…thirty days hath September April, June and…oh well, I’m going to do it anyway.
Everything you need to know is either in the little house or the letter at the bottom of the page.
Happy whistling and stuff.
Mack
Hey Folks,
I was recently sent a redwood whistle from Mack to review. That’s right, redwood. It caught my eye on his website. I was so impressed I thought I’d post a review.
The picture of the Red(wood), White(cap) and Brass(bands) Hoover on Mack’s website barely does it justice. It is beautiful, with a unique design. Many of the wooden whistles out there look similar to each other. Mack’s does not. In fact I would say that it has definite “Hoover” characteristics in its appearance.
Some of my initial impressions. First, it’s beautiful. The redwood has a very nice tight grain and the color is lovely and warm. The brass complements it well. I was truly amazed by the wall thickness (or I should say thinness) of the tube. I especially liked the “double-slide” tuning joint (internal and external brass sleeves. It makes for a very secure seal while giving a more finished (no gap between the joints) and unique (for wooden whistles) appearance. The tuning slide works very smoothly and is loose enough to allow easy tuning, yet tight enough to feel secure when handling and playing it.
Given the thickness of the wooden tube, I would say that the brass rings, top and bottom are a must. I don’t know how strong redwood is but the wall thickness gives the impression of being fragile. But Mack tells me not to worry, the tube is sufficiently strong. It’s very light weight too. The fipple is classic whitecap. I think that says it all. The finish is flawless.
When it arrived I could not help playing it immediately. The first register has moderate volume with very little chiff: classic Hoover, a very nice, pure sound. The second register is similar. At the second octave G, the volume increases noticeably. Just out of curiosity, I wanted to see how high I could push it. I got this whistle up to the third register A. Let me be clear about this, I played an A 2 OCTAVES ABOVE the lowest A on this D whistle. At that point, my dog began to whine so I stopped. That note was clear and sounded in-tune and I was very impressed! The whistle is very responsive to ornamentation and has a very strong finger verbrato. (I’ve noticed a distinct difference in the strength of finger verbrato between whistles but have never seen it commented on.) Breath requirements are classically Hoover: less air and a little more control are necessary.
I as soon as I get some time I want to run the whistle through the tuner, just to be really thorough. I have had sone initial indications of clogging problems, which I was surprised about considering the cpvc fipple. But warming the fipple eliminated this.
Apparently Mack turned this tube himself and it is flawless. The thickness of the wood is amazing. The wood is not stained (this is the natural color), but it is laquered and doesn’t require oiling. The whistle does have a distinctive aroma that is from the redwood and is a little pungent, but not bad at all.
I hope to spend some time with the RW&B this weekend and get into more of the technical stuff. This whistle has already been a delight!
Vinny
(I tried to post a pic but couldn’t figure out how to do it. Sorry!)
Hi, Vinny.
To post a photo, you can set up a free account here:
http://www.snapfish.com
Then upload your photo there by following the instructions on the Snapfish site.
When you have a full sized image of your photo on the screen that’s been uploaded to snapfish.com, right click on the image.
That will bring up a menu box. Click on “properties.”
In the box that comes up when you click “properties” you should be able to see the URL (web address) of the image. Highlight (left-click, drag the curser through) the URL. Make sure you’ve got the whole URL. Sometimes they’re long, and not all of it shows in the properties box. If you make sure you start at the beginning and keep going at the end when you highlight, the last characters will scroll into view as you highlight them.
Click “control/C” (copy).
Now go to the Chiffboard “post a reply” box you want the picture to appear in and place the insertion point where you want the picture in the message.
Click “control/V” (paste). The URL you copied should appear in the “post a reply” box.
Highlight the URL and click the “Img” button above the box.
That should do it. The image will appear in the text of your message.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Vinny didn’t expound on our friendship, so I will. He is my oldest whistle chum ( not his age but our friendship.) He tested my earliest whistles and has been my staunchest encourager.
He has done some whittling on my ego as well.
He was my logical (and somewhat prejudiced) choice to try this one.
Since thanking him here is out of the question, he will receive expressions of my gratitude in private.
Mack
edited to remove some redundancies, but not them all
Wow! Redwood! You’ll have to tell us what it was like to work with, Mack…I’ve always assumed redwood would be too soft for lathing, but that shows how little I know about woodworking.
Redwolf
Ok,
Consider this history and not a commercial!
I was a patternmaker in the Navy. The lathe was one of our most used tools, and redwood was the wood we used in the school I trained in in San Diego. It is very stable and is the only wood that has equal shrinking in every dimension. Most wood shrinks across the grain but only minimally lenghtwise. It was readily available in California, whereas the most popular pattern woods were expensive and not so available to a service school. Those being Honduras mahogany and sugar pine.
As a carpenter I used lots of redwood for decks and saunas (virtually impervious to moisture and decay) and saved some beautifully figured boards for picture frames, etc. Recently I unburied a curly redwood 2X4 from my shop clutter and wondered if it would make a whistle.
I have been advised that whistles should only be made from hardwood, but defiant person that I am, had to challenge that notion. And as they say, the rest is history. Or maybe future…
Mack old history Hoover
Future, please! Future! 
Redwolf
I’ve wondered about this, Mack …
Because cedar (harder than redwood, but still a softwood) is one of the main woods of choice for Native American flutemaking. It’s also worth noting that softwoods as a class are more dimensionally stable than most hardwoods.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Wow mack those are beautiful. Is the one you made out of curly redwood pictured on your site? If not how about some detailed pics here?
-Paul
I love the pic of the redwood and brass and delrin on your page, Mack. Now if you ever decide to make one in a low G, I might have to put my beloved Eyer low G up for sale! 
