Blowing machine

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Terry McGee
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Terry McGee »

Ah, sudden thought, trill. Can you tell me the bore at both ends of the Sweetone metal tube? That will probably tell me if it's in the ball park I'm interested in. Ah, and the length of the metal tube, if you don't mind. That will define the taper.

And let's assume for the moment that the bores at the ends are 15mm and 9mm. Do we take an average, 15+9 = 24/2 = 12, and guess that the general "feel" of the whistle would be similar to the "feel" of a 12mm bore cylindrical? Or bigger or smaller?

Or put another way, if you were to collect other whistles with a "similar feeling" together, what would be the bore diameters of the others? Anyone else with both tapered and cylindrical D trebles should feel free to put a view too!
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by david_h »

Terry McGee wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:21 pm So, is it the case that, in the past, everyone has been relying on pressure-at-the-beak measurements, because they imitate what we do by mouth, and are easy to take. But that measured pressure cannot really be taken as the pressure drop across the length of the windway, as you'd need to subtract the pressure inside the window area.
I think they have been taking pressure-at-the-beak above atmospheric because that's what it it takes to make the sound come out and that - and how big a breath they take - is all the control the player has control over. Plus, some suggest, the sort of face they pull when blowing. The blown in air ends up at atmospheric pressure somewhere, probably within arms reach of the player**. If Tunborough can model the differences between calibrators with different windways I guess he could do it for differently constructed 'synthetic' whistle windways. So the behaviour of a windways can be investigated. The mysterious goings on beyond that may have to be an empirical adjustment for now but I think they are part of the air reed and window story, not the windway story.

** there are subtle air movements and so pressure differences all around the player. It will go down around their mouth as they breath in but up around their thorax as it expands. Breathing out through the whistle it will go up in the areas of the whistle because air is added there and down round their thorax.
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Terry McGee
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Terry McGee »

Hmmmm, now here's a question. With conical flutes and piccolos, we see a cylindrical section for the top third or so (primarily the head and slide), then the cone tapering down through the body, and then a terminal flare in the foot. But looking at tapered whistles like the Clarke, the taper seems to start at pretty much the very top, and progress unhindered to the very bottom. Can anyone address the logic of that?

And what does that mean for the combined "piccolo and flageolet" sets? Only one of them can be right?
trill
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by trill »

Terry McGee wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 12:03 am . . . the bore at both ends of the Sweetone metal tube? . . . the length of the metal tube
Just woke up from a bad dream . . .

16.3mm OD - 2(.2) = 15.9mm bore - top (subtracting 2x wall)
10.0mm OD - 2(.2) = 9.6mm bore -bottom

visible tube length 102.2+125.1 = 227mm (Mine is non-tunable. Head wont budge)

Blade-to-foot = 126.7+130 = 257mm

Honestly, looking at it now, there are some interesting aspects to this design. More later. Back to bed . . .
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Tunborough »

Terry McGee wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:09 am Hmmmm, now here's a question. With conical flutes and piccolos, we see a cylindrical section for the top third or so (primarily the head and slide), then the cone tapering down through the body, and then a terminal flare in the foot. But looking at tapered whistles like the Clarke, the taper seems to start at pretty much the very top, and progress unhindered to the very bottom. Can anyone address the logic of that?

And what does that mean for the combined "piccolo and flageolet" sets? Only one of them can be right?
For balancing the tuning of the octaves, the body and head need to have different taper angles; either a reducing taper on the body, or an expanding taper on the head (c.f. Boehm), or both. A uniform taper through the head and body doesn't help. On the Clarke Original, the head is crimped to a more-or-less square cross section with no taper for at least a short distance. I'm not sure about the Sweetone; perhaps a cylindrical bore in the plastic head is enough to make a difference.
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Tunborough »

david_h wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:19 am Blowing pressure and flow for a consort of recorders. Data from Blanc and others 2010.

Above 25 Pa (~2.5mm H2O) there is a pretty good square law relationship, with some departures that may be of interest. Excluding the zero point straight line fits of Q vs sqrt(P) have intercepts on the sqrt(Pa) axis for the sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor and bass of 3.3, 2,9, 2.8, 2.6 and 2.7 Pa. So whatever is happening at the bottom of the range it seems consistent.
The flow through those recorders is a lot less turbulent than what Terry has been measuring on whistles, particularly at the very low end. For laminar flow, the pressure drop across the windway varies with air speed, not air speed squared. That explains some of the shape at the low pressure end. I'd say the pressure doesn't vary consistently with air speed squared until above 200 Pa (20 mm H2O), and when it does, there's an offset of 60 to 100 Pa, depending on the recorder: P = m * v^2 + offset. I haven't noticed anything resembling this offset in Terry's measurements. I don't know if there is something happening in their artificial mouth that might explain that offset.
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Terry McGee
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Terry McGee »

trill wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:30 am
Terry McGee wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 12:03 am . . . the bore at both ends of the Sweetone metal tube? . . . the length of the metal tube
Just woke up from a bad dream . . .

