mac davis wrote:

It seems that she and her husband make musical type flutes, starting with square
stock that they route down the middle in a 1/2 round and then glue together and
turn.. she said it was more accurate than drilling a hole that long on the
lathe, unless you were set up to make rifle barrels.

If you dig around on the Net, you'll find a lot of material on making
woodwinds. A lot of it applies to Native American flutes, but there also
is material on Irish-style flutes, more modern flutes, and especially
recorders. Bore a hole through the middle; form the internal profile
with a home-made reamer accurate to the appropriate thousandth or so;
bore, ream, and otherwise shape the toneholes; and--for a recorder, at
least--turn the outside into graceful shape. A lot of the makers use
machinists lathes, rather than wood lathes, especially for the boring
and reaming.

For a start, take a look at Terry McGee's flute site,
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/ and Philippe Bolton's page on making
recorders,
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...abricatgb.html

Also, see groups.yahoo.com/group/flutemakers.

If only I had the time!

Owen Davies