Curly maple is an important wood for lessons in life. The curls are a compression of the cellular structure of the wood, caused by the bending action of the wind. The material bends or gives with the wind, rather than snapping off altogether.

The mouthpiece consists of California buckeye burl, bonded between layers of Cambodian flamewood, capped with the maple. The bird of prey fetish block is cut from the curly maple, with overlays of two varieties of Paua abalone, capped with the buckeye burl.

Inlay begins at the mouthpiece with a quartz capped 8mm abalone cab, flanked by two dome cut 4.2mm turquoise cabs. Each side of the compression chamber is accented with 22mm disks of the buckeye burl, as well as 6mm abalone dots, and crushed Arizona malachite. The area forward from the fetish starts with a 6mm dome cut hematite cab, followed by a 15x20mm old Tibetan turquoise cab. The finger holes are thereafter accented with four 4mm and one 6mm cab of abalone. Lastly the fetish block is accented with a 6mm turquoise cab set to the crown, and 2.3mm faceted African black diamonds, set as eyes.

The flute was tuned at 72.5 degrees F, @ 64 % humidity. The flute was tuned at sea level.

The instrument includes a removable (slide off) wrap of South Dakota prairie rattlesnake skin, as well as a protective bag, and wax sampler.

This flute was built specifically for DW.