Hello all! I've been investigating the physics and acoustics of the whistle, and I've been wondering whether anyone knows any details about the materials of which the old standard "cheap" whistles are made. The metals have been easy to track down, of course (mostly brass, except for Clarke's tinplate), but the headpiece materials have not. I'm interested in the plastic used for plastic headpieces, and the wood used in Clarkes. Clarke just lists "hardwood", which is not very helpful. For instance, balsa is technically a hardwood (stupid though that sounds).
As far as plastic goes, ironically, Clarke has been the only one I've come across so far that has specified what they make their headpieces out of, namely PC-ABS. I've seen other posts mentioning in passing that other mouthpieces are made of (plain) ABS, but my own measurements of weight (very precise, using a laboratory scale) and density (imprecise, but helped by having many mouthpieces to measure) suggest that ABS is actually denser than the plastic used in Oaks, Feadogs, Waltons, and (newer) Generations.
From my density measurements, they all seem very similar, and most consistent with polystyrene. This seems odd to me, as the quality of plastic in (newer) Gens seems significantly inferior to that used in the others. Among other things, if I sight down the tube, the plastic in the head of the Gens transmits light pretty well, while that of the others blocks it pretty effectively. They feel different to me as well, the others feeling more "solid" somehow. Less subjectively, they seem to be of different toughness: sliding the head up and down on the Gen sometimes leaves bits of shredded headpiece plastic fluff that gets in the tube, while this has never happened in the others, in spite of some of them being very tight fits.
If the densities didn't suggest otherwise, I'd say that only Gens were polystyrene, and the others ABS. But again, in spite of the inaccuracies I get from my comparatively crude volume measurements (displacement of water in a graduated cylinder that's only marked in ml), they're all in the same range, averaging around 1.01-1.03. That's not dense enough for ABS (specific gravity 1.06-1.08), but right in the ballpark of polystyrene (0.96-1.04).
So, does anyone know for sure what these things are actually made of?
And what about the wood used in Clarke originals, anyway? Or Shaws, for that matter (I just got one, and so of course I'm curious about that as well...)?
Thanks in advance...!
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