Chiff and Fipple Forums

Another thread led me to an ebay listing, the listing linked to a whistlemaker's website and eventually to a series of three articles on their process of design and making of 3D printed whistles. I posted the following comment on the other thread but maybe this deserves a thread all of its own, rather than being buried on a for sale thread.

The descriptions are clear and free of hype, best I have seen so far on the subject. You may need a translator.

Mr.Gumby wrote:The whistle is no longer available and ebay suggested a deQuelery whislte instead. That listing, in turn, linked on to their 3D printed (and other) whistles and a page that gives a well thought through description of their design process. Best descriptive treatment of 3D printed whistle making I have come across so far : here (or see their blog). And no faffing about or hyperbole about the process or the results either, no world peace promised or extraordinary claims made, which is rather refreshing. It's in Dutch so that may be prohibitive for some readers.

I've seen deQuelerij posts on Facebook. The whistles look interesting.

English available here: https://dequelery.nl/dequelery/innovati ... i/?lang=en.

There is also a link to Dequelery in the WMD (along with several other recent makers).

(Or there would be if the WMD were updated!)

There is also a link to Dequelery in the WMD

My interest is more with their description of their process of design, making and finishing the printed parts than with the whistles themselves, to be honest.

One thing the process description shows is that 3D printing is not the magic bullet it is sometimes made out to be. The printing of one head takes them about seven hours to begin with. Then each whistle head receives at least 30 minutes of hand finishing and adjusting to make it playable and finished to an acceptable production standard. No churning out of stacks of easily affordable whistles for the masses there.

Their 'standard' and 'artist' ranges have printed heads. And they do look good, although I don't particularly fancy the alu tubes and the engraving and all that.

(Or there would be if the WMD were updated!)

The WMD is dead in the water at this stage, these things only work when maintained.

English available here: https://dequelery.nl/dequelery/innovati ... i/?lang=en.

Thanks, I didn't spot that. But perhaps I didn't look hard enough. The link I followed sent me to the Dutch version of the articles, which will do me but perhaps not many others. A brief look didn't immediately lead me to English versions.

I recently got a parks whistle that clearly had a 3d printed head and I think a 3d printed "tone ring.

the head/mouthpiece was roughly finished and dimpled in that way of 3d printed objects. It was unpleasant to play and looked unfinished. i had to spend some time cleaning it up with fine sandpaper. The "tone ring" is a clever idea but it also seems to have been 3d printed and it was too loose. I had to tie a string around it, soak it in hot water, then cool it in cold water to get it to have enough tension to stay in place.

I was not impressed. The whistle is loud and does play evenly and well now, and it wasn't a ton of work, and it's true that in Mr. Parks defense when I ordered i asked how quickly it would be shipped, because I needed it for an upcoming trip. So perhaps he rushed it out the shop door.

Mr.Gumby wrote:

My interest is more with their description of their process of design, making and finishing the printed parts than with the whistles themselves, to be honest.

One thing the process description shows is that 3D printing is not the magic bullet it is sometimes made out to be. The printing of one head takes them about seven hours to begin with. Then each whistle head receives at least 30 minutes of hand finishing and adjusting to make it playable and finished to an acceptable production standard. No churning out of stacks of easily affordable whistles for the masses there.

Thank you for the link Mr Gumby. It is interesting.

PB+J wrote:I recently got a parks whistle that clearly had a 3d printed head and I think a 3d printed "tone ring.

the head/mouthpiece was roughly finished and dimpled in that way of 3d printed objects. It was unpleasant to play and looked unfinished. i had to spend some time cleaning it up with fine sandpaper. The "tone ring" is a clever idea but it also seems to have been 3d printed and it was too loose. I had to tie a string around it, soak it in hot water, then cool it in cold water to get it to have enough tension to stay in place.

I was not impressed. The whistle is loud and does play evenly and well now, and it wasn't a ton of work, and it's true that in Mr. Parks defense when I ordered i asked how quickly it would be shipped, because I needed it for an upcoming trip. So perhaps he rushed it out the shop door.

Tried to find anything on Carey's site about utilizing 3d printing- no luck but could have missed it.

Somewhat doubtful the tone ring would be 3d printed-why bother?It's just a ring with a section removed,would think bothering with printing would be cost prohibitive at this time.But who knows?

He usually has stock on hand to ship.I've got several and all been fine.If yours was sub par as you describe I'd contact him.Seems out of the ordinary.

