How is the body formed in Copeland style taper bore whistles

[veloed]

Hi Guys,
I have been enjoying my Shaw whistles, and have had in the past a nice Copeland high D in Silver, back when Patrick Jones had the Irish Flute Store.
I had purchased the whistle, used, here on Chiff - and after having it and enjoying it a year or so, had Patrick rehome it for me.
It was, other then the weight, perhaps one of the nicest taper bore high Ds I have ever run across, with an amazing lovely pure sound.
As years have gone by, and I have a full machine shop now, I want to have a go at making a few like it, but slightly lighter to be my liking, and was wondering if any body knows how the body's taper is formed? I have down loaded loads of images of Copeland whistles , but would welcome any info on the actual construction process.
Thanks in advance ! Really appreciate being a member of the C & F group !
Ed Gilkison in Lakebay Washington USA

[Terry McGee]

I can't speak with any authority here, veloed, having had no experience with these whistles at all. But you mentioned "in silver" and "weight". Are we talking sterling silver? If so, I could imagine that the starting point is sheet sterling silver, readily available in any thickness from silversmith suppliers, formed into a tapered tube by the usual process of annealing, followed by tapping around a steel mandrel, tying closed with iron wire, silver soldering down the seam, and then cleaning up. Similar to how the Clarke's whistles are formed, but with a butted seam rather than an overlapped one.

You can touch up the final shape by tapping it on to the mandrel and hammering any dodgy-looking areas on to the mandrel with a rawhide mallet. (An anvil and lead block comes in handy here.) Or you could try metal spinning on the lathe. I've used the process to make tuning slides for flutes.

These days you can find people who will make seamless silver tubing on demand. Don't know if any will make tapered silver tubing on demand, but it could be worth asking. You could also investigate the notion of taking seamless silver tubing, and using a metal spinning approach to bring it down to the size of the mandrel. You'd need to anneal it a number of times as it will work-harden along the way.

A good thing to keep in mind is that copper is a good practice material for silversmithing. The two metals have similar working properties. Don't waste expensive silver if you can find copper of the required thickness to practice on. When you can make a good whistle in copper, move up to silver! And when you do move to silver, keep all your offcuts. You can usually sell them back to your supplier.

If you have any size information about the finished product - wall thickness, diameters at top and bottom, length - these might help suggest other possible approaches.

Happy to talk more if you feel this approach has merit.

[Timothytiptoes]

Haven't seen a Copeland whistle with a joined seam and I don't know the process he used. I would bet the process is one of a base diameter round tubing being annealed and drawn through a (carbide) die. I have experience with this process reforming brass cartridge cases using a parent case having the needed basic dimensions. Amazing how cleanly an annealed straight diameter can be reduced to a bottle neck or a straight taper. Silver also anneals well to make it malleable. I believe you can get an idea of some of this process via YouTube.

[Terry McGee]

You could well be right, Timothytiptoes. I did consider that approach (drawing down from a larger cylinder), but wondered where you would get a supply of sterling silver tubing of the required size at an affordable price. (The economics of whistle making always seemed a bit dodgy to me!)

You are right - sterling silver anneals well, but it also work-hardens very quickly - you might need to anneal it a few times during the drawing down process. Technobabble alert - annealing means heating the metal to red hot to cancel out the brittle crystalline structure it takes on when worked. Annealing makes it easier and safer to work - it's less likely to crack, which can happen if it's overworked without annealing.

And for a tapered tube you wouldn't need a die in the sense of when resizing cylindrical tubing. One common approach is to hammer the end of the annealed tube over the end of your tapered mandrel. Then hammer the pair of them through a small hole in a lead block, or through a fairly thin steel washer. The lead block or thin steel washer "rubs" the silver down onto the mandrel. You need to replace your thin steel washer each time, or remelt your lead block!

And just because we can't see a seam doesn't mean there isn't one. I'm imagining a butt joint (not the ghastly overlapping seams that so assaulted our thumbs with the old Clarke whistles!). Done well in silver they are quite invisible.

Remaining evidence of any seam might be more visible from inside where it's harder to clean up later. (Heh heh, it's tempting to assume that the seam would run down the back of the whistle, isn't it. But it might be smarter to have it run down one of the sides, where you can't see it so well by peering through the finger holes!)

If we could get one of these whistles into the lab, we might be able determine how they were made. A tube soldered up from sheet would probably have pretty much the original (and therefore the same wall thickness) all over. Whereas we might expect to see some variation in wall thickness if a tube is drawn down possibly several times to conform with the taper required. As the diameter gets narrower further down the taper, the metal has to be drawn along further and further, and so will get thinner.

Please send all your surplus-to-requirement sterling silver Copeland whistles to the address below....

[waltsweet]

My Boehm flute in F above C has a tapered bore in the body, as does the Copeland whistle.
I think the way to go is the swaging that Terry describes (without naming the process). It's how Boehm heads are shaped.
And then again, there's hydraulic forming. It worked for me.
Walt Sweet

[kkrell]

From a 1999 interview with Michael Copeland:

At first, like I said, I made it out of a flat sheet. I had a whole process of
cutting it out and soldering it with about 9 rings of wire banding. I got
it really down so you could hardly see the joint. But then while looking
for tubing for tuning slides, I came across a fellow, from Lawson Brass
(he lives outside of Baltimore), and he and his sons make, from scratch,
French horns. So I went down to get some tubing and he showed me how they
take a mandrel and with a seamless tube, step the tubing with draw rings
and draw plates down onto the mandrel. Then they put the whole thing
through a prepared steel washer to smooth the steps down. So you start
with a cylindrical tube and end up with a tapered tube.

On the high D whistle, the head joint and body are made from one tapered
tube. With the Low D and others, the head joint and body are two separate
tapers. We prepare a cylindrical piece of tubing for the tuning slide and
solder it to the body. The body is then trimmed to size. We lay out the
tone holes on the body and drill them. Next the Copeland name is stamped
on the head joint and we use a milling machine to cut a slot for the
window on the mouthpiece. If it's a low whistle we fashion, out of flat
brass stock, the wall that is silver soldered in place. A piece of
cylindrical Delrin is fashioned on the metal lathe to fit in the top of
the head joint. The Delrin plug, especially the slot, has to be very
accurate within one or two thousandths of an inch. The lip is stamped down
and the window is filed by hand to the proper size and the instrument is
voiced by filing various bevels on the lip. When the voicing is finished
and I am satisfied how the whistle plays, the plug is pinned using two
brass wire pins. The beak of the mouthpiece is formed by cutting the curve
on the bandsaw. Then sanding drums are used for the final shaping. The
whistle is then buffed on a buffing wheel and given a bath and prepared
for shipping to its new owner.

[Terry McGee]

Good work, kkrell!

Not surprising I guess that Michael has used more than one approach over the years. And, between us, we did pretty well at guessing what those approaches were. Hoping you will feel encouraged to try your hand at the game, veloed!