I’ve been playing a Howard low C for a while and I really enjoy the sound of it. I don’t find the stretch to be a problem. I’m thinking of trying a lower pitch whistle, like a B or a Bb and wanted to know if anyone had suggestions on what to look for. Tunable whistles are not a requirement as I don’t play well with others 
. In any case, there aren’t a lot of B or Bb sessions where I live. 
I have a very nice Overton bass Bb non tunable. I started with a Howard low D. Then went to an Overton low D, and an OS Chieftain low C. I also made a low C tube for my Howard. If you are comfortable with a Howard low C you should be able to handle a bass whistle. I can’t think of any one else besides Overton that makes them below C. Danial Bingmon might.
If your Howard is one of those with the removable plastic head, why not have a go at making some lower pitched body tubes for it? Either metal or plastic tubing would serve, plastic being cheaper and easier to work, especially for experimental prototypes. If you can’t get a tube with an OD to fit the Howard head exactly, it shouldn’t be too difficult to either file/sand down an oversize tube or bulk up an undersize one with electrical tape… I have alternate bodies in Eb, C and Bb for my own conduit tube low D whistle, the low C and Bb with adjustable off-set 3rd finger holes.
In fact, it is removable, although I don’t make a habit of removing it.
Would you (or anyone, for that matter) be able to suggest measurements for a bass Bb - overall length and tone hole size and spacing?
suggest measurements for a bass Bb - overall length and tone hole size and spacing?
1st you need to know what size the tube is, the id (internal diameter) which if you are using the Howard head will depend on it and the wall thickness of the tube you find that fits it.
Oh and when you say bass Bb do you mean the Bb below a ‘standard’ D whistle or below a low D whistle (that would be a pretty big whistle)?
Highwood’s right! Select your tube material and then use a calculator such as Daniel Bingamon’s TWCalc to determine the layout. Just follow Daniel’s instructions for TWCalc.
It’s been years since I did this but, like Tommy and Jem, I made additional tubes for my Howard head which work fine. I bought a couple aluminum shower curtain rods at a home center and they fit the head pretty well. I believe they were 1" in outside diameter with a fairly thin wall thickness. The aluminum shower rod was quite inexpensive too (about $5 US), so if it takes a couple of tries to get a good result you will not have wasted much. Drill your holes slightly undersize and enlarge them as you tune the whistle. It’s a fun way to get into whistle building.
I remember buying some 1" delrin tubes with which I thought I would make more tubes to fit the Howard heads but I never did get around to that. Another project that fell off the to-do list.
Feadoggie
Yes, that’s what you are looking for. There are other whistle/flute layout tools out there but I like Daniel’s approach. The TWCalc user’s manual is linked to from that same page. It’s a good idea to read that before you get started. Be sure to thank Daniel too.
Feadoggie
PJ, I was going to suggest pretty much what the others have done. I actually did my alternate bodies long before TWCalc or such were available, using % of length measurements on various things I had to get approximate tone-hole placements, then drilling them small and filing out to tune (against a tuner). Mine were actually originally made for use with a flute head, but work fairly well with the whistle head (not a Howard, BTW), though on the low C and Bb the intonation is lat in the lower half of the 2nd 8ve and then goes a bit sharp towards the top. I don’t use them very much and can compensate tolerably (breath/shaded fingerings) when I do, but if I were to bother again I would adjust the scaling. The EU standard electrical conduit pvc tube I use has an ID of just under 21mm and a nominal OD of 25mm. That ID is actually a little narrow to be ideal for optimum tone-strength for a low Bb and may be a part of source of the scale/intonation issues, but it is pretty good for a D or C.
The length of a bass Bb is going to be around 2 1/2’’ longer than a C. The Howard low D & C play fine with the ID tube they come with. But if you add a few inches with the same ID it will most likely be weak in the bottom notes, and flip up easy. The bass Bb whistles I have seen are around 1 1/8’’ ID. That may not seem like a lot, but it will make a difference. If you can find a cheap aluminium tube to fit your Howard you can try cutting it longer than the C tube by several inches, then trim till it hits the bell note. I think you will have to be able to blow softly and steady. To gain more strength in the lower notes with a small diameter tube you would need to alter the head. Then it may not play your C tube. How ever if you don’t mind it playing soft leave the head alone and continue to make the tone holes.
