What's in my whistle?

littleblue · Post by **littleblue** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 1:51 pm

I recently got a Gen Bb whistle, and on the inside of the bottom end of the whistle is some plastic. Here are the best pictures of it I could get.
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/923/img0656i.jpg
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/4373/img0654s.jpg

It's hard plastic pieces and a translucent green colour. It's located at the bottom end of the whistle, on the upper side of the tube, aligned with the center of the tone holes, and directly opposite the finger holes on the lower side. All of the pieces appear to be fragments of a larger piece. From the largest fragment that remains, it appears this was a tube of plastic originally (this can some what be seen in the first image).
And I'm just kind of curious if anyone can answer what this is.

Even with the plastic in the tube, there wasn't much of an effect on the tone of the whistle. I've managed to clean some of it out, and am sure that the rest will be easily removed as I go through getting rid of the lacquer coating.

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 3:37 pm

Those are some not-very-revealing pictures. I have more questions about the plastic. Is the hard plastic strong, brittle or pliable? Is it sticky like tape or does it appear to be stuck to the side of the whistle through other means like static or heat molding of through the lacquering process? Since you didn't say anything, I am guessing that you bought this whistle new. I've never seen a whistle manufactured but I do like to make guesses.

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:07 pm

It's obviously green kryptonite left over from the manufacturing process. Everyone knows that Generations are made in their secret factory on the planet Krypton*. Have you ever seen Superman playing a whistle? I rest my case.

Just push a small cleaning cloth through the tube. Have no idea what those bits could be. If it's a lacquered brass red-top, presumably any plastic bits shed from the head would be red.

* Given their absolute secrecy about all aspects of design and manufacture, this is as good a hypothesis as any.

littleblue · Post by **littleblue** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:35 pm

Yeah, it was new, bought online. And it's a brass/red top whistle.

The plastic is hard, non pliable, and doesn't seem brittle, though it is in very small pieces, so may have been brittle in larger sections.

The plastic seems to be stuck into the lacquer; I don't think the lacquer is over top of the plastic, as if the plastic was touched to the still wet lacquer.

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 8:06 pm

It appears that, when dipping them in lacquer, Generation hangs the whistle tubes by the bottom using something that goes inside the tube, probably by spring pressure. Every Generation tube I've examined has a spot or two of built up lacquer where the hanging implement touched the insides of the tube, usually near the bottom tonehole. You may be seeing just the built up lacquer, or there may be something else stuck to that spot, which I haven't seen before.

Best wishes,
Jerry

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