Interesting material. I’m not even sure it counts as wood. Native to Jamaica and Cuba, it is very rare, and comes from the giant hibiscus, which I think is a bush. Prior to adding a mouthpiece, this material, as a flute, weighed in at 4 ounces. Fully accessorized, and ready to go, this flute weighs a hefty 6 ½ ounces. This is not a flute you will ever want to slam in a car door, as some of you like to do. The flute is approximately 23-3/4” inches in length, with an oval bore of one inch by one and a quarter inches.
The mouthpiece is formed from California buckeye burl, between layers of African wenge, capped with this blue mahoe, which to me looks really green, and not blue at all. The fetish block is cut from additional buckeye, bonded to a base of Oklahoma red cedar.
Beginning at the mouthpiece area, inlay consists of a 6.6 mm x 10.95 mm Cooper Pedy Australian boulder opal, flanked by 4.3mm domed turquoise cabs. The compression chamber inlay begins with matching 25mm disk of buckeye burl, accented with crushed turquoise from Globe Arizona’s Sleeping Beauty mine, as well as cultured green pearls. This crushed turquoise was also used to fill various burl voids in the flute and fetish block. Moving forward, the sound chamber is accented with a dome cut 14mm Honduran black matrix opal, while the crown of the bird was inset with a matching 6mm black matrix opal. The eyes of the bird are set with 2.3mm faceted African black diamonds. Lastly, the finger holes are accented with four 6mm abalone cabs as well as an 8x12mm diamond cut cab. The two sets of three holes have been slightly offset from the center line, thinking it would better facilitate fingering. I don’t think it made any difference at all.
The flute was tuned at 70.0 degrees F, @ 52% humidity. It includes a removable wrap of South Dakota prairie rattlesnake, mostly because it matched the green of this Blue Mahoe.
Since the ties run through the flute, drying the flue area is best accomplished by loosening the ties and just pulling the fetish slightly to the side.