This announcement is in accordance with the C&F Board Rules.
All tunable Serpent Whistles manufactured after 31 March 2003 now have a precision-milled curved windway, replacing the flat windway. The advantages of this new windway are:
Louder sound, more “solid” low register
“Sweeter” tone, (less airy chiff)
Tendency to clog is greatly reduced.
In addition, if you have a tunable Serpent Whistle (except for Village Smithy, which is not affected) manufactured before 31 March 2003, you may ship it back to Serpent Music with a check or MO for $15 to cover S&H, and I will send your whistle back with a new curved-windway head. If you are a Serpent owner and just want to purchase a new head, I am offering those until the end of April, 2003, at a 50% discount ($30.00USD plus $6.00 S&H)
Note: This offer only applies to tunable whistles purchased prior to 31 March, 2003. It does not matter whether or not you are the original owner. Please allow a 3-week turnaround from the time you receive acknowledgement of receipt by Serpent Music.
Thanks for your kind words, Jim, and to everyone else who’s posted, emailed and PM-ed me about this. I’m unlikely to go out of business over it, as I believe that once people discover the difference it makes in the narrow-bore whistles, they’ll be back for the sessions and the low whistles that are getting the same treatment.
My direction in this business is to make and sell the very best whistles of their kind on the planet. It would be unfair of me to not be sure that every one of my customers got the benefit of research that made such a striking improvement. It’s not like I’m going to be replacing thousands of heads, at this point, and it will probably be quite some time before I make any other change that so markedly affects performance.
Had this been just a tweak to make the whistles a little better in some way, I wouldn’t be doing it. It is a major improvement, though, and worthy of a “manufacturer’s recall”, if you will, to see that the whistles out there “in the field” meet my own standard of quality.
I am happy to be able to offer it.
Cheers, all,
serpent
I’ve not yet bought a Serpent but I will one day. Bill, you are a really great guy. I remember when you first started posting here and you got more than your fair share of unreasonable snipes. you are a consistently kind and decent fellow. I also think that you have a great business ethic and I love to see the passion that you have for your craft. It is great to see someone take such pride in his work.
I’ve been extremely impressed with how generous the whistle makers in particular and the whole posting community in general, are with information, concern, acts of kindness.
This is a great group of people, and Serpent exemplifies the best of what’s happening here.
Best wishes and congratulations on the breakthrough,
Jerry
Not entirely. I went a different direction on cutting the fipple stock, and am still using the mill on the first several, while I get the carbide cutting dies perfected. I found that I could grind a carbide cutter backed with steel, to the correct profile for each fipple stock size, and place it into a cylindrically-bored die, then force the fipple brass through in the press, shimming the cutter 0.005" each pass. It takes 8 passes (0.040") for the narrow-bore fipples, but I can press 10 at a time that way, whereas using the mill, I can only do 2 simultaneously before the machine runout adversely affects accuracy.
Next, I’ll be working on a continuous gear feed mechanism to be able to put an entire 12-foot rod of fipple stock through at a single pass, but for now, the 16 inches I can do with the press is sufficient.
I do have a very limited number of the new model whistles available now in Session (5/8")diameter, adjustable high D only. Email me if you’re interested, because they’re not on the site yet.
serpent
The instruments playing the first phrase of “The Kesh” jig are:
Busman Ebony high D
Brass Serpent high D (narrowbore)
Serpent Copper Viper Session high D
You can hear the differences easily. The Busman is very, very “pure”, the Brass Serpent is quieter, much more chiffy, and the Copper Viper is loud as the Busman with less chiff than the BS.
This will be my final update to the thread. I apologize for not having had all my ducks in a line when I began, but lots of questions needed to be answered, and I’ve tried to do that in these last two posts.
Enjoy!
serpent
- but ‘hats off’ to Serpie for a marvelous offer,Now THATS customer service!
Serpie-Pie you are such a sweetie! 
NICE ONE BILL