Simple System Irish Flute, Key of D Major

After 3d printing pennywhistles, I've often thought about making an Irish flutes. The MakerWorld musical instrument contest was just the kick in the pants I needed to get started!

For some reason, the youtube video refuses to embed..you can watch it here:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=PEMmKL1DSLQ

This is a simple-system Irish flute in the key of D Major. This means that there are no keys, and it will play the D-major and G-major scales, suitable for most traditional Irish folk music.

It's not a “pro” model by any stretch. I'm not as good of a flute player as I am a whistler, and I haven't spent a year on this model. Still, I was able to get 14 revisions in before the contest period, and as the video shows, I can make it play. But I hope to add more improvements over time.  I have based this instrument on measurements I've taken over the small handful of flutes I currently own.

This is a cylindrical bore flute, which means it suffers from some of the tuning drift across octaves that is common to cylindrical woodwinds like Irish flutes and tinwhistles. The ‘cork’ area is built into the mouthpiece, so there's no adjusting it. But I do have it set at the ‘standard’ distance.  

Some improvements I want to make going forward:

• conical bore
• improve the embouchure
• Add a TPU ‘cork’ (and placement jig) rather than having the cork area a fixed and immovable part of the print.
• Eventually add key options, but that's probably it the far future.

Still, though, you can't beat the price over the cost of a pro Irish flute, and it might be fun for some to play around with before investing in a ‘real’ flute!

Note: there is not much contact area between the flute body parts and the print bed. Make sure your adhesion is on point! I have placed each piece of the flute body on a separate plate, so that in the case of one toppling over, it doesn't act like a bowling pin and take down the others.