Tweaks: The Thread

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Dan A.
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by Dan A. »

The whistle that kicked off my collection's major expansion, a Walton's Little Black D, has fallen into disuse. Rather than pass it off or consign it to the landfill, I am going to use it as practice for whistle tweaking. I know about the poster-tack fill, but are there any other tweaks that might benefit this whistle? (It's an aluminum body.)
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by AuLoS303 »

Does anyone tweak Feadóg brass Ds? I'm getting back to playing and while its not a bad whistle it does want to crack the notes.
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Re: Generation Convert

Post by AuLoS303 »

I've been trying to get the head off my nickel C Gen to make it tuneable but to no avail. Unlike the Feadóg it is not in tune. I've tried running very hot tap water over it, soaking in hot water, putting it in the freezer then treating with hot water, no joy. The bugger is welded on!
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by Dan A. »

Make the water a wee bit hotter, and give it another go. The nickel Generations, so I'm told, are more stubborn than the brass ones. A little persistence should pay off.
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by AuLoS303 »

Dan A. wrote:Make the water a wee bit hotter, and give it another go. The nickel Generations, so I'm told, are more stubborn than the brass ones. A little persistence should pay off.
Any hotter and the plastic will surely melt!
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by thomasaasen »

AuLoS303 wrote:
Dan A. wrote:Make the water a wee bit hotter, and give it another go. The nickel Generations, so I'm told, are more stubborn than the brass ones. A little persistence should pay off.
Any hotter and the plastic will surely melt!
I think you have to do this many times, more attempts. Then it will suddenly give after for sure. The think here is to be pation. Don't know if you can buy something that loosen up glue? If it's a thin fluid, you could try to let it go down along the tube around the head, little by little. I'm sure you will make it. And you know what they say, after much problems and work, the reward is so much better. This whistle Wil be one you never forget, and especially if you get it tuned and tweaked well. As you know, the first to do is to fill the back og the head. Then the more difficult parts comes. You might have to adjust the finger holes. Then, even more delicate, adjusting the whistle head. File down the fipple a little, maybe make it a bit longer, adding, I really don't know, ut search and ask for help. I've seen the hole fipple covered with a thin brass plate. But it depends if you want a silent whistle or normal to louder sounding. You can also file into the mouthpiece opening for adjusting it, maybe more open/wider in front. This is just tips, but to do all this, that's the art and work. Therfore you don't see many professional tweakers. But if you desire to learn, you must read and ask, search trough Google and whistle forums. If you are serious about this, it will cost you some, cause you will never do it right the first times. And you need to find a whistle you really like, or a cheap one. Waltons are great whistles if you ask me. And when you get the hang of it, understanding more and more, seeing the "philosophy" behind it, you will be able to tweak most of the whistles on the marked. Maybe even making your own, that would be cool. So, good luck and enjoy your whistles, both playing and working with them.
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by AuLoS303 »

thomasaasen wrote:As you know, the first to do is to fill the back og the head. Then the more difficult parts comes. You might have to adjust the finger holes. Then, even more delicate, adjusting the whistle head. File down the fipple a little, maybe make it a bit longer, adding, I really don't know, ut search and ask for help. I've seen the hole fipple covered with a thin brass plate. But it depends if you want a silent whistle or normal to louder sounding. You can also file into the mouthpiece opening for adjusting it, maybe more open/wider in front. This is just tips, but to do all this, that's the art and work.
No I don't want to tweak it, I just want to make it tuneable. I didn't post this in this Tweaks thread, an admin must have moved it here.
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by fatmac »

From what I've read on here, you should wrap the head with a cloth, & give it a sharp/sudden twist, to break the seal.
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by benhall.1 »

AuLoS303 wrote:No I don't want to tweak it, I just want to make it tuneable. I didn't post this in this Tweaks thread, an admin must have moved it here.
No. No Admin moved anything to do with this. You posted it here.
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by Nanohedron »

benhall.1 wrote:
AuLoS303 wrote:No I don't want to tweak it, I just want to make it tuneable. I didn't post this in this Tweaks thread, an admin must have moved it here.
No. No Admin moved anything to do with this. You posted it here.
Actually, Ben, I did move it, because it was way off-topic where it was. This is where it belongs.

And making an untuneable whistle tuneable IS a tweak, everyone. What else could it be?
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by benhall.1 »

Nanohedron wrote:
benhall.1 wrote:
AuLoS303 wrote:No I don't want to tweak it, I just want to make it tuneable. I didn't post this in this Tweaks thread, an admin must have moved it here.
No. No Admin moved anything to do with this. You posted it here.
Actually, Ben, I did move it, because it was way off-topic where it was. This is where it belongs.

