Making Ends Meet

Today (actually, last monday) I felt a little bit like these guys:

...since I finally finished the bore of the flute's middle section, and with that, the complete bore.

I had to make another drill bit for it first. This time, I've documented which materials I've used, as you can see below. Especially the soldering powder I had forgotten about already. So for future reference, here's the whole deal: 1) Use water or saliva to get the powder to stick to the drill bit. (Don't cut your tongue :) 2) Add the copper tube, and put the tiniest chip of silver solder on top. 3) Heat up the whole with a gas burner; and 4) you could try to harden it a bit by putting it in directly water afterwards.

I also finally found out how the wooden reamer was to be used. We clamped a genericly shaped, but sharpened metal strip together with the stick that I had turned before, and then we used that whole contraption to ream out the bore by hand. It all went pretty smooth (didn't even need any linseed oil for this one), even though the metal wasn't even screwed onto the wood (although that would have been an option). Piece of cake!

Lost & Found

And then, all of a sudden, the copper tip on my drill was gone. I've looked for it everywhere -- yes, also in the wood. But I didn't find it.

Eventually I decided to cheat and drill on without the copper guide. (I was only a few mm from being done!) And there, within the flute-to-be, I found it back:

All mashed up by the drilling. Remember, I looked there before, too, but apparently it was completely hidden inside, only to come out by further drilling.