It’s not like losing everything in a terrible disaster I know but it’s a still a harsh blow…my two most favourite whistles, the Dixon Trad and the Burke, fell out on my bag in the carpark last night. Went to look for them this morning and found them but they are squashed flat. The Dixon is a total write off. The Burke may be salvageable but the end is pretty damaged. Session tonight, festival in three weeks - sob…
A query for the whistle makers here - is it possible to open up whistle bodies that have been squashed? The Dixon fipple is crushed and unplayable but the upper part of the Burke is untouched. If I can round out the lower end of the Burke body it might still be playable. Thoughts on how to do this would be welcome.
Ouch! Sorry for your loss. I suspect the Burke might be able to be fixed by a good brass instrument repair person. They have to do it for trumpets and trombones so they know the tricks and have the tools. That is certainly worth checking out. But, sadly, they may want to charge you enough so that you’d be better off getting a new instrument. As to fixing the top end: I doubt there’s much chance, but perhaps one of the many makers here can check in and say a bit more.
Zen, contact Mike Burke and see if he has any suggestions or options to offer. He is the first person I would ask if it were my Burke whistle.
Good advice. Another lesson in taking better care of instruments after a night at the pub! We’d just had a great night watching the Canadian band, The Cottars. (Fiona McGillivray is a pretty good whistler player.) I thought the bag it was well secured but sadly not. Here are the photos:
Oh so sorry, zen. Not a world class disaster, but a loss is a loss. And how frustrating that you actually found them where you thought they’d be. If only fate had taken a slightly different turn, and perhaps that one car tire had missed them.
But when I saw the thread title, I thought it was an invitation for everyone to name their favorite whistles which have been squashed by a car! Hmm, I thought, this will be an interesting discussion … 
I had good luck re-rounding a partly crushed Waltons LBW tube once, using a wooden dowel as a mandrel, and a bit of mallet hammering. But the LBW is very soft aluminum.
LOL. Perhaps I should have added a colon after “whistles”. It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon here and my brain is in neutral. Feel free to amend the title!
Well, I don’t know about a Burke, but the same sort of thing happened to a Gen C of mine a long time ago and, as I’d liked the whistle, I thought I’d just have a go at a rescue. Mine was really flat on the end so I started off by just shoving a pencil into it, and then ended up putting a piece of thinnish dowel in it and sort of wiggling it around to try and straighten it. The head was also split, but not the fipple itself, so I stuck tape round the bottom end of the head and put paper on top of that which I then painted with metallic gold paint (don’t know why - seemed like a good idea at the time).
It’s not round, as it used to be, and the head looks a bit weird. But the whistle itself is a lovely instrument to play and is one of my best whistles. Interestingly, it is also I think the only whistle I have that will play easily up to concert F (G if it was on a D whistle) in the third octave. It doesn’t even sound shrieky whilst doing so.
[Cross-post with the Guru.]
BenHall I’ll try this with the Dixon. I can tape the head and maybe use the dowel and mallet technique to open up the whistle body. Nothing to lose now.
My whistle teacher had a fave gen Eb to which exactly the same disaster had occurred while travelling in Ireland sometime during the 80s. She also shoved a stick down the tube, and discovered the change had turned it into the sweetest sounding of her whistles.
Since we now have both mine and s1m0n’s anecdotes (oh, and btw, it inspired me to play a tune or two on my old Gen C earlier, and it really is gorgeous 
) and before everyone goes out and deliberately crushes their whistles in the hopes of getting a real miracle result … well, I feel it only right to point out that it is a bit “kill or cure”. 
I feel a new career coming on as a panelbeater.
The hammer and dowel worked a treat and I now have a revived Dixon trad that sounds better than it did before. I taped the whistle head with several layers of gaffa. Then I gently forced the end of the barrel open and pushed a number 11 wooden knitting needle down the barrel, tapping the body gently around at the same time. The number 11 was a snug fit and I was able to hammer the body back into a cylindrical shape. There’s a bit of a bump at the seam but nothing to worry about. The tone has definitely changed. It’s much sweeter in the top octave and there’s also less chiff. I’m really happy with it.
The Burke is a different matter. The metal is far less malleable so I’ll wait and see what advice comes back from MB.
Thanks for the help!
What’s the Burke made of, please? I’m absolutely positive Mr Burke himself is the best person to ask; but in case he’s busy for a few days it’s worth knowing different metals respond differently. You’re much more likely to be lucky with a thin walled soprano instrument than a heavier-walled whistle or low, also, fwiw; the metal is already pretty hardened by the time it’s turned into a whistle and running it over might well add stresses which take it up to a point where it’s really brittle and if it needs annealing to be properly workable, which isn’t unlikely, I don’t advise doing it unless you are sure of what you’re doing. Cracking a dixon trad when hammering it out is less of a PITA than doing it to a Burke, I imagine.
Probably not a composite model! Let’s be thankful of that. They don’t dent. The composite tubes shatter. We’ve probably all done the dowel routine on a thin brass tube but the Burke brass or aluminum whistles are made of sterner stuff as you have found. Using a knitting needle is brilliant. Mike Burke has repaired a couple of my whistles in the past. He does the repairs right and the whistle will be good as new (well, mine were) when you get it back.
Feadoggie
where’s the raspberry-blowing smiley when you need it?! 
In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti. We are gathered here today…
At your service…
Best wishes.
Steve
It was a knitting needle that smoothed out most of the dent my poor Burke suffered in a fall at church. It was left with only a tiny dimple. Those knitting needles are amazing. And we always have a million sizes (although, alas, never the correct size needed for the next knitting project). Congratulations on your successful repair. The Dixon will be more dear to you than ever.
Deb
I am sorry for your loss, that is horrible. I hope the Burke can be fixed.
Also, I don’t mean to bring up Joanie Madden again , but she had a whole set of Glenn Schultz whistles (Thin Weasels) crushed by a car. 
Can you imagine that dismay?
There’s a trend emerging here. So I am thinking that knitting needles may be a cheaper and more immediate solution for removing dents in whistle tubes than making custom mandrels out of steel. And apparently knitting needles come in a variety of sizes. So is there a standard published list of diameters for knitting needles? Do I have to deal with Metric vs. Imperial sizes?
I heard the Story about her backing over the O’Riordans but not Thin Weasels too. It’s an occupational hazard I guess.
Feadoggie