Tweaking a whistle with a dirty/harsh sound

[ecadre]

These things happen

They certainly do. They're malignant and deceptive.

But they're not the same thing as outsourcing cnc operations, which is a legitimate production method.

Indeed, there's a well known English whistle brand where the production happens in some local engineering shop, with the designs done/decided by the owner. It's not explicitly explained, but it is mentioned in videos and blog posts; so not exactly a secret and not a problem.

[Terry McGee]

Yeah, makes sense when you look at the enormous amount of machinery that the MK workshop has accumulated. And I don't have any difficulty with that notion. It still fits the description "Made in England", and the quality of the product remains under the control of the maker - he can always take it to another machine shop if dissatisfied. I worry when I hear weasel words like "Produced in Ireland". What does that mean? We sand the tube and pop the head on it? And then it ends up offered on Amazon as "Genuine Irish-made Tin Whistle by Padraic McNeela".

Musing on John's 100 grit sanding of the body tube, I looked closely at my Killarney whistle under the zoom microscope on full gain. Heavy radial scratching on the tube, also showing up on the edges of the finger holes. You can feel and even hear them when you run a thumbnail down the tube, whereas I don't hear/feel that on my own-made brass-tube cylinder whistles. When you look at the head under the microscope, you see a very fine and regular spiral cut, consistent with CNC turning. The black delrin cover shows the same cut, but the curved end of the block where it sits on the lower lip has been highly polished, obliterating any tooling marks. You can feel the cut marks with the thumbnail test, but nowhere near as much as on the body tube.

[Moof]

With the posting glitches, I forgot to say that my Wizard whistle arrived from China. It's very similar to, but not the same, as my recent model Feadòg. The head mould appears to have tiny differences, and the tube has a different finish. It's not as loud as the Feadog, and is perfectly in tune except for the top A, B, and C, which are 20+ cents flat as usual (the unmodified Feadòg is very sharp in the lower octave and still flat in the upper). Straight out of the pack the Wizard is a slightly better whistle, but there's not much to choose between them.

I bought it out of curiosity, wondering whether the same whistle is being rebranded with different stickers. At least with this maker I don't think that's the case; it's a copy of the Feadòg, not its identical twin. Anyway, I plan to disinfect the head and then donate it and a couple of other whistles to a local school, along with a bunch of stationery and paper craft stuff I cleared out of my home office when I retired. Primary schools have no money for resources these days, so they're grateful for anything they can use.

[pancelticpiper]

The unmodified Feadòg is very sharp in the lower octave and still flat in the upper.

My Feadòg was nearly spot-on as it came, well within the parameters correctible by getting used to how it wants to be blown.

I packed the headspace, a very common mod with Generations and their ilk, which brought the octaves perfectly into alignment.

The caveat being that my Feadòg is a MK1 bought around 1980. I have no experience with the new ones.

[Mr.Gumby]

FWIW, the Feadóg(s) I have here is spot on as well.

[Moof]

My Feadòg was nearly spot-on as it came, well within the parameters correctible by getting used to how it wants to be blown.

I packed the headspace, a very common mod with Generations and their ilk, which brought the octaves perfectly into alignment.

The caveat being that my Feadòg is a MK1 bought around 1980. I have no experience with the new ones.

My MK1 is lovely too. I was comparing the Chinese Wizard with a Feadòg bought in 2022, which is louder and the tuning's less good. The volume of the modern Chinese one is comparable to the early Feadògs, though I don't find the overall tone as appealing.

But if I had to buy a big box of whistles for a school, and the Wizard and the new Feadòg were typical examples, I'd definitely order Wizards. It's vanishing unlikely that they are typical, of course, and it's perfectly possible that in a batch of 100, the Feadògs would win out on better average quality...

[Terry McGee]

Had to pick someone up at the bus stop, and got there a bit early. So, reached into the door pocket of the car, as one does, to while away the time more profitably and enjoyably than reading the news on the phone. And out came on old Generation D whistle, probably dating back to 1975 when I bought boxes of the things! Green plastic head stuck firmly on, very tarnished brass body, a few minor dings, but the "Generation British Made" sticker still intact!

And, a few tunes in, I realised why it had been banished to the door pocket of the car. It worked "OK-ish", but not great - tending towards the dirty/harsh sound that is our topic. And a glance up through the foot towards the wide-open Australian sky revealed why - not the sliver of light we like to see, but a good solid band, maybe 40% of the windway height. Well, we don't put up with that sort of thing these days, do we.

So, off with its head, using spirit-burner heat to soften the glue. Then lower the ramp base with the full credit card thickness, held on with rubber-enhanced superglue, using the now well-trusted forceps, rubber band and blu-tack placement method. And when set, trimming back the card protruding into the window using the scalpel. I found I needed to trim it all the way back to recover enough volume, and so had to cut away a bit of the original ramp to restore the sharp point. But it came up well. Looking up the tube now showed just a tiny sliver of daylight.

There was a bit of a surprise when I went to check the tuning, but that turned out to be operator error. I'd been investigating a 19th century flute and had left my phone tuner set to A 435! Whew!

The highly tarnished brass tube responded well to some 400 grit wet & dry paper, followed up by fine steel wool, but I had to leave some corrosion around the Generation sticker. But the tube feels smooth and good under the hands again, although Moof might have preferred the previous "guaranteed-non-slip" finish!

