I recently received two sliver Copland whistles (a high D and high C, left to me by a friend who died not long ago). I have a Copeland brass high D that I rarely play because I just don’t like it, but these are lovely whistles. The D is stuck tight, though, and I can’t tune it. I’ve tried the hot water trick to no avail. Any advice? (and did Copeland ever make an untenable whistle?)
My instinct is to recommend using WD-40. It’s basically the miracle “unstick things” formula, and it’s never let me down in any context. I’ve never used it on a whistle before, but I strongly suspect it would be effective, and it should be perfectly safe (some people even use it as silver cleaner).
Only thing I can add is that a pair of rubber washing-up gloves can make a big difference to your ability to grip when trying to loosen a stuck whistle head. I hope you manage to undo it.
If we can assume that it is intended to be tunable, we can probably also assume that a build-up of breath condensate on the mating surfaces of the slide is responsible for it jamming. This happens with flutes too if they are not cleaned off regularly. With flutes it gets trickier, as the slides are inside wooden sections. The trick we use there is to run a hot poker up inside the slides to soften the gunge. I would think that could be done on a silver whistle by running the slide section over a flame while rotating it, then applying counter rotation. Gloves would come in handy here. I would use the workshop spirit burner used for floating in pads. About the heat of a candle, but it burns clean. But it would be wise first to carefully examine the one you can get apart to make sure there is nothing in there that would be badly affected by heat.
Cigarette lighter? They have to be good for something, surely?
Sudden mental image of Elspeth stopping some bloke in the street, one hand on hip, waving whistle in a small circle with the other hand. “Got a light, sailor?”
I’ve found alcohol, in the form of methylated spirits (de-natured alcohol?) to be best at dissolving the goup once you get it apart. A bit on a tissue or rag works. Clean both mating surfaces, and apply a touch of lubricant, eg cork grease, Vaseline or similar. Lip balm?
How about putting it in the freezer to get to maximum contraction, then pouring hot water on the outside of the slide. With any luck the change in size through thermal expansion may be enough to loosen .
A couple of these might help with the grip - less cosmetic damage than a pipe-wrench…
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baby-Boa-Strap-Wrench-Colour/dp/B00096JDJY/ref=asc_df_B00096JDJY/
Years ago when I had a stuck slide on my Copeland Low D that no amount of freezing or running under hot water would cure, Michael Copeland advised smacking the outer tuning slide sleeve with a rawhide or similar mallet, to unstick the slide. As I recall it only took two or three smacks, rotating the whistle in my lap a bit after each blow. You wouldn’t do this with the whistle on a counter top or other hard surface.
Question for the OP: Are the whistles made of silver, or are they simply silver in color? Copeland made whistles in three metals that are silver in color: silver, nickel, and white bronze. If the whistle is actually silver, it may be more susceptible to annealing, which softens the metal, even after it has fully cooled, so heating needs to be controlled if you go that route.
Also, if the whistle is indeed silver, the build up of tarnish alone can cause the slide to freeze up or be difficult to move. Usually polishing both sections of the slide that contact one another using a commercial silver polishing cloth will solve the problem once the slide is free. Giving the slide an occasional polishing with one of these cloths should keep any silver whistle slide working smoothly going forward. You can find this type of polishing cloth easily on-line, or in most musical instrument stores, just search for “silver polishing cloth”.
Do note that flute and whistle slides may require different care and maintenance techniques because these two types of instruments may have different designs. For example some traditional Irish flutes use slides that are made to be lubricated, while most whistle slides are designed to work best without lubrication. Always best to find out if the maker intended the slide to be lubricated, and if so with what. If remove aPl lubrication from a slide that was meant to be lubricated, the slide will often fit loosely annd can leak. Adding lube to a slide that was fit to be unlubricated often causes an otherwise perfectly good slide to seem too tight or sticky, and often the slide will become stuck in one position.
Finally, don’t use WD-40 on your wind instruments.
Why not?
I note that the Mk Whistles people address the issue:
https://blog.mkwhistles.com/stuck-low-whistle-tuning-slide/
The hair dryer is probably not a bad suggestion before resorting to a flame. Just play it on the section of the whistle that contains the outer slide. And, in a variant of Dr Phil’s suggestion, you could even try then plunging the other end into a vessel of iced water. But if that doesn’t work, I’d go with the flame. You’re at no risk of changing the tempering (annealing) the metal unless you have to get it up to glowing!
