Long mahogany strip brass pin gauge with eight pins

Mahogany strip brass pin gauge with eight pins, by James Watt, Glasgow, Scotland, 1758-1769. Used for positioning the drilling of flute finger holes. Possibly a B fl flute similar to RCM 326 FL 6.

James Watt eventually employed 16 people to run a shop in Glasgow making numerous items. In spite of saying that music was ‘the source of idleness’, he built instruments for sale, including flutes, an organ and a guitar for the wife of one of his early business partners, John Roebuck. This item is likely to have been made on the suite of flute-making tools which survives in Watt's workshop - using a gauge to mark the positions of the finger holes prior to drilling them would have speede up the manufacturing process.