Has anyone ever "worn out" a whistle?

And by that, I mean played it until the metal (or plastic) was too thin to keep its structural integrity. It seems that the whistle acquisition disorder would help to mitigate this, but I was wondering if this had ever happened to someone, maybe with a favorite whistle over the course of many years.

I personally haven’t, but I remember someone a while back talking about having an old Feadog (I think) that they played so much that the brass rusted out and became unplayable.

Yes I have “worn one out”. The salt acid from my fingers, over time, corroded the metal making the tone holes larger and resulted in a poorly performing instrument.

No, but one of the first Generation D whistles that I ever bought (in 1975) has a good-sized dent and distorted F-hole courtesy of the british army. It still plays and is still my traveling pocket whistle.

no, but i’ve been worn out by several…

“Courtesy of the British Army”?

Did they shoot you and the whistle, being in your breast pocket at the time, stopped the bullet from entering your heart? No wonder you still play it. If it were playable, I’d play the thing forever, out of gratitude and for potential conversation starting.

I have a Generation Bb which I bought some time between 1973 & 1975. It was my only Bb until about 5 years ago, and it is still playing as well as it ever did.

You’re closer than you think; they found it in the breast pocket of my coat while being frisked at a road block. The soldier doing the frisking claimed he thought it was the barrel of a pistol (awfully small caliber pistol…) and threw it down on the ground after he pulled it out of my coat even though it obviously wasn’t a weapon.

I’ve worn out every whistle I own… at least as far as my ex-wife is concerned :laughing: