I have someone thinking about whistle cases for my whistles in China. They like leather, from a style point of view. He has concerns about moisture from the whistles causing mold, wants to try for a way the case can have some ventilation. I’m concerned that the case should protect the whole whistle (or group of whistles). Any thoughts/suggestions?
Thanks!
Best wishes,
Jerry
My wife is making a quilted roll for me. I suggested and we bought a netting material that will go on both ends of the whistle pockets. I don’t have a finished roll yet but rolling the whistles, the netting should allow for air flow through them. The quilted material will provide some protection and the material will extend beyond the whistles to provide a little lateral protection as well.
FWIW, I use to wrap an old t-shirt around the whistle I want to carry about; for carrying more whistles, I’ve sewn myself a roll from a fancy scarf (large enough for several layers when rolled, providing some protection). Ironically, the only time I got one of my whistles seriously damaged was when I had it in a plastic carrier.
There are also those Ashbury whistle bags, which are rather inexpensive. I haven’t tried them yet, though.
I think whistle cases are a bit overrated. A whistle can well be protected against dirt, scratches and minor dents by a lousy piece of cloth; for severe shocks you’d really need hard case. A (soft) case just looks more neat and pretty… 
I guess this didn’t help you at all.
My gig-bag of whistles was manufactured and sold as a camera tripod bag, but got the job after I realised that it happened to be exactly the right length for a low D whistle.
So in a single easy-access bag with a zip at one end there’s the Overton D and the rauschpfeife in their respective fabric sleeves (the rauschpfeife also gets a plastic tube for extra protection), and a bag with the shorter pipes e.g. D and C fifes, high whistle, sopranino recorder in slid down the side of the longer tubes.
Waterproof, breathable (which would be my main concern about a leather bag, apart from the provenance of the Chinese leather that is), easy to carry around, and (touch wood) it has so far survived many years of everything life in the Morris side, the ceilidh band, one pretty serious car crash, and gigs, festivals and sessions, have tried to do to it and its contents.
I like thick leather for the case. When I started with whistles, still a newbie here, I used an old slide ruler leather case. Yes, I still have that slide ruler laying around, hoarder that I am. Perfect fit and the open end had a fold over flap that tucked in. Plenty of air could get in. For another whistle I went and had a cobbler/leathersmith stitch two leather strips together leaving one end open, but, approx 1" longer. Snug fit and tough. Now I’m thinking about having the leather “hand tooled” with celtic design, but, I’d have to lessen the whistle whoad to afford it. Next time with same cobbler, I’m having him stitch two leather strips together and adding a small button snap on the open end.
I like leather and haven’t had any problems, but, I don’t session play nor travel any distance in rough circumstances to put the cases to the test.
I haven’t experienced any mold issue and if I do, I’ll just find something else. No biggy.
Maybe your Chinese contact could wrap tooled leather around one of these…
It has a 6" diameter so you could put one of each of your entire whistle smorgasbord inside. 
Best wishes.
Steve
Well, Clarke has a ready made solution made of leather, I’m sure any shoemaker could do as well. Tandy Might be one place to look for some ideas too.
Steve, I knew I could depend on you.
This is all very helpful, and I hope you’ll continue to post more ideas.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Hmm. No instrument should be stored wet in its case for any length of time. A case is for carrying, storing and protecting. A stand or table top is for drying.
Be aware that tanned leather often contains many salts that can react with the copper in brass tubes resulting in corrosion (verdigris). Leather also retains moisture, hastening the corrosion.
Use of a good quality leather and keeping things dry will help, as will coating brass with a protective oil/grease/was/laquer. Perhaps a leather case with a cloth or fleece lining?
Second that! You should have seen my Buck 110 knife after a year in its sheath.. it was emerald green! 
Thank you very much for your advice, I will reconsider your whistle bag material.
Unless you have some poncy thing made of Dappled Yew (or some other esoteric wood) plastic (shudder) or a composite material, do you really need a case/roll for your whistles? Apart from Shaws most whistles can endure a bus running over them before they sustain any significant damage. I stick all mine in a rucksack, every two or three months I soak them overnight in some soapy water and run a bit of old credit card through the mouthpiece. I concede they may have a scratch (or two) but they all play as good as the day I got them.
Then again I am a person that ‘famously’ used to play a mildew covered saxophone much to my bandmate’s horror (that’s what happens when you keep things cooped up in cases)
Well, I can assure you that a Waltons Little Black can’t take a trip in a rucksack.. mine got a nice ding from that, even though I was aware of the whistle being there all the time during the trip, and being very careful. The metal is extremely thin, the whistle weighs almost nothing. Now I keep it in a plastic ‘telescopic carrier’ from Bigwhistle, they’re nice and I have one of those for every whistle I own now - if I need to bring whistles somewhere I put them in carriers and can then safely throw them into a rucksack. Sometimes with a rubber band around a handful of them. I’m not worried about putting them into checked-in bags either. I don’t think (most of) my whistles would survive being run over by a bus though, with or without the carrier. The carrier protects against more “normal” abuse, like what dinged my Waltons, or a worse variant that could ding or damage the more solid-type whistles.
And another important thing - those carriers are square-shaped, so, unlike the bare whistles, they won’t roll off uneven surfaces..