Or you can get a Generation Bb. I have one that is great right out of the box. For a bit more, you can get a Freeman tweaked Gen Bb that has the advantage of having been looked at by a master, so you know you are getting a good one. Either way, you get a nice sounding whistle that’s easy on the ears and very reasonably priced.
I think the question was about a LOW Bb Walrii…The Gen won’t suit being an octave to high. I almost suggested the same thing though. 
.
Mick
Aaah, I see now. Get the Gen Bb anyway.
Maybe these pics will be of some help. I’ve shown the different tubes lined up by the foot, by the 1st tone-hole and by the top end of the body to try to demonstrate their relative proportions. Of course, the head is nothing like a Howard one, for which you’d need a much longer tube extension above the top tone-hole…
FWIW, the intonation of the Eb and D are pretty good across 2.5 8ves; the C is also pretty good except for a sharp 2nd 8ve 1-finger note (“B” fingering, sounds A), which can be corrected by fingering it xox ooo. I’ve described the Bb’s deficiencies above and you can hear some of them on this short demo vid on it - the air of the song The Trees They Do Grow High. I’m afraid it does somewhat expose the inter-8ve intonation issues - but remember this tube wasn’t actually designed for a whistle head: I’m sure if I could be bothered/had more use for it I could now do a much better one. FWIW, the tone isn’t too weak, but is noticeably weaker than the C tube, let alone the D one, especially on the lowest notes, but it doesn’t break up the octave too readily.
I like the look of those Jem… when you next travel down this way please bring the sub - low D whistles. I would love to hear them.
Maybe one day I will be tempted to make one…
Sure, Phill. They live in my bag of flutery that I take everywhere anyway. I used the low C to accompany a song (in a one flat, D minor-ish mode) at the Liverpool session I went to last night…
You can hear the low Bb on the short video clip I’ve linked above, and I’ve got a fair bit on the low D available (audio clips) on my Boxnet files and a couple of videos on YouTube…
You’ll be welcome to try 'em out as & when.
If you noticed in the these photos, certain toneholes have thick spots in the tubes. This changes the “Chimney Height”, it is a technique for influencing tonehole spacing to bring the hole up closer to the other holes. The 1st the 4th toneholes from the top can also be brought down lower by thinning the tube.
Normally open keys can also be put on Bass B and Bass Bb Whistles to reach the toneholes.
Actually, Daniel, that wasn’t what I was about/thinking of when I did those tubes - nor is it quite all there is to them, though you are of course right about the chimney-depth/pitch/position factors.
My motivation on the low C and Bb tubes was primarily to have laterally adjustable 3rd finger tone-holes, the extra height the rings give also simply physically helping to bring them more in reach without necessarily moving them up-tube. The rings are not glued on - they are airtight by being heat-shrunk onto the main tube, but can still be twisted or even shunted up or down the tube. They are positioned over half-tube depth lateral slots with file-rounded ends, the slots a little wider than the tone-hole, so you could very slightly sharpen/flatten the pitch voiced from these holes by pushing the rings up/down, but not much because that wasn’t the primary purpose and too wide a slot would weaken the main tube more… I actually located the slots at the same longitudinal point on the tube as I would have put a plain tone-hole anyway. The idea was to have twistable rings that would allow the tone-hole to be moved to the optimum offset position for a particular hand/hold and to be reversed for opposite handedness without having to have a separately made instrument. Because of the slots, the chimney depth is not really any greater than the normal wall thickness of one layer of the plastic tube, but of course the slots form “chambers” in the bore that must have some (rather slight, I think) influence on the tuning - though I didn’t have any noticeable problems in tuning the instrument or in playing due to that. The slots must be like a very wide, shallow angled undercut. As I filed the tone-holes out to in-tune size after mounting the rings, they were ipso facto tuned to the bore-with-slots…