Can I give a Chieftain V3 Low D a tuning slide?

Whistle
1

Has anyone done this? Outdoor gigs are a pain to pick up the above whistle and go through the process of warming it up till its in tune. Can I make a sleeve and cut a small amount out of the length and shorten it till it warms up? TBH I’m ready to give up on it and consign it to the growing stack of obsolete metal I’ve accumulated over the years.
Regards
Mick

ps I’ve tried all the other ways like tucking it down my leg, bucket of warm water etc…

2

I think the intonation would be thrown off by adding an outer slide to a thick-bodied whistle, especially in the high notes. This is because of the widening of the bore at the slide when it is pulled out a little. If you can get someone with a lathe to reduce the outer diameter at the slide location, the results would be better.

3

But that’s actually how the tunable Chieftains are made…

If you can get someone with a lathe to reduce the outer diameter at the slide location, the results would be better.

Accepting that they’re turned down a fraction of a millimetre, but (since I really do mean a fraction) I’m sure this is for one or more of the following reasons:

  1. To get the slide to fit.
  2. To provide some clearance for the joint (which is corked to the full thickness).
  3. To provide a reference mark (akin to an inscribed line) for tuning to.

And not to maintain the intonation, because they’d be far more obviously turned down for that.

I’m sure you can, but reckon you’ll need a rapidly auto-adjusting joint if you intend to tune ‘sharp’ and start cold!

4

Maybe I should have kept my opinion to myself, since I don’t have at my disposal tunable and non-tunable Chieftains to compare. I’d be interested to hear from someone who does whether the hole sizes and spacings on both are identical. If they are, I will withdraw my previous advice.

5

I’d be interested in how they compare.

6

I think the intonation would be thrown off by adding an outer slide to a thick-bodied whistle

true

Maybe I should have kept my opinion to myself, since I don’t have at my disposal tunable and non-tunable Chieftains to compare. I’d be interested to hear from someone who does whether the hole sizes and spacings on both are identical. If they are, I will withdraw my previous advice.

your previous advice is correct - irrespective of the differences in tunable/non-tunable Chieftans - no reason to withdraw it. The resulting changes in intonation (good or bad) will depend on the depth and length of the enlargement to the bore and its position.

7

That notwithstanding, I suppose what I’m interested in knowing is if the two whistles are made from identical tubing, or if the tunable model uses a thinner-walled tubing.

8

Not the whole story here (because I don’t have any non-tunable models to compare) but, having bought a set of seven tunable Chieftains a year ago and just sold three of them on…

  1. The tubing of the tunable models is not what I’d call thin (looks similar to my vintage Overtons for equivalent bore sizes).
  2. The only one with real tuning slide problems was the High D, which required pulling out a good 7mm or more (far more than any of the others) to play (with disturbing effect on the internal tuning) at ‘D’ pitch.
  3. You can hear this model playing closer to Eb pitch in Hobgoblin’s videos Noel plays the Chieftain High D Tuneable Whistle and Chieftain Mezzo D Tuneable Whistle played by Phil Hardy (!).
  4. So I’d often wondered whether the non-tunable High D might actually work better because I found the tunable (yes, I’ve tried more than one because Phil replaced the first!) virtually useless.
  5. And this seems possible with Phil now playing the non-tunable model at a much truer pitch at http://www.kerrywhistles.com/movie.php?movID=274.
9

Mick,

My low D Reyburn does just what you propose. The tuning “slide” is an external sleeve. However, the tubing (brass) diameter is probably thiner than your Chieftain, whether or not this would make a difference I have no idea.

JD