The Lurking Fear wrote:

PB+J wrote:I recently got a parks whistle that clearly had a 3d printed head and I think a 3d printed "tone ring.

the head/mouthpiece was roughly finished and dimpled in that way of 3d printed objects. It was unpleasant to play and looked unfinished. i had to spend some time cleaning it up with fine sandpaper. The "tone ring" is a clever idea but it also seems to have been 3d printed and it was too loose. I had to tie a string around it, soak it in hot water, then cool it in cold water to get it to have enough tension to stay in place.

I was not impressed. The whistle is loud and does play evenly and well now, and it wasn't a ton of work, and it's true that in Mr. Parks defense when I ordered i asked how quickly it would be shipped, because I needed it for an upcoming trip. So perhaps he rushed it out the shop door.

Tried to find anything on Carey's site about utilizing 3d printing- no luck but could have missed it.

Somewhat doubtful the tone ring would be 3d printed-why bother?It's just a ring with a section removed,would think bothering with printing would be cost prohibitive at this time.But who knows?

He usually has stock on hand to ship.I've got several and all been fine.If yours was sub par as you describe I'd contact him.Seems out of the ordinary.

Yeah I agree, it did not make sense to me, but it looks unmistakably like 3d printing, and very different from the rest of the whistle, which is straight-up black pvc. And the ring responded to heat in a way unlike PVC.

See the pictures below? the stippling on the ring? Even though it's a blurry iphone photo you can see what I mean. That's what the whole mouthpiece looked like. The matte finish shows where I sanded it and you can still see a bit of the stippling

Mr.Gumby wrote:One thing the process description shows is that 3D printing is not the magic bullet it is sometimes made out to be. The printing of one head takes them about seven hours to begin with. Then each whistle head receives at least 30 minutes of hand finishing and adjusting to make it playable and finished to an acceptable production standard. No churning out of stacks of easily affordable whistles for the masses there.

Their 'standard' and 'artist' ranges have printed heads. And they do look good, although I don't particularly fancy the alu tubes and the engraving and all that.

Interesting. Doesn't seem to be quite cost effective for a very inexpensive whistle, or one that can compete numberwise with the likes of Generation.

(Or there would be if the WMD were updated!)

The WMD is dead in the water at this stage, these things only work when maintained.

That's sad. It is a fine resource! Maybe someone else can take it over?

whistlecollector wrote:

Mr.Gumby wrote:One thing the process description shows is that 3D printing is not the magic bullet it is sometimes made out to be. The printing of one head takes them about seven hours to begin with. Then each whistle head receives at least 30 minutes of hand finishing and adjusting to make it playable and finished to an acceptable production standard. No churning out of stacks of easily affordable whistles for the masses there.

Their 'standard' and 'artist' ranges have printed heads. And they do look good, although I don't particularly fancy the alu tubes and the engraving and all that.

Interesting. Doesn't seem to be quite cost effective for a very inexpensive whistle, or one that can compete numberwise with the likes of Generation.
.....

Have you had a look at the prices on the website Mr. Gumby linked to? VERY far away from Generation & Co...

Have you had a look at the prices on the website Mr. Gumby linked to? VERY far away from Generation & Co...

I think W. is acknowledging that. As I said above : 3D printing is not the magic bullet, interesting as a development as it is. We're not about to find sturdy children playing printed whistles at every crossroads yet.

PB+J wrote: Yeah I agree, it did not make sense to me, but it looks unmistakably like 3d printing, and very different from the rest of the whistle, which is straight-up black pvc. And the ring responded to heat in a way unlike PVC.

See the pictures below? the stippling on the ring? Even though it's a blurry iphone photo you can see what I mean. That's what the whole mouthpiece looked like. The matte finish shows where I sanded it and you can still see a bit of the stippling

Whoa! See what you mean. Never seen anything like that from him before although it's probably been 3-4 years since I ordered anything. That pin in the back is new to me,also.

Kade1301 wrote:Have you had a look at the prices on the website Mr. Gumby linked to? VERY far away from Generation & Co...

Well, exactly! Mr. Gumby is correct. I think we're all on the same page here: 3D printing is neat, but if a whistle head requires 7 hours of print time plus another hour or so of finishing, tuning, testing and messing about, you can hardly compete with Generation to make an inexpensive whistle and to make them in quantity!

Also economics of scale: unless you have access to a lot of 3D printers, I'm guessing a whistlesmith can't make very many 3D printed whistles!

Bringing this one up again as another article has been posted, dealing with how t oget the design of the whistlehead to a printable state. Interesting stuff but, for now, as far as I can tell, lacking an English translation : part IV