If you want to see some really scary stuff, watch the on-line videos of dealing with really stuck slides on brass instruments. You shouldn’t have to go anywhere near there.
And it’s a reminder to all of us to clean and lubricate our slides as soon as we notice any resistance! Music shops sell specially formulated slide oils and greases, but I’ve found a small dob of petroleum jelly or cork grease works just fine.
Now, funny we’ve just been talking about sticking slides, and suddenly I notice my flute slide getting a bit tight today. OK, I figured, this is not only the opportunity to clean it, but also to take careful notice of what happens when I clean it.
So, first to describe how it felt as it was. Hard to rotate and hard to slide in and out a little bit. Sticky, snatchy feeling, tending to overshoot.
So on to cleaning…
I dampened a scrap of soft, clean rag with Methylated Spirits, and used it to wipe clean the protruding part of the inner slide. Then to wipe clean the inside of the outer slide, using my index finger to get the damp part of the rag in as far as the slide would normally go. Noticed that black marks are forming on the formerly clean rag.
Recognising that I can’t access the full mating length of the inner slide (it’s up inside the head), I reassembled the parts, twisted them around and back and forth, then pulled them apart again, and repeated the cleaning of both the mating surfaces. Rewarding. More black marks.
Then reassembled and tested. Dramatically better. I could now rotate the head and move it in and out from the barrel with no difficulty. And easier to move it just a little bit, as if retuning or tweaking the embouchure angle slightly, without it overshooting. But a slight feeling of edginess.
I could have left it there, but that Inner Nagging Voice of Engineers Past reminded me that metal parts should never be left in contact without lubrication. Especially if there could be moisture involved. Thank you, Inner Nagging Voice.
A spot of cork grease touched onto the exposed surface of the inner slide, rubbed around the slide with the fingers. Pretty much disappears. Huh! What’s that going to achieve?
Reassemble the head and barrel, rotate a few times, moving in and out to distribute the grease. And try it out again. Ah, perfection! The slight sense of edginess has disappeared, replaced by a warm sense of smoothness. And control. The slide moves a tiny bit more slowly than when just cleaned, but still without significant effort. Certainly no sense of the original stickiness, or the interim edginess.
And a warm sense of achievement on my part. Not only is the slide working perfectly again, but I know it’s protected as best it can be from wear and ingress of moisture by the thin film of lubricant. And, need I say, protected from the risk of jamming.
Total expenditure? A scrap of torn rag, enough methylated spirits to dampen a patch on the rag, and a touch of cork grease. And a few minutes of my time.
And the black marks on the rag? Probably Copper Oxide - it’s black. Copper is quite an active element, more likely to react with chemicals such as found in breath condensate and air pollution than relatively inert silver. Sterling Silver is also called Silver 925, meaning 925 parts per thousand are metallic silver. The remaining 75 parts per thousand, 7.5%, is copper with perhaps some other elements. Pure silver is too limp to make practical items like musical instruments, teapots, etc with. You don’t want to suffer DroopyFlute! The small addition of copper stiffens it up admirably, without significantly changing the colour. But in a chemically active environment (eg you live near a coal-fired power plant, or you breath on the item, or wear it next to the skin), the copper tarnishes to black.
Ah, but, but, but, I hear the Boehm flute players cry. Why have we never been told to grease our flute slides? For the simple and practical reason you store your flute head separated from the body. If it were greasy, it would attract dust, and you’d then grind that into grinding paste when you reassembled the flute. Not good! We conical flute players leave our slides together when stored. They don’t attract dust, but they do have time to tarnish and jam. We should clean and lubricate.
So, that’s waiting for you when you can get the whistle apart, Elspeth. Any progress?
!
Very nice narrative !
Reading it, I felt like I was next to you, watching, and talking about it. 
A heat gun is a good tool for this purpose. Hotter than an alcohol burner or candle but less than a smoke wrench. A combination of its heat and gentle taps with a rawhide or poly mallet (onto a base surface of leather or other non scuffing material) should do it. Not as much experience with whistles but lots of experience with brass instruments and other stuck tooling.
