I spent most of today working on Gemeinhardt open hole flute. A fine intermediate instrument, but not the best, so it's to be expected that the tone holes would not be perfectly level. I find that having flat tone holes really makes padding an open hole flute much easier, so I usually level all the tone holes when I'm doing a repad, as was the case yesterday.
I was using a piece of plexiglass over the top of the tone hole and tapping with it on a hammer to lower the high spots, a tip I picked up from another tech on the Delphi band instrument repair forum. In doing so, I found that I need to be extra cautious if I'm tapping on the back of the tone hole, especially if there is a rib right next to it. If I tap too hard, creating a low spot in the back of the tone hole rim, it's extremely difficult to raise that back up to level because of the thickness and strength of the rib that prevents the metal from moving.
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