I was hoping to find some resources for learning to make whistles In the old way, out of sheets of metal that are rolled into a conical shape. I’ve recently been making whistles with plastic heads and brass bodies, and I’m becoming satisfied with the results, but I’d really love to learn how to make whistles in the manner I am inquiring about.
Of course, despite once being the standard, such whistles have fallen out of fashion and all we are left with of that type are Clarke Originals, Shaws, and those (quite awful) “Williamsburg” things that are sold to tourists.
However, those are not the exact type of thing I’m interested in making. For the past decade or so I have been acquiring a type of old whistle here and there that is sold under various brand markings, such as Calura, Eagle, Schoha, and perhaps others. I have acquired around 16 of these in keys ranging from high E down to B natural. Despite the different names, and different stamps of region of manufacture (I’ve seen them marked Germany, USA, and Japan, with everything else appearing identical), I have the impression that these were all perhaps produced in the same factory and just stamped with the marks of other companies. Anyway, I like these whistles, very much indeed.
Being around a century old, of delicate construction, and with a wooden fipple block, of course many of them are damaged or didn’t hold up well to the passage of time. However, I’ve gotten so many that are just wonderful. Super sweet upper octave, very responsive and articulate, nice tone and volume balance across the range, and are just overall very pleasing to me. I am surprised that these didn’t persist into the modern day, but the airy and somewhat “inefficient”(imo) Clarkes, which these do not resemble in playing or tonal characteristics, did. These also have a surprisingly narrow bore, with the B natural being narrower than the width of a typical pencil at the far end of the tube. You’d think they’d be super weak and touchy in the low end, but in my opinion they play nicely and without the issues you’d expect from a bore that appears way too narrow.
So, to get down to my intention- What I would love to do is to be able to copy these whistles as closely as possible based on the historical ones I have on hand. If I could produce something reasonably close, I’d like to experiment with a couple of tiny modern improvements, such as a delrin fipple block and a bit of an adjustment of the tuning system, or perhaps producing something similar in other keys.
I want to get some sort of idea about how realistic this is, however I am very uninformed regarding this manner of whistle construction. My entire understanding of this comes from a short segment I saw inside the Clarke factory, where they were putting the cut sheets of metal between two rollers and passing it through in order to roll them into their eventual whistley shape. I am hoping to piece together what kind of process I could use to make whistles of that sort of construction style, and make a detailed step-by-step plan of the process, along with figuring out what kind of tooling I would need to accomplish this on a smaller scale. Would it be possible to make the body design around some sort of mould that is based on the dimensions of what I’m wanting to copy? I haven’t worked with this type of material, design, or construction method before. Please help me fill myself in on what I need to know, or where I can learn it.
I see so many modern whistle makers releasing carbon copies of each other’s instruments, and I keep waiting for someone else to do that with these very cool old whistles. I’m really surprised that no one has, as they are nice and the design and dimensions aren’t really like any sort of whistle I’ve seen since. It seems no one is wanting to do it, so I guess if I want it to be done I will have to do it myself. Is there any information that may be of use to me in learning how to do this? I need to know what I must learn in order to do this, and what I need to have on hand in order to make myself a system for doing it.
SirC
I did use a wood mandrel the first time, and a person could also do that. Then without a machine lathe file the soft copper to smooth shape. Yes they would need a wood lathe to make a tapered wood mandrel, or with some carving skill make a taper on a wood dowel.