Are Acorns and Oaks worth trying?

[Dan A.]

Still more insight...thanks again to all! This place is great!

I've dealt with variances in injection molding before; I used to build plastic model kits. Some of that comes from the mold wearing, and some kit makers were just better at molding and quality control than others. I seem to recall that when I made my Walton's Irish D tunable, I trimmed a fair amount of flash from inside the head. (Now that I think about it, I assume whistle bodies are cast, and therefore subject to the effects of worn dies.)

The Little Black D has a brighter sound than my other whistles. It's also the least forgiving. I seem to have gotten used to the former, but it remains my least favorite whistle. Should I feel the need to thin the herd, it'll go. Perhaps I'll use it as a test-bed for tweaking; if something goes wrong, I'd only be out about $6.50 US, plus the cost of whatever materials I'd waste. As Mr.Gumby likes to say, YMMV. Keith and I had wildly varying mileage in this case.

And Tyler, congratulations on somewhat beating WhOAD!

My WhOAD may well be in remission. Two Dixons in their nice little cases fill a pocket in my drumstick bag pretty well. I don't think I'd get a third such case in that pocket. There could be a second drumstick bag in my not-too-distant future. Making storage pouches for the Clarke and Feadógs will have to get bumped up the priority list...but that's another story.

[Tyler DelGregg]

Interestingly, the non mass produced whistles are made with the cavity filled. I did try the putty tweak on the Dixon Trad out of curiosity and didn't like it. The only Generation that I prefer untweaked is the Bb; in this case, the tweak dulled the tone terribly.

I suppose not injection moulded designs are made without a cavity because their production process doesn't require one.

There have been experiments with materials of lesser density to avoid. or lessen, the dulling effect. Cillian O'Briain uses a polyfiller like material Jerry Freeman tried something like that in his early Blackbirds but the ones I received suffered terrible outbreaks of black mould on whatever he was using so, on balance, I am not sure how successful that was.

I had forgotten about the filler Jerry uses on some of his whistles. The ones without the solid fillers look like a honeycomb cluster. His Bb, A, G use the honeycombs, the Mellow Dog is solid. I'm not sure what his current Bluebird uses.

[RoberTunes]

Still more insight...thanks again to all! This place is great!
The Little Black D has a brighter sound than my other whistles. It's also the least forgiving. I seem to have gotten used to the former, but it remains my least favorite whistle. Should I feel the need to thin the herd, it'll go. Perhaps I'll use it as a test-bed for tweaking; if something goes wrong, I'd only be out about $6.50 US, plus the cost of whatever materials I'd waste. As Mr.Gumby likes to say, YMMV. Keith and I had wildly varying mileage in this case.
And Tyler, congratulations on somewhat beating WhOAD!

1) this place is great
2) nobody beats WhOAD or the BORG
3) I used a Walton's Guinness on a recording (the Little Black D model except they use white plastic instead of black) which featured a lead whistle with quite a few notes in the upper second octave. It has it's limits but why I preferred it was the thin peculiar tone as contrasted to other instruments, and then in the upper half of the second octave and higher, when the notes start breaking up (if they do), it was an attractive sound of the whistle tone blended with white noise, rather than screeching, lost windiness, intonation loss or raspiness, and if used carefully with suitable musical phrases, it sounded like an extension of the whistle's expressiveness, like music instead of instrument failing. So I stuck with it, practiced with it and recorded. No regrets. It's certainly not for all applications and it's a peculiar light thinnish tone not a standard thing.

[Tyler DelGregg]

So much for my disorder being in control. I just ordered a previously used MacHoover brass Bb Whitecap.

[Dan A.]

If it's an out-of-production instrument that isn't on the market very often, you needn't worry. Otherwise, perhaps a one-in-one-out rule would help?

[Tyler DelGregg]

If it's an out-of-production instrument that isn't on the market very often, you needn't worry. Otherwise, perhaps a one-in-one-out rule would help?

Yes, exactly! But.... the one-in-one out rule is so very hard to enforce.

[Dan A.]

The one-in-one out rule is so very hard to enforce.

It would be easy if I intended to continue playing guitar, due to the expense of guitars I consider worth buying and my lack of storage space. You are correct in that it is much harder to enforce where whistles are concerned. If I felt I couldn't enforce it, I'd just wind up spending $20 on another drumstick bag!

[Sedi]

I made a similar experience -- I also used to play guitar and I have just two, one electric, one acoustic. Never felt the need to get another one. But not so with whistles. However, considering the price difference, I could probably get some more whistles .

[Dan A.]

I know that, given my lack of cat-resistant storage options, the third guitar would have meant either the first or second would have to go. And as I contemplate a considerable downsizing...it's just not practical to keep playing guitar. Building a collection of whistles, on the other hand, requires much less investment and storage space. It's no wonder WhOAD is so prevalent!

Returning somewhat to topic, I put the Little Black D through its paces a few moments ago. It sounded particularly atrocious, so I finally made it tunable. Much to my surprise, the inside of the head was free of flash and other molding flaws, but a glob of unidentifiable crud had collected on the body at the inside of the head end. After removing that crud and experimenting with new positions for the head, it sounded a little bit better. I see a whistle tweaking in my future.