Jon
Drifting way off topic here but, what about the opposite condition — when the tuning slide moves too easily. When the head joint moves in or out or rotates while playing. How to stiffen it up a bit. Either on a whistle or a flute.
Thanks and best wishes.
Steve
What is the make of the whistle, and the material it is made out of, Steve?
Ah, so that was you, trill!
You could just try some grease (remember I mentioned it moved more “slowly” when greased), but that might not be enough. I’ve heard of people using stickier materials - do I remember rubbing the outside of the inner slide with candlewax being one of them? Easily removed if not effective.
My preferred method is to “squish” the protruding inner slide just a little to make it go very slightly out-of-round. Then when you offer it up to the outer slide again, it has to go round again to conform to the outer slide’s authority. The springiness of the tubing continues to exert pressure against the inside of the outer slide, and that keeps it where it’s put.
Decide which way you are going to squish it and try squishing it a little, testing each time. If that isn’t enough, squish it a bit more the same way until you get the degree of tightness you want. Then clean and lubricate the slide and test again.
Obviously you have to be pretty careful carrying out this procedure. You don’t want to squish the tube flat, or kink it in any way. Or put enough pressure on surrounding wood to crack that! I usually try between finger and thumb first, in case that’s enough. It usually isn’t, puny human! So next would be in the jaws of a vice, just bringing up the handle to take up the pressure, test, then a little harder, test, etc. A pair of pliers would probably work, using a scrap of leather or rag to protect the slide. Or jam it in the hinge side of the door and close the door slowly! But careful, once you’ve kinked the tube or split the wood, you’re in deeper trouble! I’ve never gone too far, but that’s not to say you couldn’t!
It takes less time to do than I’ve taken to describe it. So much for profitability, eh?
Now, by total coincidence, another piece of the puzzle put itself together today. I came across a fully finished tuning slide pair I’d prepared and set aside maybe 15 to 20 years back. It was in response to a flute customer remarking that if he or she (can’t remember which!) wasn’t fully happy with their selected embouchure, could I make another head to fit the same flute. Clearly they must have been happy, and I’d forgotten about the stashed slides until stumbling across them today.
So, in the light of our recent discussions on stuck slides, I wondered if anything bad might have happened to the pair over the intervening years. I’d left them assembled but not lubricated!
But no, no problems at all - they are still shiny and slide perfectly well. So, I think we can say with extremely high confidence that it’s breath condensate that causes the problem. Again, a reminder to clean it off from time to time and certainly as soon as you notice any tightness or stickiness.
Plumbers’ PTFE tape works as well as anything I’ve found, as it’s very easy to adjust the thickness of the layer you apply. If you get it wrong first time, it’s easy to remove it and start again.
The tape’s slightly compressible, which helps get a good fit. I wind tape around the whistle body about three times, put the head on, and work it very gently from side to side to flatten the tape. I keep rotating it at different points until I’ve gone all the way around, then remove the head and add another layer or two of tape. That gives a very snug fit that still permits movement, and seems to last quite a long time.
I only play metal and plastic whistles, though, the material might not be suitable for wood.
what about the opposite condition — when the tuning slide moves too easily. When the head joint moves in or out or rotates while playing. How to stiffen it up a bit. Either on a whistle or a flute.
It depends on how loose the slide is, obviously, but a mix of vaseline and beeswax should usually do the trick, shouldn’t it?
what about the opposite condition — when the tuning slide moves too easily. When the head joint moves in or out or rotates while playing. How to stiffen it up a bit. Either on a whistle or a flute.
Tried that and it wasn’t “thick” enough to lessen the gap. Also tried archery string protectant, a thicker wax material. Still didn’t do the trick. Guess I’ll have to find a woodwind repair person to slightly enlarge the inner tubing. Or, the less preferable option of sending the head back to France to the maker. Frustrating 'cause it’s just that tiny bit loose so’s to have a mind of its own about where it wants to go.
Best wishes.
Steve
I was afraid the beeswax was a bit too obvious a a solution. A woodwind tech to, eh, enlarge the inner tube (nearly said ‘male part’ there 
) is the next step.