This is the way I oil my flutes. It isn't the only way to do it but it works for me.

It is best to allow a flute to dry out for a few hours before oiling the bore.

Separate all of the joints, remove the cap, and push out the cork. To push out the cork use a wooden rod with a diameter slightly smaller than the bore. The end should be flat to allow it to bear on the full face of the cork.

Remove any keys to prevent the oil from soaking into the pads. Usually the pivot wire is provided with a hook so the wire can be drawn out. If the wire has no hook then carefully push it out with another small piece of wire, like a paperclip. Be very careful pushing pivot wires out in this way as accidentally slipping whilst doing this is the most common cause of damage to pivot blocks on antique instruments!

Put a small piece of lint free cloth through the eye of your cleaning stick. Wrap the cloth around the stick, dip it in the oil and run it up through the flute joints. Aim to get the bore really soaked in oil. If you don't have a cleaning stick then you can use a chopstick or similar.

If you're using linseed oil then leave the joints standing on end on a piece of cloth to allow them to drain for an hour. The idea here is to allow really dry bore pick up as much oil as it needs. Then run a dry cloth up the joints to remove the excess oil. Make sure no oil has run into the tone-holes or onto the key pad seat.

If you are using a non-drying oil like almond then you can leave the flute overnight to allow the oil to soak in. Clean out the excess next morning.

If any oil has seeped onto the keypad seat or onto the walls of the key slot then it must be cleaned off before it dries. You can use acetone (nail polish remover) or alcohol to carefully remove it using a soft lint-free cloth.

Once the flute has dried out replace the cork pushing it back into the correct position. It is common to use a mark on a dowel which lines up with the centre of the embouchure when passed up inside the head-joint to bear against the face of the cork.

Replace the key by holding it into the correct position and passing the pivot wire back through the holes when they line up. This can be a bit of a fiddle juggling the key whilst poking around with the pivot wire. Replace the cap and pack the instrument away in its case.

Oils usually used to soak instrument bores are either mineral or vegetable based. Commercial bore oils are frequently mineral oil based, sometimes with petroleum distillates of some other solvents to help the oil soak into the wood. Commercial companies often choose mineral oils because of the consistency of the product, and they do not usually suffer from problems with the oil oxidising and going rancid. Mineral oils are also available in a range if viscosities so that the bore oil can be adjusted to just the right consistency. It is usually not a good idea to mix vegetable and mineral oils, so if you are going to use a mineral oil for your bore then don't mix and match with a vegetable oil.

Vegetable oils were the traditional choice for players in the baroque period - they didn't have an alternative! Some vegetable oils harden and form a solid layer. These are known as drying oils, and over use of oils like these can actually reduce the diameter of the bore as the thickness of the hardened layer of oils builds up! Since some vegetable oils are prone to oxidising and become rancid it can be a good idea to add a little of an anti-oxidant such as Vitamin E.

I use vegetable oils to soak my bores, preferring to use a natural product on a wooden flute. I usually use one of the following oils:

Linseed oil

This is used by many instrument makers to soak the joints of their instruments by completely immersing them in a bath of oil and leaving them to soak! Linseed oil is a drying oil forming a shiny hard layer on the surface of the wood after repeated applications. If excess oil is used then the hardened deposits can eventually cause problems by altering the internal shape of the bore! However if used in moderation, and not too frequently, then linseed can make a perfectly adequate bore oil.

Almond oil

Almond oil is a light non-drying oil that readily soaks into the wood. It does not readily go rancid, although an addition of around 1000mg of Vitamin E per litre of oil can be useful as an added precaution. In his book "On Playing the Flute" J.J. Quantz recommends it for use as a bore oil. However, in his book "The Virtuoso Flute player" J.G. Tromlitz claimed that it runs out of the bore too easily, but I have used it successfully for a number of years! Get the best quality you can, usually obtained from pharmacists (though I have no idea what it is used for).

Rapeseed oil

Tromlitz recommends this as a bore oil, claiming it had just the right abount of "body", whereas linseed oil had too much and almond too little. He says that it was in almost universal use by his contemporary flutemakers, although it is entirely typical of Tromlitz that he believed all of the other makers used it just because it was the cheapest, and only he had identified it as best due to its ideal properties. It is indeed a cheap oil available all over Europe, although I don't know how easy it is to get outside of Europe.

Tung oil

This has been used for thousands of years as an oil finish in chinese furniture making. It is harder wearing and more waterproof than linseed oil, but much more expensive. Like linseed oil it is a drying oil, and so it needs great care in application to avoid building up a significant thickness and altering the intonation of the flute. However with care it provides a much more effective barrier to moisture than the other oils listed above, and reaches full cure much more quickly than linseed oil. This is important as it can be allowed to harden before the condensation caused by playing has a chance to wash away any of the protective layer. In addition to its use in the bore I have found it to protect the headjoint where the lower lip rests against it. This area tends to suffer from oils and perspiration in the skin attacking the finish and causing a slightly roughened area. Tung oil provides a protective layer and has just the right satin finish to allow the lower lip to support the flute but still allow adjustment of the embouchure position.

There is no straight answer to this. It depends on how often you play, how careful you are about swabbing out your flute after playing, which oil you use, but mostly from which wood the instrument is made. For example African Blackwood is almost waterproof in its natural state. Oiling a blackwood flute does little to preserve it as the oil just sits on the surface and doesn't really soak in at all. However, a maple flute needs a good deal of oiling as it is a naturally porous wood and will pick up and shed a good deal of oil. Boxwood seems to sit somewhere in the middle.

The best thing to do is to look at the bit of the bore you can see in the end of one of the tenons. Does it look dry? If so oil the bore. If you keep an eye on the appearance of the wood you should be able to judge when the wood needs another oiling. It is unusual to find yourself oiling an instrument more frequently than once every two or three months. Two or three times a year is more common.

If you ask any two woodwind players about the best way to oil bores then I am convinced you get at least three opinions. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that it probably doesn't make a great deal of difference how you do it or what you use to oil the bore of your instrument.

Historical instruments did not have a sealed waterproof bore, but instead the bore was soaked in oil. Modern thinking is that the purpose of oiling a bore is to slow down the rate that moisture is absorbed and lost from the instrument. This allows the instrument to adjust its internal moisture content to the frequency and duration of its use. This is basically one of the main purposes of playing-in a new instrument. The wood needs time to build up its moisture content to represent an average dictated by the playing habits of the owner.

Cracks during playing-in

If too rapid a playing-in regime is used then cracks can occur. This is not a myth but is due to the fact that wood swells when it absorbs moisture. If a wooden tube is fairly dry and the inside is soaked in moisture then the skin on the inside of the tube will try to expand, but the outside of the flute will still want to be the original size. This puts the outside of the flute in tension and it may crack.

Tone

The tone of an instrument seems to be improved immediately after oiling. I don't know why this is the case, but I would guess that this is probably due to the way moisture deposits on the surface of the bore.

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