At the Swedish bagpipe symposium in Minneapolis this March, one guy had a nice PVC or ABS black-coloured Scandinavian overtone flute that he said be bought really cheap in Sweden. It was transverse-blown through a hole in the side of the tube, but the actual fipple was an end-blown fipple. Picture just taking a Generation and putting a windcap over the head with a hole in the side, kind of like that.
Is there any US plastic-smith who could maybe knock out some of these? I’d certainly like one to mess with. In the interim, I put a spare Generation Bb head onto a piece of PVC, but endblown isn’t as cool, and the exposed head isn’t as indestructible as a solid piece of tube with an internal fipple would be. I would imagine these would be awfully quick to knock out in good quality, so hopefully not too pricey, and light to ship.
Can anyone suggest a maker I could ping, or are themselves interested in adding overtone flutes to their product line?
Like these?
I think that looks like DIY project. You probably could modify the whistle exo-fipple to be side-blown. I’ll give it a try, but I’m afraid that won’t help you much, I live in Sweden 
I was thinking about prototyping one of these, not even sure of details - pm me and we can talk, you could have input on what I try first!
Bill
The exo-fipple approach works, I made one yesterday. Doesn’t sound too good, but that could be the player rather than the fipple…
http://www.ancientmusic.co.uk/instruments.html UK, not US, but worth asking Corwen, here.
I have bought a bunch of his Scandinavian-type Overtone flutes. They are cheap (about £10). The quality varies, as you might expect. It’s worth getting two or three to get one that feels right to you. When you get a good one, it’s great. My only real complaint is the plastic he uses is too brittle and an overtone flute will not survive, say, being accidentally shut in a car door. Hard plastic does give you a louder sound. These days I make my own out of the same polypropylene pipe I use to make my whistles. You can get a two-metre length of PEX piping for £8 here, and that will do two overtone flutes. It’s slightly quieter, but on a 650 mm flute, volume is not a problem.
If you look on Youtube, do a search for “overtone flute in three minutes” which will show you how to make a Konchovkah (a balkan style overtone flute) very quickly. Three minutes is an exaggeration. You will want to sandpaper the fipple rather than use it in a roughened state, for instance.
I have an overtone flute from Naturinstrumentor. It’s very nice. It’s too precious for me to drag about with me, though.
For a side blown one, this sight might be of interest.
http://www.norcalspelmanslag.org/ncsnlf2002/ncsnlf2002c.html
Didn’t read through it, but it looked about right. A bit of trial and error involved, but simple and cheap enough to make it worth looking into.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXnAXsMyCFU The is the “Overtone Flute in Three minutes” video I was talking about.
I use a Howard whistle mouthpiece pushed over a right angle joint on the end of a few feet of pipe. Works fine.
If I get another few right angle joints I’ll try making a folded one.