Hello everyone!
So, I’m attempting the wonderful task of building a homemade fipple…success is limited. I have the lower register, but at
terribly low volume.
The fipple is out of wood and PVC. The PVC
pipe fits over a hollowed out dowel rod which has the blade on it. The body is PVC.
If anyone has some advice (besides buying one already made you silly people) on how to get the volume up and the breath requirements down that would be great!
(lol or ANYTHING about building this that would help.)
run of the mill suggestions:
make the window slightly deeper (length wise) in size
make the groove that is used as the windway slightly deeper
chamfer the trailing edge of the fipple plug
hope this helps…
dave
I had tried lengthening the window and that helped alot. I think the breath reqs are still really high…but it’s getting better. I’ll try some of your other suggestions too. Thanks for the help.
-CJ
I dont know how true this is as I only have ONE professional low whistle. I do have several homemade ones though… so as far as breath requirements go: the smaller the windway, depth as opposed to width or length, ie from outside of whistle to centre, the less the air requirements.
I know that my Kerry Low D is the loudest ( except for an A whistle I made) that I have, as well as having the least amount of air requirements and shallowest windway, but it has a lot of back pressure to it!
Nico
First of all, check and see what grade of PVC that you are using. Sched.40 grade makes nice whistle headjoints because the thicknes of the material is good thickness for the windway.
Second, in making the block: Make tapered block. Starts out wide and narrows as it approaches the fipple. There should be a straight course just before the fipple to help straighthen the windsheet and keep it from riding uphill.
This is a problem that a lot of new whistle builders do not quite grasp. Instead of thinking whether the blade should be half-way or below half-way in air duct, you must think in terms of the windsheet flowing out of the duct. If your windsheet is riding uphill, then you might need to place the blade edge higher. Typically the width of the opening can be about 12 to 15 mm.
I normally use millimeters when measuring windways and tonehole postions by I use english size drills and tonebody lengths in inches. That’s just my preference, use what works best for your situation.
One of my treasured investments
is a little digital caliper for taking measurements.
Like this](http://www.stewmac.com/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi?action=SERVE&ITEM=catalog/sku.html&sku=5212%22%3Ethis) one
I am using sch 40 pvc, so that’s fine.
Otherwise I’ll try some of your suggestions,
they look more than promising!
Thanks!
-cj