Of the whistles I own I guess the Impempe can survive maybe even your bus on its own.. but I’m not so sure about the regular Generation style whistles.
-Tor
Well I’ve got an Overton low D and one of David Angus’ fine stainless steel D fifes in my bag, both of which probably would survive Eric Pickles sitting on them, but I do like to try and look after them and all my other instruments whilst they’re not in use. And I’m not sure I’d fancy having anything I put that near my mouth just kicking about loose in a rucksack … the mildewed saxophone (great tune title BTW, suggests something minor with some weird enharmonic passages in the B part) just sounds revolting!
I have a whistle roll a friend sewed for me. It has slots for about 8 whistles and is made from Irish green (what else?) felt. The felt is soft and thick enough to give the outer whistles some protection yet the material is porous enough so it breathes a bit. I do open up the roll when I’m home and let the whistles dry out.
I do not, as of yet, own an actual whistle, but having been a seamstress for over 3 decades, I feel somewhat qualified to attempt to add to the discussion.
I would suggest trying a roll made of felted wool. This would be absorbent, protective, and breathable. If you wished to provide a bit more support, you could even add some pockets that would accept reinforcements (I am picturing something like chopsticks that would go between each pocket for your whistles-chopsticks becasue they are easy to obtain, durable, and replacable–you might want to sand the ends slightly so they are more smooth and rounded and slip into the pockets more easily, though).
To make it, you would want to obtain an old 100% wool sweater, in as large a size as you can manage (the process of felting shrinks that material significantly). I suggest a thrift shop for this.
Felt the material by simply tossing the sweater in the washing machine for a few cycles when you are washing something heavyweight (like your bluejeans or towels) and dry the sweater in your clothes dryer. Heat and friction are what do the trick. Your men’s large sweater will eventually shrink down to a youth size and it will have become thick and somewhat stiff. Before you attempt to use it you will need to 'block" it, this is simply laying the material out flat and pulling it into the shape you want (as square and flat as possible) and then letting it dry completely. If you find that it is trying to curl, you may need to pin it down to force it to stay flat, use stainless steel pins so you don’t get rust stains on anything.
Once it is dry, cut the material to the desired length and width. I suggest looking at jewelery rolls for ideas. Felted wool willnot ravel and the edges don’t really need to be finished, if you don’t want to do it.
I suggest a decent quality 100% cotton fabric about the weight that you would use for a summer shirt for the inside (if you want too make it really nice you could make bias tape with this fabric and use that to bind the edges and then make your ties from this). Prewash (I always prewash my 100% cotton fabrics in hot water and dry it and then do the whole thing again to make absolutely it is as preshrunk as it is going to go, nothing more frustrating than making a project and then some oaf washes and dries it and shrinks it all up!) and then iron with a bit of spray starch or sizing to help keep everything straight.
Place your whistles on the felted fabric and then place the cotton fabric on top, mark the spaces that you need to stitch the tubes for your whistles. If you want to add the additional protection of something like chopsticks that I mentioned earlier (you want them to be removable for ease in washing), you will need to also add these as well. I suggest using lots of straight pins and experimenting to find just the right size of pockets (make the pockets wider than it seems you will need, remove the whistles and then pin the two pieces of fabric together, add the whistles and then see how it performs, roll it up and see how it does and everything. Once you have the pockets at the perfect size and length, get ready to sew the pockets, just stitch down to make the pockets, if you want to ake it more durable, stitch a small upside down triangle at the top of each pocket, this will help to disburse the stress at the top of each of these seams, another option would be to stitch a ribbon along the outside of the wrap that goes all along the tops of each of these seams (thereby sandwiching the felt between the ribbon on the outside and the cotton fabric on the inside). Depending on how fat your final product is, stitch the middle of a length of ribbon either on one side or a few pockets in to make a tie to hold the whole thing together into a neat little bundle.
A few thoughts:
I would consider making the length of the roll maybe 2 inches longer than the longest whistle that you are designing the case for. You may want to also make a piece of cotton cloth that will act as a drape and will also add to the security of the case by stitching a piece of cotton cloth that is exactly the same size as the felt piece (finish the edges of this, I suggest by serging the edges and turning it under once so it does not become too bulky) to the TOP edge of the roll case, once your whistles are inside, flip this drape down and over the whole thing and then roll your case up-it will be impossible for whistles, especially conical ones, to work their way out. Particularly long cases may require two, three, or even more ribbon ties for security.
Using cotton and felted wool would defintely make this case breathable, but I would not store any musical instrument in such a case for long term storage.
I hope this makes sense, I am going by some craft projects that I have made for similar types of rolls, but for jewelery, artist brushes, and calligraphy pens. The directions above are basically exactly what I use for my calligraphy pens-most of which are far more exensive than the Pink Feadog that is going to be shipped to me after the first of the year .
Cheers!
Vic
I went with a low-tech vibe:
It’s modeled after a nice shipping box I got from thewhistleshop.com that has an insertable flap.
Materials:
My son made me one out of an old shirt for a textiles project at school (well, he hade quite a bit of help from his mum!). It’s basically the roll up design with pockets for each whistle a fold-over flap and as a nice touch, he used a shirt cuff to hold it together.
Are we going to see a range of tweaked whistle cases in the near future? 