Hi all~ I have two whistles finished and ready to ship. These were custom orders, but both buyers were forced to back out for personal reasons.
These are Satinwood, and African Blackwood.
Brad Anderson is a new and upcoming whistle maker from Australia who I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot more from in the future. We’ve been exchanging shoptalk and timber preferences. Brad is a huge fan of his native Australian woods and he sent me some samples to try out, so I started a batch of them. All of these woods are exceedingly hard and dense with nice tight grain with similar working characteristics to Blackwood or Mopane. I fully expect them to produce first rate whistles.
They are: (dontcha love these names?)
1:Bendee
2:Minniritchie
3:Inceana
4:Doral
5:Bowyakka
6:Gidgee (Ringed)
The Ringed Gidgee is tentatively spoken for, but the others are up for grabs. These whistles should be finished June-ish. Thanks for looking.
Got a contact for Brad Anderson, Paul?
I have some Jarrah here that I would love to have made into a whistle, it is a fine grained Australian hardwood, I wonder if Brad would be able to whittle me out a whistle?
I am not sure that Jarrah would make a good timber choice for whistles as it is a Eucalyptus which are not known for having suitable properties to turn into a thin-walled tube. I sourced timber for whistles before and had to rule out Jarrah for that reason.
Thanks for that Steamwalker, I was curious about Jarrah because there are a group of woodworkers here that turn pens out of it along with other Eucalypt timbers. The pens are really thin walled, so turning the wood down to have a thin wall doesn’t seem to be a major problem.
The only down side I could think of would be residual oil in the wood.
I can’t wait to see what sort of life the above mentioned timbers bring to those whistles.
Great stuff isn’t it Paul, cant wait to see the finished goods and perhaps you might be able to post a sound clip. I notice that the Ironwoods not there, didn’t it work out?
Ceili_whistle_man, I would love to have a go at your piece of Jarrah. I haven’t built from this timber before, but i have worked with Red Ironbark and Grey Box, both of which are eucalyptus species, and whilst i feel there are better Australian timbers out there the results acheived have been good. They tend to have a very dry, flutey quality. If your interested then pop me a PM and we can take it further. Cheers Brad.
Brad-- the Ironwood is fine, although I didn’t start working on it. I already had enough whistles in this batch, and I’ve already used Cooktown Ironwood in the past (and liked it a lot). I’ll probably put that piece in my next batch.
Here’s a cool Aussie timber: Tasmanian Rose Myrtle (bottom in the picture) that Paul made for me several months back. I visited my local exotic timber dealer and chose it among their timber shipment from Australia.
Now, now feadoggie , let me know when you’ve got your lathe up and running and i’ll ship a sample batch over to ya , word of warning though, you’ll probably end up a wood addict as well as a whistle addict afterwards and the combination of the two is postively deadly .
Steamwalker and Paul, what is your opinion of the tonal qualities of the rose myrtle in comparison to say African Blackwood/Cocobolo? It surely is a beautiful looking instrument.
I can’t really say. Although I do own whistles made from Taz Rose Myrtle, Cocobolo and African Blackwood, they are not by the same makers. I am convinced that the difference in tonalities between the different woods is negligible compared to the significant differences in sound depending upon their manufacture. IMHO, whistles can sound noticeably different even from the same maker and it is difficult to pinpoint the roll of wood choice in the sound.
I agree-- as long as a wood is reasonably hard and tight grained, I don’t think it makes a huge difference WHAT the wood is. Tiny variations in the voicing can make a large difference in the sound. I’ve often made two whistles from the same plank of wood and had them come out with entirely different personalities.
Yep, your probably right, sometimes i just think i over analyse things (Virgo ya know ). Well your obviously very happy with the whistle so i might try and track some down and give it a go. Thanks for your thoughts
Brad-- the Rose Myrtle is somewhat "stringy"and requires a bit of care. Take pretty small/shallow cuts with your lathe and make the final cut very shallow. Use very sharp tools. Otherwise you’ll get a fuzzy surface which is hard to sand smooth.
Wonderful stuff otherwise.
mmmm … always found the wood asserting itself into the tone. Get variances yes, but within a range - each wood with a character. The starting points differ, and the stopping points seem to be different stations.
Most rose mytle I’ve seen is pretty bland - the one in the pic is exceptional. Well done Paul.
I have no idea what the piece is I am holding in my hand, any ideas?
The other pieces are the 3m Jarrah planks. Don’t worry about the splits in the wood, that is only on the end of the pieces.
This timber any good to you?
Wow, theres a heck of a lot of whistles in that stack Tom , i like the look of the two top planks on the righthand side as you look at the photo. The top one may have fiddleback figure in it by the look of the end grain and i like the deep coloration of the second plank. As for the second photo, i’d has it a guess that its some kind of Eucalypt (Mallee). The coloration is certainly lovely, reminiscent of olive, very interesting indeed, i’ll be in touch.
, let me know when you’ve got your lathe up and running and i’ll ship a sample batch over to ya 
, word of warning though, you’ll probably end up a wood addict as well as a whistle addict afterwards and the combination of the two is postively deadly 
.
). Well your obviously very happy with the whistle so i might try and track some down and give it a go. Thanks for your thoughts 
, i like the look of the two top planks on the righthand side as you look at the photo. The top one may have fiddleback figure in it by the look of the end grain and i like the deep coloration of the second plank. As for the second photo, i’d has it a guess that its some kind of Eucalypt (Mallee). The coloration is certainly lovely, reminiscent of olive, very interesting indeed, i’ll be in touch.