And making an untuneable whistle tuneable IS a tweak, everyone. What else could it be?
Oh. Sorry about that. I thought I'd checked everything that would tell me what either of us had done.
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Re: Generation Convert

Post by Katharine »

AuLoS303 wrote:I've been trying to get the head off my nickel C Gen to make it tuneable but to no avail. Unlike the Feadóg it is not in tune. I've tried running very hot tap water over it, soaking in hot water, putting it in the freezer then treating with hot water, no joy. The bugger is welded on!
My new Gen C (brass though) was also difficult. I had to try that trick that someone posted here that I think came from Joanie Madden... slide it bottom-first into the bottom of my Gen B-flat, and "throw" it down (the bottom of the B-flat's tube smacks against the bottom of the head of the C). I had to do this for a good while, but that head slowly worked its way off.
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by AuLoS303 »

I think its staying put. Life's too short. I'll just focus on the Feadóg and its tendency to crack
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by Terry McGee »

Now, coincidentally, I just came across the same problem - a whistle with an unmovable head - and then stumbled across this discussion. This whistle - yer typical brass body, red topped Generation D - must be around fifty years old, and is probably from among a box-full I'd bought in London directly from Barnes and Mullins in 1974 to counter the great whistle shortage Australia had found itself in. And it's probably been lying around my workshop probably ever since. It was a little dusty, I concede...

We used to loosen the tops by running the top of the brass section under boiling water (from the jug) until the glue softened. Tried that, absolutely no result. But, now a little bit cleaner, I could see burn marks running around that area. AHA! So I probably had pulled this head off back in the day, but had had to resort to flame to do it. So I lit up my little spirit lamp, which I normally use for "floating-in" pads on my flutes, and rotated the top of the brass section in the flame. (A candle or a cigarette lighter would probably also work, but leave a lot of carbon to clean off.) The head came loose within seconds, and I dropped it into a beaker of cold water to minimise the risk of melting.

Then cleaned up the old glue and corrosion from the outside of the end of the body by rotating it against my slow-running fine-grit belt sander. Steel wool would probably do as well, but this was quick. And tried the now nice shiny brass back in the head socket. No way! Ah, the plastic has shrunk over the ages - and that was probably why it was so tight. Many plastics will do that, typically when the plasticiser is volatile.

So, now what to do? It would be nice to re-bore it, but it's a tricky shape to hold in the lathe chuck. So I went quick and dirty again, wrapping some 240-grit paper around a dowel in the lathe chuck, spinning it at reasonably low speed and rotating the head socket around it by hand, being as careful as possible to distribute the sanding as well as I could. The paper soon clogged and I tried the body again. Got it in this time, but then had a lot of trouble getting it out. Almost resorted to the flame again! Turned the paper around to present a new surface and repeated. After several more repeats, I could get the body in, turn it comfortably, and pull it out. That will do for now. I put a touch of vaseline on the fresh end of the body to reduce the likelihood of the plastic rebonding or jamming.

The bore of the body was disgusting - how much breath condensate and dust had accumulated there over 50 years? So I ran a dowel with fine steel wool around it at high speed in the lathe. Now the bore glows! And cleaned out the similar encrustations in the head, but by hand. And used fine steel wool to clean up the outside of head and body. Not to any high standard - it still looks like a very old whistle. Rather in keeping with the player....

Interesting to try the old whistle out on Flutini - one of my Real Time Tuning Analysis systems - and find that it was pretty good. Much better than the much later whistle whose tuning I had to dramatically retweak, see http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/Tin-whistle-retuning.htm

So, hopefully that will be of some use to others seeking to decapitate old whistles....
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Re: Tweaks: The Thread

Post by Terry McGee »

OK, some more circumstantial support for the volatilising plasticiser theory. I tried to remove the head from a really old Generation C whistle today. Of the nickel body, blue head subset. I could tell that I'd removed the head previously, as there was a suspiciously shiny 2-3mm band just below the head, whereas the rest of the body was, shall we say, showing its age.

Couldn't budge it by hand, so tried the next trick in the quiver, running boiling water from the jug around the top of the body, just below the head. That enabled me to remove it within a few seconds. Try and put it back however? I could get it in a mm or two, but getting very tight. So, like the previous one, it had shrunk over time. Just not quite as much. Remember with that one, I had to resort to flame getting the head off.

Again resorting to some 240 grit abrasive paper wrapped around a dowel spun in the lathe (a pistol drill would do). Again, the paper clogged quickly and had to be swapped end to end to finish the job. Wipe off the dust, test the fit, a spot of vaseline (petroleum jelly) to lubricate it and it's a happy whistle once again. Again, the tuning is fine, and the notes in both low and 2nd octave speak cleanly and firmly.

Unlike the Feadóg whistles I've bought more recently, some of which almost get by, but some are just unbearably shrill and twitchy. Particularly unstable on 2nd octave G.
Have I been unlucky, or is this typical? Is that what AuLoS303 means by "their tendency to crack"?

I guess that's my next adventure, working out what's wrong with the Feadógs and fixing it. Anyone have any experience with these whistles or this problem?
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