Shaw D care

[Joseph Curwen]

Hi all, I recently purchased a Jerry Freeman tweaked Shaw D, from the Whistleshop, which arrived a little over a week ago, and am loving it. It looks great, and sounds fantastic.
My question (sorry for being such a noob), has to do with the hardwood fipple.
I play Native flutes, which are made of cedar, and periodically I treat them with beeswax and linseed oil to keep them from warping. I noticed that the shaw has a wood fipple, and was wondering how should I care for it? Does it need to be treated with linseed oil to avoid moisture damage, or is it ok as is???
Again, probably to simple a question, but I haven’t found an answer on this while trolling the different sites.
Thanks

[boomerang]

I had the same concerns with the wooden plug in my clark whistle,
all i ended up doing was softening pure beeswax and rubbing it over the outside plug surface, the wax was also used to seal completely and gaps around the plug, that was about 2 months ago, so far no problem, any smell soon dissappears, as for linseed? cannot help you there, i really wouldnt like to do it myself.
sorry im not much help
regards
David

[Azathoth]

Just a thought -- without getting into the freakin' tweakin' fun to be had with whistles (I'll leave that to the pros like Jerry), did you notice any improvement/change to the sound after you applied the beeswax?

I mean, I like the tone of the Shaw (mostly because when a high note doesn't quite sound it doesn't end up shrieking its head off like some whistles*) but it could be a touch mellower/tighter.

Thanks for any info,


Az

* Yup, with a Shaw whistle and a Dixon 'learner' flute, I'm really giving myself a hard time with starting out. But at least when I improve, it's definitely me and not the instruments that are doing it

[blackhawk]

I seem to recall a thread a while back where they were saying linseed oil is bad for some reason. I just use chapstick on the wooden fipple on my Clarke, to keep my lips from sticking to the wood.

[vomitbunny]

Well, I tweat can tell tweat you what not to tweat use. Don't tweat use superglue tweat. If you tweat do, at least wait till it tweat dries befor you tweat play it.

[Jerry Freeman]

The windway floor part of a Shaw whistle has been coated with a plastic like sealant, so it needs no care.

The part of the fipple plug that touches your lip is exposed, unsealed wood, but I don't see any reason to treat that in any way unless you're actually allergic to the wood. This is a fruitwood, which is far less allergenic than cedar, so very few people would be allergic to it.

I tweak Shaws for people who already own them, so some of the Shaws I encounter have been played awhile. I've never seen any problem with the unsealed end of the fipple plug, even with Shaws 20 or more years old. On the other hand, I have seen Shaws where the fipple plug had been soaked with some kind of oil, and it made it gummy, sticky, and not pleasant against your lip. Not all oils will do this, but in this case, it did. My recommendation would be to leave well enough alone.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Joseph Curwen]

great, thanks all.