Chapter 19: Repair and Maintenance: Taking Care of Your Instrument You’ll also probably find yourself fighting a lifelong battle with some manner of tarnish. Many repair technicians remove tarnish from silver with a 3M product called Tarni-Shield Silver Polish, which removes tarnish from silver without the use of harsh abrasives. If you don’t like the look of tarnish on your flute (personally, I think a little tarnish gives my flute character), you can use a little Tarni-Shield as directed on the bottle. But be careful not to get any of the product on the pads or in the mechanism — you don’t want to damage your pads or gunk up the mechanism just to have a tarnish-free flute. In the final analysis, regular maintenance and a yearly C.O.A. will help keep complete overhauls at bay and keep you and your flute sounding your best.
Pads Synthetic pads last far longer than traditional pads, but both are subject to wear. (See Chapter 3 for more on synthetic and traditional pads.) Over the course of a few years, the pad repeatedly hitting the tone hole under pressure from your fingers causes wear on the pad covering. Once the skin that covers the pad starts to split, the pad’s ability to completely seal the tone hole becomes compromised, and the pad will need to be replaced. But a pad doesn’t have to be split to need replacing — environmental factors, such as moisture and heat, can change the shape and resiliency of a pad to the point that it won’t seal properly. Pads along the underside of your flute (the ones operated by levers like the trill keys) get more exposure to moisture while you’re playing due to gravity, so they tend to wear out before the other pads — repair technicians call this group of pads the water line. Your repair technician can tell you when a pad needs to be replaced; you can replace a pad here and there during the clean-oil-and-adjust process, but replacing all the pads usually warrants an overhaul. (See the section “If your instrument needs an overhaul,” later in this chapter.)
Spring wear Your flute’s springs, which make the keys pop back up after you depress them, or in the case of some keys, keeps them down until you press the lever that lifts them, can lose tension over time, at which point they’ll need replacing. Another issue with springs is that they can occasionally pop out of their holders, the little hooks that hold them in place. If that happens, the key controlled by that particular spring will start flopping around like a wet noodle, not staying where it’s supposed to be. Of course, having a key down when it’s supposed to be up or vice versa greatly affects what’s coming out of your flute (or not!), but luckily, this problem is easily fixed, and you can do it yourself if you’re careful:
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