16.3mm OD - 2(.2) = 15.9mm bore - top (subtracting 2x wall)
10.0mm OD - 2(.2) = 9.6mm bore -bottom

visible tube length 102.2+125.1 = 227mm (Mine is non-tunable. Head wont budge)

Blade-to-foot = 126.7+130 = 257mm

Honestly, looking at it now, there are some interesting aspects to this design. More later. Back to bed . . .
Thanks for that, trill, gives me something to think about.

I see you make the wall thickness as 0.2mm, whereas I believe we've heard it previously quoted as 0.3mm. Not that that's going to make much difference!

And untunable?! What is it with these English makers? And noting the very short section of the head that encompasses the body, there isn't going to be much scope for tuning anyway. Hmmmm.

You mentioned "some interesting aspects to this design". Be interested to hear more.
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Terry McGee
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Terry McGee »

Tunborough wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:58 am For balancing the tuning of the octaves, the body and head need to have different taper angles; either a reducing taper on the body, or an expanding taper on the head (c.f. Boehm), or both. A uniform taper through the head and body doesn't help. On the Clarke Original, the head is crimped to a more-or-less square cross section with no taper for at least a short distance. I'm not sure about the Sweetone; perhaps a cylindrical bore in the plastic head is enough to make a difference.
So the general arrangement of cylindrical head and tapering body would seem a good starting point for a tapered whistle. I still wonder about the one body being able to service both a whistle head and a piccolo head. The piccolo or flute head has the added complication of the Helmholtz resonator between embouchure and stopper face. And the whistle has the need for a fair increase in pressure to get the top notes of the second octave. But maybe that's what we have to find out!
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Terry McGee »

Hmmm, musing some more on the piccolo vs whistle question. I've tried three styles of conical piccolo over the years:
- 11mm head, 8.5 in the foot, based on 19th century originals. Good third octave, but thin sounding, tending shrill.
- 12.5mm head, 10 in the foot. A nice balance of sound over the main two octaves. This became my preferred piccolo.
- 14mm head, 11 in the foot. I had in mind a loud piccolo for buskers, and sure enough this gives a rich full bottom end. But hard to get the a and b in the second octave. Gave up on them.

Yet compare those figures with what trill tells us of the Clarke Sweetone. A bore of 15.9mm in the head, down to 9.6mm in the foot. Much bigger in the head.

Jesse has just returned from a visit to St Vinnies Op-Shop, with three as-new whistles, still in original boxes. Odd that there were two Waltons in a Feadog box, and one Feadog in a Waltons box. All with the original instructions looking untouched. And she picked them up from Vinnies at Batemans Bay, but they bore price labels from Salvation Army in South Nowra, two hours drive north. And Vinnies are Catholics, but Salvation Army Protestant. $13 AUD for three whistles. USD $8.65 the lot.
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by trill »

So, while making the measurements of the Sweetone, I noticed a few things.

Next to a Susato. Blades even.
Image
Obvious taper. Shorter pattern. Smaller holes.

There's a flange sticking up ~3mm from the tapered wall. Never saw one of those before.
Image

Windway entrance: Rectangular !
Image

Also: no protrusion or chamfer at the windway exit.

Oh, still pondering the drop in pressure . . .
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Terry McGee
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Terry McGee »

trill wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:58 pm So, while making the measurements of the Sweetone, I noticed a few things.

Next to a Susato. Blades even.
Obvious taper. Shorter pattern. Smaller holes.
Yep. Tapered bodies are shorter. And the holes smaller and closer together. And the greater wall thickness of the Susato probably needs bigger holes to compensate.
There's a flange sticking up ~3mm from the tapered wall. Never saw one of those before.
Ugh, that's really ugly, isn't it! That's presumably the bit that goes in the slot on the mandrel to allow the wrapping machine to convert flat sheet to conical tube. I guess it's not easy flattening it back against the wall of the whistle after the soldering. And risks undoing the soldering.
Windway entrance: Rectangular !
Yeah, I still wonder if there is an inherent difference between the sounds of curved and flat windways. Hard to visualise why there should be. I'm aware of three levels:
- rectangular, like the Sweetone and early whistles in general
- partly curved, like a lot of high-end recorders
- fully curved following the body tubing, as per the Sindt approach.
Also: no protrusion or chamfer at the windway exit.
Doesn't seem needed on treble instruments.

