Wanderer wrote:
Though I believe a fair number of them are still hand-making the ramp part.
The window/ramp/labium can be roughed out using machines, but will still need considerable work by hand on a wooden whistle. This is one reason so many people make metal whistles where it’s basically tubing with one edge turned down on an angle as the ramp/labium. Even with designs where the metal is deeply milled to produce the ramp, you can avoid most of the hand work that would be required required on wood whistle because you can’t take wood down all the way to the correct dimensions by machine without a lot of catastrophic failures due to chipout and cracking of the wood.
Basically, on a wood whistle you have to mill out the window and ramp well short of the final dimensions, then carefully work your way by hand to the final dimensions using files and knives. Well, some people get by with just files, judging from some of the work I’ve seen
Back to the topic of cost for an Abell: One factor that people often fail to consider is that you are also paying for highly seasoned wood. In other words, you are paying for a whistle that is significantly less likely to crack. Waaaaay too many wooden whistle makers use wood that is far too newly cut, and often they also choose to use woods that are inappropriate for mouth blown instruments as they are woods prone to cracking when used for our purposes.
Usually new makers are eager to just get on with making and selling whistles, so using “fresh” wood and/or bad wood for direct blown woodwinds, so you end up with a cracked instrument not long after you bought it. But hey, it was 1/2 the price of the Abell, so you can own twice as many cracked whistles for the price of an Abell, awesome!
Or not.....
For whistles where the wood was cut into proper sized billets, ends waxed, and then stacked and stored appropriately, you’re looking at about 5+ years of seasoning. I’d be happier with 7-8 for whistles and 10+ for flutes. I’ve been to Chris Abell’s shop and seen his wood supplies: it’s all stacked in billets and dated. His current working stock was mostly well over 10 years old. Some much older. Not as old as the stuff where I worked
but few places have 30+ year old wood stock.
Then there’s the further drying that needs to take place in stages during production, this needs to be spread out over months for whistles, and the course of a year for flutes.
Almost nobody talks about all of this, but it’s critical in order to create a stable final instrument. You rarely see a cracked Blackwood Abell whistle. There have been TONS of cracked wooden whistles posted for sale here over the years from virtually every other maker based on my observations.
So the choice is yours. I usually go for the high quality option. Buy once, cry once as they say. At any rate, how long and well the wood was seasoned, both before and during production, does factor into what you pay, as well as the “value”.