that has suffered pitting. |
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Ordinarily, a flute repair technician will prepare an instrument and
refer it to a specialist, such as
Anderson Silver Plating
- they are fast, friendly, and cost effective. The flute will be prepared by removing any extant silver plate. Below, we see the body partially sanded and buffed so that the nickel-silver below the G# hole is exposed. The pitting looks like this after removing silver plate and buffing: |
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Other effort removes plating from the foot joint:
This is the foot when the nickel-silver is exposed: |
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And the head joint is processed here:
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Overall, the flute started out looking like
and ended upping looking much brighter after being silver plated: |