OK, so my question isn’t about oiling a wooden whistle or anything else for that matter…
Here’s my stumper for the day:
The O’Riordan kingwood D/C set I received a few months back has me guessing. When I first got them the outside of the wood had a bit of a shine to it. At first, I thought just a bit of residual oil from manufacture. But over several months the shine has worn down. I have oiled the INSIDE of the bore as per Pat’s direction, and occasionally wiped a small amount of extra on the outside of the keytubes. The shine, and also the contrast in the grain seems to come right back - but only for about a day or so.
Now I remember several years back when I sold pipes and tobbacco, we would sometimes polish the smooth bowls of new briar pipes for our customers. I seem to remember using a wax based stuff on a light cloth buffing wheel. Would it make sense that this is what I’m seeing wearing off from my whistles? I still know the owners of the shop very well though I don’t work there anymore. I have given thought to asking them if I could borrow their buffer and re-polish the tubes of the whistles again.
It’s a fairly gentle process, but I’m wondering if anyone has a thought to this causing problems in the wood later on. I can’t think of any, but one never knows.
Without any direct familiarity with Mr. O’Riordan’s whistles, I’ll hazard an educated guess as to what’s happening.
I suspect he has used a “drying oil” (linseed, tung, Watco Danish Oil, etc.) on the whistle. This kind of oil dries hard like varnish, but the idea is, you want it to dry IN the wood, not ON the wood.
If one makes additional applications of such an oil, lets it dry to become only slightly sticky and then wipes off the residue so there’s none left on the surface, one can produce a beautiful finish that makes the wood glow and shine, but doesn’t have any buildup on top of the wood. You might ask Mr. O’Riordan whether he recommends that you do this. (If you do, be very careful not to let the oil build up insides the toneholes. It can accumulate there and make a mess.) However, I’m sure Mr. O’Riordan has oiled the wood in such a way that the practical purpose (to seal and protect the wood) has been accomplished without any additional attention.
Brian, I know several fifers who wax the outside of their instruments, with no ill effects that I can tell of.
Personally, I feel a polished instrument would just accentuate the scruffy, unpolished appearance of this player, so I leave the whistles and fifes looking dull.
Wax does not polymerize. If desired, it could always be removed with alcohol or mineral spirits, neither of which will harm a permanent finish (unless the finish happens to be shellac, which dissolves in alcohol, but it’s very unlikely anyone would use shellac on a whistle).
Stringed instruments, in particular, are often French polished, with orange (the natural color of the material) shellac. That’s what gives violins, etc. their characteristic color; maple and spruce being blond woods otherwise. You may have noticed, on a well-used violin, the neck tends to revert to the blond color of the maple where the player’s thumb has worn off the shellac.
It wouldn’t make sense to shellac a whistle. Shellac isn’t very moisture resistant. It’s shellac that’s most prone to “blushing,” or turning white in response to moisture. The most common example would be showing a white ring where a glass with some condensation on the outside has been set down. That’s one of the reasons shellac isn’t used on furniture much any more. The remedy for the white ring, BTW, is to reliquify the shellac with alcohol in that area and let it dry again. The white ring will disappear.
FWIW-- I know for a fact that Glenn Schultz does indeed use French polish on his wooden whistles. This is applied to the whistle while it’s spinning on the lathe. Haven’t heard any complaints about the finish on Weasels.
I use a variation on that type of finish. It’s an English product called Myland’s High Build Friction Polish, and is also applied to a whistle still on the lathe. This is one of the most fun and exciting parts of making wooden whsitles: the sanded wood is rather dull looking at this point, but once you add the finish the grain just jumps right out at you. Magic. In most cases I first use their cellulose sealer-- the natural oil on some woods tends to bleed through the friction polish, forming a sort of dusty residue on the surface after a while ( this wipes off easily with a soft cloth). Just before I ship a whistle, I give it a very light coat of carnuba furniture wax. This probably doesn’t last very long, but I like to send 'em out nice and shiny!
Thanks all who have responded so far. So this isn’t something you would want to use on the inner bores I expect? I would think that you would want to seal the inner bore even more than the outer as it was exposed to much greater extremes in humidity through playing…very interesting.
I’ll be calling Pat in the next week or so and asking him. I found my Almond oil in a health-nut store. Where would I want to go for linseed etc.? Hardware place like Lowe’s or Home Depot?
Almond oil, which he recommends the owner continue using. He has shellacked the bore once that we know of, for Loren’s birdseye maple whistle. I get the impression that it’s a long and difficult process, though.
Shellac is tricky to work with, unless you have the piece spinning in a lathe. Then many finishes that would otherwise be difficult, become much easier to do beautifully. This may not have been possible for the inside.
Kingwood is a member of the Rosewood (Dalbergia) family of woods and will be quite rich in natural oils. It is very possible to obtain a nice sheen just by burnishing the wood, although added protection is desirable for the inner bore.
Shellac can be applied but is more usually used as a sealer rather than the highly polished finish associated with furniture, pianos and classical guitars. Many different types of finishes are suitable (external surfaces) - in the end I suppose its back to personal preference.
Jerry - fiddles and french polishing - now that really is a ‘can of worms’.
(quote)Almond oil, which he(Glenn Schultz) recommends the owner continue using. He has shellacked the bore once that we know of, for Loren’s birdseye maple whistle. I get the impression that it’s a long and difficult process, though.(quote)
Actually, Glenn uses the same 5:1 light olive:almond with vit E added that I use-- I got the recipe from him. The only reason he sealed the bore of that Birdseye maple is that maple is relatively soft and porus compared to the exotic hardwoods usually used to make whistles. Also, oil would soak through the maple really quickly and probably look pretty unsightly. I have some really great looking “salvage timber” birdseye maple that I plan to treat in the same way.
Olive oil is not a drying oil, which is to say, it does not polymerize and form a solid body. Almond oil, I believe, will polymerize, althoughly slowly.
The addition of vitamin E to the olive oil will further prevent any drying (since oils dry by oxidation, and E is an antioxidant). So it seems that what Glenn is trying to do is avoid using anything that will coat the bore with a surface film, which makes sense. The use of almond oil makes sense for the same reason. The oil polymerizes so slowly, it will soak in and/or run off the sides of the bore before it would have a chance to build up.
I would be very interested in knowing what kinds of oil other whistle makers use inside their whistles.
Another factor in this is, some may prefer oils that are food quality or at least suitable for eating utensils (such as may be sold as “salad bowl finish”).
