hello…
If you were to do your own whistle…which one of these two guides will you use?
I need advice on which one of these two guides is better. I am not too sure about the fingering holes on no.2
Could someone check it out and please please tell or guide me.
I am so sorry for asking questions like this but I really have no clue on which one to follow.
I have not been to the second one. I found the guido site last night and went to the hardware store and got some cpvc and made my own. I think the holes are off a bit on his measurements for the d whistle but I am trying to see if anyone else here has tried to make one from his site and found the same thing.
Other than my holes, the whistle I made from guido turned out quite nice. Once I tune it properly, when I have time, it will sound great!!! clear, sweet tone. I am going to see if I can get some 1" schedule 200 irrigation pipe from the golf course where I work and try a low d tonight.
Both methods are pretty good, take the best from both and combine them.
http://vargaswhistles.com/webshop/htdocs/notebook.html
This link doesn’t show how to make a particular whistle, but the info could still come in handy.
hello again..
if you go to the 2nd site you can find that Paul has actually uploaded a video on the template of the holes. Which mouthpiece is better? site no.1 or no.2.
I have not tried the junkdojo mouthpiece yet. I will let you tonight or tomorrow. I am going to try one this evening or tomorrow afternoon.
Which mouthpiece is better?
Personally I’d go for Guido’s mouthpiece, rounded lip,-rounded windway.
Thank you for that. I am leaning towards that one too. It seems like it would fit the lips better.
I have made 2 of Guido’s design: a low G and a normal C. What shocked me most was that they work - even when made by me!
The holes on both ended up larger than specified in the plans, but they ended up larger than specified by other sources and calculators too. I’m still baffled about that :-/ I think it had something to do with the diameter and thickness of the pipestock I used. I used 20mm PVC electrical conduit. 15mm PVC pipe seems impossible to get in the UK.
I can recommend Guido’s version to beginners. His method is almost fool proof. My DIY whistles and I are proof of that.
There is nothing like making your own instruments (even just once, as an exercise) to enhance your understanding of the instrument you play. 
I was totally fine buying whistles… until now-- darnit!
Off to the Home Depot I go.
I used 20mm PVC electrical conduit
Perfect for a low-G
So after 2 hardware stores and 3 hours of work I made a whistle.
I roughly followed the low tech whistle design but for the most part did my own thing.
I bought 1/2" cpvc and a 7/16" dowel.
When I play the whistle it has an airy quality and takes quite a bit of air, when using my chromatic guitar tuner, it’s horribly out of tune and I’ve made a few adjustments to get it close but still no luck.
The nice thing is when I just play it, it sounds nice to my ears. Except for the E hole.
I’ll attempt this again when I have some more forgiving pipe. This stuff is hard to work with.
Ok. It’s raining here and I got off work early. So I am about to attempt a low d using 3/4" cpvc and 11/16" dowel. The hard part I seem to have with the D whistle I built last night is that I cannot figure out the tuning and size of the holes. I have an electric tuner. My mhz is adjustable so I was wondering if anyone knew what mhz my tuner should be on.
Also, if the hole needs to go up, do I widen it or, start over and make it smaller?
Thanks for all the help here.
g
Go with Guido’s instructions.
The thing about those is that Guido himself is a true gentleman and has answered questions for me that I’ve had about his directions. He will also make you one of his whistles for a very, very low cost. They’re actually good whistles too.
My low d that I made this evening is done and it sounds great!! Well, to me that is. I am going to try my wife’s computer tomorrow and see if I can get it on youtube.com for all to see. Talk with you all later and thank you all for your time.
g
I nominate this poster for Chiffster of the Year. Spunky. Can do. All those things.
Faelan and Gregory: congratulations, guys! 
Yeah making a pvc whistle is quite easy, acording to guidos plan, I made myself a low-D and it actually plays 
, now I do have some problems with it, the low D and E are a bit weak, and sometimes the low D is hard to hit (breath pressure wise), especially when it gets clogged up a little bit.
The way I worked with it was,… we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, approach. I kept my measuring to the minimum (that did produce some bad end results, so I’m going to be a bit more percise next time). In my defence I used tailoring meter for measurements (you know that flimsy one). The pipe I used was a 23mm diameter pipe, I don’t know the bore width, didn’t measure. Well to continue, I used Fimo for the fipple block, since I couldn’t find the right wood diameter, well anyhow it works like a charm. I was increasing the lenght of the window with the sand paper and was checking the sound untill I was pleased with what I have (I ended up having a fairly large window). I cut the the whistle a bit to long and was then shorthening it bit by bit since I had D that was just a bit sharp (being a bassist I have an electronic chromatic tuner at my disposal). The only part that I didn’t use guidos plan was the fingerholes, since I found the measures for the low-D on his site quite odd (it turned out that for my whistle they wouldn’t work). And I found a site that had the ratios for fingerholes so I calculated them, then came the scissors nad I was making the holes larger and checking the tone on the tuner. I also grooved the holes for that extra groove .
I am planing a Koktach whistle mark II, that will be so much better than mark I
Thank you buddhu…
Faelan May I suggest a mitre box with the hand saw? I got one at home depot of $6 and it cuts the cpvc really easily. I found the 3/4" to work really well. I am going to experiment with some 1" and 1 1/4" cpvc to see what kind of wind control I can get out of a low d. I personally love the low d whistle. I found the percantages to the holes, though I do not remember where, to be…
mouthpiece
window
1st hole 43%
2nd hole 50%
3rd hole 58%
4th hole 68%
5th hole 78%
6th hole 83%
distel
I measured from the sharp side of the window to the distel
then I took my measurement and figured my percentages from there.
To tune it, I started with an 11/64 drill bit on the sixth hole, turned on my tuner and got it to the right tuning and then 11/64 on the 5th hole and tuned it and so on…
It works really well…
g
One of the good things about Guido’s instructions is that he doesn’t just leave you when you’ve built your whistle: he also includes that stuff on troubleshooting. How to adjust pressure, how to strengthen the different octaves - all that fine tuning stuff.
Thanks, Guido. You da man.
BTW, did you guys see that whistle hole template thingy the guy in the video made on one of his other clips? Sheer genius - I have to try it. You mark the hole positions on a rubber band, and the positions of the sound blade and the tube end (can be done just by laying the band beside a whistle for reference). Then, when you want to build a whistle of any size you just stretch the band to the size of the new tube and mark the hole positions. The stretch in the band scales it up but preserves the proportions. Brilliant!
You’d not get 100% accuracy, but a bit of tweaking of hole sizes will produce a playable whistle!
This stuff is such fun