Bamboo Whistles Revisited

Whistle
1

This topic pops up now and again and after receiving a little gift it came to my mind. Has anybody tried making a good quality bamboo whistle?

I was given a crude bamboo whistle, presumably made in India and it really isn’t too bad. The mouthpiece and fipple are off center from the holes and there are big chunks of bamboo in the bore but it really doesn’t sound all that awful or out of tune and I can go from the bell note up through both octaves with little effort.

This leads me to think.. with the likes of Olwell making excellent flutes from bamboo and others making excellent wooden whistles (Grinter, Schultz, O’Riordan, to start the list), a well-made bamboo whistle would be a hot item.
I searched previous threads and only came across a couple folks who make bamboo whistles but just do bamboo instruments (Erik and Wood Song). But Erik’s whistles have plastic fipples and Wood Song didn’t have any 6-hole whistles on their price list.
What’s the word?
Cheers,
Aaron

2

I want one, too.

3

i bought a set of 13 bamboo whistles for 25$, from high G to low G.

the holes were too small and the bores where too long on all of them. but that way i could tune them, wich i did. all where out of tune.
the bore size of the high F sharp is as big as my generation Bb!! that doesn’t make them comfortable for me.
but the reason i bought them is to find out in wich key a tune is in, then i put the tune in D. i never use them for anything else
that way i don’t have to buy a high end C sharp and so on.
there also handy to find out wich keys you like the most.