well we’ve seen the Frankenwhistle in all variations, now the flute/whistle cross, a Tony Dixon el cheapo non tuneable plastic flute model £30 and the Large holed Colin Goldie low D body I acquired a while back with no head, so I took the old Dixon that had a damaged ( crushed lower section ) cut the head joint with enough tube for it to slot into the Goldie tube, had to do some sanding/filing a little to get a bang on fit, the with a few tweaks on the length have managed to get a pretty decent canon of a flute, pipers grip is pretty much essential for both hands, because you lose the tips of your fingers in these giant holes, A/B/G/F/E/D low notes are very nice, a/b upper octave a tad flat, not noticeable whilst playing, but on the tuner show 5/10 cent flat depending on how I blow, although I have not done any experimenting on the playing from cold or tested tuning when warmed up, but you don’t notice any tuning issue when played, well I don’t, I also glued a silver coin onto the Dixon cork stopper and re-inserted at the correct position, I did this as the cork was looking a bit rough and uneven, now it has a solid flat face
Interesting things about the Dixon are… it looks like a cylindrical tube, it’s actually a conical tapered bore, it was a goodish flute before I nackered the end
Interesting thing about the Goldie Big hole… as you look into the toneholes, you can see were Colin has skillfully undercut them with what must be a very
clever tool, as they are like round cuts at different position on the underside of the tone holes, this I’m guessing is the fine tuning, which you don’t see on mass produced whistle, and why Colin is probably the best Whistle maker on the planet.
Anyway if this whistle hack that you see before you fills you with OMG, it amazes me to, that with little tweaking how two objects have come together to make something useable..
