Years ago a very fine whistle player told me her method of sweetening Generations: boil the head for 10 minutes and then squeeze the windway with a pair of pliers to narrow it. I tried this, without much success. I found that the Generation heads tended to develop splits on the top, close to the sides. Although a pair of lousy Oaks that I got through the mail were instantly transformed into decent little whistles - at the price of teethmarks on the head where the pliers bit.
A few weeks ago I thought of using direct heat to soften the plastic instead and managed to seal the windway of one head completely shut in a millisecond by putting it too near the stove element! So this Sunday I decided a little more controlled temperature might work.
Out with the trusty Black & Decker toaster oven and in with a couple of new Generation D heads! At around 300-350F the plastic soon gets very malleable and a gentle squeeze with the pliers narrows the mouthpiece very easily.
Advantages:
a slight reduction in volume and increase in “sweetness”;
a distinct and very satisfying increase in backpressure;
and an airier, chiffier sound.
All of these are great improvements to me, and obtained with startling ease. (No shaving or filing and gluing bits of plastic onto the blade.) The more you close the windway, the greater all these effects. I got nice results with windways that look between 30% and 50% narrower. The one that I narrowed most is perfect - makes me sound like Sean Potts. Well, more like Sean Potts. This on a head that sounded OK but pretty ordinary and on which I performed absolutely no other mods. The other one sounded very good before, but was lacking in backpressure. It’s now slightly improved, although it looks funny - see below.
Disadvantages:
it seems that the collar of the Generation head is under expansion stress in the normal state and tends to relax with the heat treatment, narrowing the opening and making it difficult to get back on the body. (A tendency I’ve noticed even with repeated hot-water treatments.) To prevent this I stuck my heads in the oven (if you see what I mean) on the barrel and now they are seemingly permanently heat-shrunk onto the barrel. Luckily they are in tune, though.
if you make the plastic too soft you can easily distort the entire head with careless handling. I tried to loosen one of my welded heads, the only result being that it now has a very wonky-looking window (but it still sounds fine).
small amounts of noxious fumes. Allow the whistle too cool well before you try to play it, keep the room ventilated and clean the oven thoroughly afterwards.
Has anyone else tried anything like this? And has anyone suggestions for a way of heating the windway part to perform the squeese, but avoiding the shrinking collar problem?
Stevie, I used to work with plexiglas (acrylic sheet) and would use a strip heater to bend the stuff into various shapes. Perhaps this would give you the heat where you want it without messing up the rest. You could just make a loop around the airway and plug it in. I’m guessing that about 30 to 40 seconds would do the trick. These heating strips are available from acrylic sheet dealers. Good luck! By the way, you could do this operation without removing it from the shaft so as not to goof up the fit if it did receive some heat.
Ronaldo
[ This Message was edited by: Reyburnwhistles on 2002-04-01 23:38 ]
Jens, it does look suspicious, but where I come from April fool’s jokes have to be performed before noon. So yes, I am serious, and I think I’m on to something good.
Thanks for the tip Ronaldo - it sounds just the ticket. I suppose I’ll have to hunt for local “acrylic suppliers” in the yellow pages. I’ll report back.
On 2002-04-01 22:55, dd wrote:
You stuck your HEAD(s) in the oven…isnt that DANGEROUS???
It all depends. The medical literature suggests that for some people with two heads, the effects may include improved ability to spot intentional jokes. I think you have to try it and see…
incidental application of heat to a gen Bb fipple caused it to spontaneously crack weeks later. The heat was from grinding off that ridge across the top. The fipple never became too hot to touch during the grinding process, but a small part of it did turn black and then sanded clean. The cracks ran like faults on either side of the windway from below the blade all the way up the windway, splitting the fipple into three lengthwise pieces. Perhaps this wouldn’t have happened to a red fipple on a brass gen., but the blue plastic one seemed extremely brittle to start with…
was this the Blue or Red (or Green) eneration head you experimented on? I have reason to believe they have differing properties due to the colours in the plastic.
I like the way my Generations sound; I’ve got 2 nickel and one brass in D, and they’re all easily playable (after tuning), even without the blutack tweak. I think any problems I used to have were entirely my own fault through inexperience.
My worry is that as the Generation is so often seen in the hands of children in the UK, the uninitiated seem to think it’s a toy, not a finely crafted musical instrument developed over several decades. And some seem to think it’s a drumstick.
Lisa, sounds like heat wasn’t the only stress you subjected your Bb head to, and in any case it was very localized. I’d be very surprised if my oven treatment leads to later cracking, but if it does I’ll let you all know.
Martin, it was a blue and a red one. Both seemed to respond well and I didn’t notice whether one was softer than the other at similar temperatures.
I like Generations very much too. But as I said I find the increase in airiness and backpressure and the slight decrease in volume to be an improvement.
As far as “finely crafted” goes, hmmm. Expertly designed and carelessly manufactured, I’d say!
On 2002-04-01 22:35, StevieJ wrote:
…
Disadvantages:
it seems that the collar of the Generation head is under expansion stress in the normal state and tends to relax with the heat treatment, narrowing the opening and making it difficult to get back on the body. (A tendency I’ve noticed even with repeated hot-water treatments.)
…
Many (most?) plastics shrink when exposed to heat. When the plastic is in the shape of a tube that shrinkage reduces the inside diameter of the tube.
If you feel like scalding yourself, half-fill an ordinary plastic soft-drink bottle with very hot water and a bit of dish soap, shake it around well until it becomes uncomfortably hot to handle, and then remove the cap. The pressure built up by the shrinking bottle will blow hot soapy water about four feet in the air.
When I used to build and fly radio controlled model airplanes I would carve wooden forms for engine cowlings and wheel fairings and then use a heat gun to shrink an ordinary soft-drink bottle over the form. After painting the inside with fuel-proof paint the resulting cowlings looked better than anything you get in kits.
John
[ This Message was edited by: OutOfBreath on 2002-04-02 12:39 ]
StevieJ,
Come to think of it, the fractures to the blue fipple happened right at either side of where the ridge used to be. The plastic material ground away very nicely, not melting like some plastics do–as I said, that fipple was brittle to begin with, and please do report if you find any differences between the red and blue after your treatment.
Too bad mine broke because it sounded sooo much better after that ridge was removed. Someone said to try a C Sweetone fipple on a gen Bb tube–I have a D Sweetone fipple that is way too big for this tube, so how could a C one be smaller?? I’m willing to try this at some point because I like those Copeland designed fipples.
Lisa
I’m with John on this one, a heat gun used for paint stripping or wire stripping can be used in short focused bursts to soften the plastic for molding(if you must mold it).
The disadvantage is the loss of the catalyst through evaporation. this makes the plastic brittle after drying. If you wish to reduce the windway without all this damage, I suggest building up a “bead” at the lips of the windway exit with Cyanoacryate(superglue) or thinned PVC cement. Elmers glue will do for a trial run,it peels off easily. Try to make the “bead(s)” as smooth as you can to avoid airstream disruption.
If you don’t like the end result or you add too much to the “bead”, it is an easy thing to remove the superglue or cement with a Q-tip, some acetone(fingernail polish remover)and elbow-grease. Be sure to keep the tip soaked or it will stick and leave fuzz behind.
Thomas Hastay.
[ This Message was edited by: Thomas-Hastay on 2002-04-02 14:56 ]
Stevie,
the thinnest Dunlop Tortex guitar(delrin) plectrums,the red or orange ones are ideal for creating a small insert to glue onto the bottom edge of the airway entrance using super glue plastix.The orange plectrum narrows the entrance by about 1/3,the red one a little less and is easily trimmed,sanded and polished once installed.Only a small insert of 1/8" is needed and takes the guess work out of the heating method.This is the easiest method with a predictable result I have found to reduce the airway entrance .I would avoid standard super glue.The plastix version has a slower drying time and is easier to work with and has the consistancy of hard plastic when dry.Just about any Gen fipple will sound better,with an Overton backpressure vibe. Any blue tack is best removed for optimum Gen tone and voicing. Peace, Mike
Mike, you’re a Generation-tweaker after my own heart. Thanks for the glued-plectrum idea. It sounds like less guesswork, but more actual work. And what’s in that glue that’ll be in your mouth the whole time…
After some inquiries about acrylic strip heaters (too expensive) and thoughts about hot-air guns (too brutal), I decided to revert to my original idea. Today I heated the end of a windway over the electric stove element, but more cautiously than the first time. It worked fine. I could squeeze the windway gently to narrow the aperture by eye, test and resqueezed as necessary. I produced a lovely sounding head without shrinking the collar.
Equipment required:
snipe-nosed pliers
electric stove
Time required: 3 minutes.
I’m beginning to think that this modification, whether you do it with glued inserts or by remoulding under heat, makes all the other tweaks (blade shaving, blue tack and ramp extensions à la Cillian O Briain) redundant.
This has to be one of the most intriguing threads to come around in a long time. But why only tweek Generations? With all of the different “cheapy” whistles, why not practice this technique on them first? I have a suspicion that this just might spell the end for many of the whistles in my WhOA basket!
I’m beginning to think that this modification, whether you do it with glued inserts or by remoulding under heat, makes all the other tweaks (blade shaving, blue tack and ramp extensions à la Cillian O Briain) redundant.
Now that is news of earth-shaking proportions.
Steve,I have tried your tweek with great success but there are a few things worth considering.As shrinkage must occur,(and it does) sqeezing may not be necessary.Removing 1 mm off the end reveals even further shrinkage and reduction of the airway inside from heating alone.Altering the chemical balance/composition of a magic sounding fipple through heating is very risky,as its a one way ticket.Insert methods,although more difficult,are reversable and any magic remains intact.Plastix super glue once hardened is no more toxic than the fipple itself and is completly safe.I agree that blue tack and ramp extensions are (and always were in my oppinion)redundant but not the blade shaving.A small plastic insert glued in the left side of the airway entrance remains my favourite method but still will not `polish a turd´;)if you know what I mean.The magic must be present to begin with for best results. Peace,Mike
On 2002-04-10 00:36, JohnPalmer wrote:
This has to be one of the most intriguing threads to come around in a long time. But why only tweek Generations? With all of the different “cheapy” whistles, why not practice this technique on them first?
Only because I never buy any other kind of cheapie! And because, when you’ve got them going right, Generations sound SO good. The technique did work wonders for a couple of Oaks, though, as I mentioned earlier.
OK Mike now I understand - you glue the insert lengthwise down the side of the airway. I thought you were suggesting gluing it across the entrance, in order to narrow the mouthpiece from top to bottom, which is what I’ve been attempting to do.
Re reversability - a small degree is actually possible. I did manage to unfuse my first failure somewhat by prying the windway apart after heating. But there’s a limit and obviously you want to avoid having to backtrack.
As for turds, well I always try before buying. The current batch of Ebs and Ds are actually pretty reliable. It’s the formerly bullet-proof Bbs that have become bad!
Jens, I’m not sure the cold-water plunging is a good idea. Isn’t this like annealing metal, or whatever the technical term is, which tends to make it brittle? In any case don’t put the hot head into your mouth (sounds like advice for lions running amok in a university), otherwise you’ll inhale fumes.
Peace,Mike