Tube dimention, wood whistle?

[pjuuldk]

My father is (sadly) an old man, sick too (asbest in the lungs). Therefore he is no longer able to work in his beloved workshop .
So he's turning all of his tools and mashinery over to me, this comming sommer I'm building a workshop in the garden.
But before I'm getting the stuf he wants to make shure that I know how to use the lot, I have to go to his place and try out alle the mashinery.
So I thought: "Lets try to make a whistle out of wood!"
The last two months I've been making PVC whistles with some succes, soft sounding, nicely in tune, still got some problems with second octave G,A,H (fipple/windway design?).

Now the question: Tube dimentions (high D), the PVC-tube I use is, inside dia. 13 mm., outside dia. 16 mm., wall thikness 1,5 mm.
Would a wall thiknes of 1,5 mm. be ok fore a wood whistle? Or do I have to make it larger?
Would an inside dia. on 10 mm be ok? We have a long drill in that diameter.

I would be vary glad if sombody could help me with those questions .


Peter Juul

[brewerpaul]

Now the question: Tube dimentions (high D), the PVC-tube I use is, inside dia. 13 mm., outside dia. 16 mm., wall thikness 1,5 mm.
Would a wall thiknes of 1,5 mm. be ok fore a wood whistle? Or do I have to make it larger?
Would an inside dia. on 10 mm be ok? We have a long drill in that diameter.

I would be vary glad if sombody could help me with those questions .
Peter Juul

So sorry to hear about your Dad's illness. Asbestos is BAD stuff.

10 mm would be pretty small for a D whistle. Mine are 0.5" ID, but 10mm= 0.4 approx. You might be able to do it though. My walls are about 2 mm and that's pretty thin. Again, you might get away with it, but they will be very delicate. Is this a wood lathe, or a metal lathe? Getting walls that thin on a wood lathe with a hand held tool will be a real feat.

What you'll need to do is drill the bore, then let the wood sit for a month or two to stabilize. Then, mount the piece on an arbor designed to fit inside the bore and turn the outside that way.

Good luck, and keep us posted. I'll be glad to give you any info I can.

[mutepointe]

give my best to your dad too. i had a couple of questions. did your dad make musical instruments in his workshop or is a general fix it repairer? i sure hope he is pleased with you making musical instruments. i hope it brings you two together.

here's a slightly funny story about my father and my 4 brothers. when we became grown ups, my dad got us all the same thing for christmas. he usually gets us useful stuff we wouldn't buy ourselves, like emergency flashlights or carbon monoxide detectors. one year he got us all air compressors for our cars. two of my brothers understood the benefit of this, one of my brothers and me didn't unwrap our air compressors. we were just going to keep them in our cars along with the booster cables from an earlier year. while we were still at my parents house, i got an idea and said, "hey, we could use these air compressors to blow up the inner tubes when we go tubing down the river and not have to bother with tieng innertubes to our cars after stopping at a gas station to blow them up." my brother asked my dad to show us how to use them (neither of us is mechanically inclined.) my dad gave that dad look. i'm now on my 2nd air compressor, have done a lot of tubing down the river, and have done a lot of blowing up car tires, bike tires for every kid in the neighborhood, and lending the air compressor to some of my equally poor friends so that they could keep a tire with a slow leak inflated until they could afford a new tire.

the point of this story being, i hope you find even more joy in your father's workshop than even he expects.

mutepoint.

[pjuuldk]

Hi, thanks for your consern. Asbestosis is realy tuff both to my father who is sick and my mother who is living with him.

Its a woodlathe and its his favorit mashine, he used to make beutiful things on that lathe, bowls, kids ratles and lot of other stuff. His biggest project was two very beutiful music stands, that he made to me from teak tree.


Paul, thanks for your advice!

I think we better look for a larger drill, 13 mm.

What would the largest wallthiknes be 3 - 4 mm?.

The arbor you are talking about is it going all the way through or just holding in the ends?

The resting period makes sense and I will sure do that when the workshop is made and I realy get started. This time it is just an exersice, a father/son project and we will do the hole thing at once.

Peter Juul

[brewerpaul]

That arbor goes all the way through so you can turn down the entire length of the tube. I'm not really that familiar with wood lathes: mine is a small metal lathe.

Get some inexpensive, smooth grained wood and prepare to ruin a lot of pieces. Maple is a pretty good choice for this. With my metal lathe, I can take off a couple of thousandths of an inch accurately on each pass, but with a wood lathe and hand guided tools, this would be tough. You might have to get the piece close to the size with your skew chisel, then do the final dimensioning with files and sandpaper.

I'm sure your Dad will tell you this, but be SURE to wear both eye protection and a good dust mask.