So interesting to be able to experience again the kind of whistles I grew up with - not as they were - unless you fluked a good one - as they should all have been! It's really pretty good - good tuning, good voice, smooth across the range, no nasties.

So back out into the car door pocket tomorrow. And then we'll see what happens to superglue, credit cards and blu-tack cavity filler when left in a car during the long hot Australian Summer to come! We've already had a taste of mid-thirties (C) heat (~95ºF), and it's only 22 days into Spring!

[Moof]

You're a vandal, Terry McGee! My 1980-ish Mark 1 Feadòg is still my favourite, and the decades of tarnish is part of the charm.

I'm still waiting for one of my bank cards to go out of date so I can have a go at the Gen Bb I found in a junk shop. I used to have a wallet full of loyalty cards and whatnot, but there aren't many about now. The only one I've got is necessary to scan my stuff as I go round the supermarket, which makes shopping in a wheelchair a lot more do-able.

I was going to say that your modification might be fine since the Australian heat didn't affect the glue on your old whistle's head, but then I remembered about 1970s adhesives. If you sprained your ankle and got strapped up at the local clinic, it took days of soaking your foot in water to remove the flaming plaster without taking all the skin off with it.

[Terry McGee]

You're a vandal, Terry McGee! My 1980-ish Mark 1 Feadòg is still my favourite, and the decades of tarnish is part of the charm.

Heh heh, shame I didn't save all the dirt and oxides and verdigris that came off it. I could have put it into little sachets and marketed it as Charm.

It does make me wonder why that particular whistle was so tarnished, as I have others from the period hardly tarnished at all. Perhaps it's been a car door pocket whistle for a very long time!

I'm still waiting for one of my bank cards to go out of date so I can have a go at the Gen Bb I found in a junk shop. I used to have a wallet full of loyalty cards and whatnot, but there aren't many about now. The only one I've got is necessary to scan my stuff as I go round the supermarket, which makes shopping in a wheelchair a lot more do-able.

My card came as a "you need to get out more, you silly old bugger" gift from the NSW State Government, and who am I to argue with the authorities. It gave me AUD $250 worth of free travel, or in my case, free fuel. And I'm now carrying a replacement for this year which is soon to run out. No whistle is safe from this fiend!

"A Credit card? Certainly sir, we can do that. Just need to get a few details. Name?" asks the polite and cheerful bank clerk.

"And occupation?"

"Flute maker", I beamed. The bank clerk's brows furrow, and she desperately scans the screen in front of her. Including the subsequent pages under "Other".

"What would you think of a Debit card, sir?"

[Terry McGee]

So today had me taking a run into town, and getting delayed by a road block where they are putting in new pavement. So reached into the door pocket to keep myself amused until the lollipop chappie gave us the right-of-way. First chance to try the Tweaked Car Whistle in its natural environment, the car. Just gorgeous! So much better.

Noticed the guy in the car ahead fiddling with his rear vision mirror trying to work out where the music was coming from....

So now it just remains to see how it fares in the summer to come.

[Greg Connor]

I just bought a new Generation “C” Whistle yesterday from my local music store. Has something changed? It was actually packaged in a display box as opposed to loose or on a card with several whistles. I mention this because I couldn’t get the head off to tweak it either.

I’ve probably tweaked 10 of these inexpensive whistles in the past with excellent results but this one would not cooperate.

Has anyone else experienced this with a new Generation Whistle? Are they using a different glue?

[Mr.Gumby]

The Cs have always been very tight and hardest to get off without damage. 'Throw' it into a Bb tube, that will do it (may need a few attempts).

[Terry McGee]

Returning to this post for an end-of-season update. You'll remember I got violent with a really old commercial whistle that had been relegated to car duty, but was too awful for even that lowly role. I tweaked it (see above) and was really happy with the results. But wondered if the tweaking could handle the season to come....

So back out into the car door pocket tomorrow. And then we'll see what happens to superglue, credit cards and blu-tack cavity filler when left in a car during the long hot Australian Summer to come! We've already had a taste of mid-thirties (C) heat (~95ºF), and it's only 22 days into Spring!

Well, here we are 4 days into Autumn, and by chance I had to pick someone up yesterday. So with a few minutes to spare, retrieved the whistle from the driver's door pocket where it had languished through 6 months of Spring and Summer weather. This poor car parks out in the sun and rain - the family's growing number of motorcycles having completely taken over the garage! (Three motorcyclists need 5 motorcycles - why is that? I can't afford to dip too deeply into that question as it will then be asked why does one flute and whistle player need 40 flutes and 30 whistles?)

Anyway to cut to the chase, the whistle is still fine, indeed has never played better. It remains a reminder that the commercial makers got so close, but were still so far. I'd still like to know more about the reasons why, but I'm not in the right place for that sort of research.

[trill]

. . . (Three motorcyclists need 5 motorcycles - why is that? I can't afford to dip too deeply into that question as it will then be asked why does one flute and whistle player need 40 flutes and 30 whistles?) . . .

Mr. McGee . . .

Having gone through a number of motorcycles in my younger years, I can totally relate !

We love what we love . . .

trill