How does the tuning look on the Sweetone? And still interested in your perception of how it feels relative to the cylindrical whistles you have.
Oh, still pondering the drop in pressure . . .
Get back to me if you want further tests or repeat tests!
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Tunborough »

So I've been puzzling why, after accounting for differences in the windway geometry, the flow-pressure relationship of the Feadog looks like that of the calibrators without any tubing below the exit, and the other whistles look more like the calibrators with tubing below the exit. I have a Feadog Mk 1 here. The only Generation head I have to hand belongs to a fairly recent Bb, but it may be sufficient for this comparison. When I line up the upper (fingerhole) sides of the two tubes, there is a dramatic difference in where the two windways (and the blades) line up. The Feadog windway lines up pretty close to that upper side of the tube. The Gen windway lines up closer to the centre-line of the tube, about 2 mm below the line of the outer surface of the tube. So the Gen windway is discharging into the tube, while the Feadog windway is discharging closer to the outside the tube.

Now, the Killarney and Mellow D flow-pressure relationships fall into the same camp as the old Gen and the calibrators with tubing. How do their windways line up? Do they confound my thesis entirely?
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Terry McGee
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Terry McGee »

OK, here's what I observed.

I concentrated on looking directly down the windway, seeing equal amounts of ceiling and floor. And made easier by placing something of contrasting colour beyond the head.

Mellow D: All ramp
Feadog Mk 1: All ramp
Killarney: All ramp

Old Gen: 2/3 ramp, 1/3 through.
Newer (but probably still fairly old) Gen: 1/3 ramp, 2/3 through.

The Killarney, being of Sindt design, is easy to confirm, as, once you have pulled the pin, you can push the stopper forward until it passes under the ramp.

And a reminder about the tests I did with the Window "shut" and the tube socket "plugged". Does that tell us anything?

The Killarney, being of Sindt design, is easy to confirm, as, once you have pulled the pin, you can push the stopper forward until it passes under the ramp.

And a reminder about the tests I did with the Window "shut" and the tube socket "plugged". Does that tell us anything?

Code: Select all

Old Gen head to air, 20 March 23						
Flow	Head	Res.	Shut	Res	Plug’d	Res
5	8	0.57	7.5	0.55	8	0.57
10	30	0.55	30.5	0.55	31.5	0.56
15	66	0.54	69	0.55	70	0.56
20	118.5	0.54	125	0.56	129	0.57
						
Average Resistance		0.55		0.55		0.56
Happy to rerun these or other tests if that might help.
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by david_h »

My main conclusion from peering at shiny blades down shiny windways is that some sort of setup with two different coloured background above and beyond the head would help identify the what I am looking at . Also some sort of optical bench-like setup for viewing consistently.

However, my Old (? 1970) Gen (with the seam) and New (1980s) Gen (no seam) seem to match Terry's observations. With New I can see the steep end slope of the blade but not much more, with Old I can also see a lot of the blade beyond that.

I suppose this is a design choice related in part to what is studied in this paper: https://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/peo ... al1980.pdf After the abstract a good place to start is III "Organ Pipe experiment". (I was lead to the to paper when looking into a flute players 'control parameters' and Terry's 'hard dark tone' suggestions)
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Terry McGee
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Re: Blowing machine

Post by Terry McGee »

david_h wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 4:23 am My main conclusion from peering at shiny blades down shiny windways is that some sort of setup with two different coloured background above and beyond the head would help identify the what I am looking at . Also some sort of optical bench-like setup for viewing consistently.
Yeah. I've commented before that we really need a way of examining voicing. I had a bit of a play around with the Zoom Microscope today, trying to peer down windways, but didn't really come up with anything. But if anyone has any ideas, I'm willing to play with them.
I suppose this is a design choice related in part to what is studied in this paper: https://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/peo ... al1980.pdf After the abstract a good place to start is III "Organ Pipe experiment". (I was lead to the to paper when looking into a flute players 'control parameters' and Terry's 'hard dark tone' suggestions)
Sigh, if only we still had Neville (Fletcher), he would love to have been involved in our discussion. Neville learned flute when he was a boy in Armidale in rural NSW, starting on a conical band flute (they were cheap!). He went on to be a leading voice in musical acoustics internationally. And of great help to me whenever asked.

https://acousticstoday.org/wp-content/u ... 0-2017.pdf
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