What do I use on a sterling tuning slide that doesn’t slide? I used brute force once to put it together, and once to take it apart. Fine adjustment is IMPOSSIBLE.
If I do this whistle damage I’ll crawl into a hole and never be seen again.
What’s the whistle? Have you contacted
the maker?
Abell, second hand, and I got it 15 minutes ago, so no, I haven’t contacted the maker.
Edited because I misread the post!
Tyghress, this is easily fixed.
Check below for my edited instructions! I did you WRONG!
Otherwise, I bet Chris would take it back for adjustment. I have sent one whistle back to him and he returned it lickety-split. He’s the one who suggested the fine-grit sandpaper trick to me, so that’s why I feel more confident telling you that you can try that first if you like.
Good luck!
Stuart
Maybe I should just delete ALL the text in this post. Eh, naw, it would ruin the flow of the thread.
[ This Message was edited by: sturob on 2002-12-23 19:20 ]
I’ve had some luck with Scotchbrite on my Abell. I think it’s the most poorly designed slide out there on a high-end whistle. Not long enough, too tight, and silver-on-silver is just plain a bad idea. (Silver tends to stick to itself if it’s clean, and tarnish takes up more volume than silver, so the slide expands as it tarnishes.) I’ve never had this problem with a brass slide.
Whaddaya think of the Abell otherwise? After a year, I’m starting to warm up to mine, and find it a fine whistle now.
Chas, I’m swamped in whistle wealth right now! Last week the whistle I had chosen to play for lessons and practice started giving me problems on two notes. I decided to play the Rose (which I still adore, but didn’t like the idea of taking out of the house on a regular basis), and my instructor jokingly said, “Why don’t you just bite the bullet, get an Abell, and be done with it!”
Twenty-four hours later there is an Abell on the board. Twenty four hours and 4 minutes later I’m the nominal owner of said Abell. Three hours after that I win a Copeland.
Today both new whistles arrive and I’m a bit agog. I have one more whistle in the pipeline, the only one in my quiver that will be made specifically for me…with five new whistles in two months…(the Hoover ended up being The Perfect Whistle for Tyghre and will go into his stocking)…and the Busman in the works. . .I AM STOPPING WITH THE WHOA. ITS OVER. FINI. KAPUT.
As for the Abell, its breathier than I imagined…with a nice, complex tone (someone I know uses the word ‘dirty’ in describing it, and I understand what he’s trying to get across even if I don’t like the word’s connotations). The slide has me worried, but we’ll work that out.
I don’t think the whistle was played much in the past 10 months so it may change with time. Give me a few weeks to get a feel for it and I’ll get back to ya.
Okay, I ain’t Abell and I don’t play him on TV, but I do know a bit about dealing with silver.
Once you’ve Tri-M-Ited your slide (use 1500 grit - 320 is waaay too coarse for this), go to your friendly electronics shop and get a little spray can of “contact cleaner and lubricant”. It’s made specifically for silver, and will prevent tarnish, and keep the slide working well.
Disassemble the slide periodically when it begins to seem tight, and clean it with the spray and a very soft cloth - I use worn cotton flannel, or tee-shirting.
Mostly it’s just a process of maintenance, just like your car.
Happy Holidays!
Bill Whedon
My thanks to all the above suggestions. I will put the whistle back together just once more today, when I go for lessons (“You SAID to just bite the bullet!”) then pick up the recommended products and see what I can do. A message was left on the Abell answering machine, and I am going to go downstairs to stop obsessing over ‘my pressssssshiouses’ and get dinner on the table!
Ta all!
I had trouble once with a loose
tuning slide on an Abell D,
I sent it back to Chris and
he turned it around in one day.
I am smoking CRACK! It was 600 grit he recommended. I apologize profusely for having led you astray, Tyghress, and thanks Bill for saying I was bonkers. I can quote the message he sent me, regarding the sticking slide on my A.
Hi Stuart,
Thanks for your message. You can try two things to free-up the tenon on
the A whistle: one, wipe both the tenon slide pieces with de-natured
alcohol and try the fit again after they have dried. If it is still
tight, you can lightly sand the tenon sticking out of the mouthpiece with
very fine sand-paper (600 grit or finer, available at a hardware or auto
parts store) and then burnish the tenon with the back of the sand-paper.
If the fit for that mouthpiece needs to be unaltered because it also fits
into a Bb body, you will need to send the set here for re-fitting.
Let me know if this works.
I apologize again. Whew, what was I thinking! I do recall that even with 600 grit it took some work. And I forgot completely about the burnishing! Ugh.
Stuart
Edited to make the quoted text look nicer.
[ This Message was edited by: sturob on 2002-12-23 19:18 ]
There is something be said for
sending the Abell back to
Chris, unless one is very
good at such procedures.
IMHO.
On 2002-12-23 17:52, tyghress wrote:
my instructor jokingly said, “Why don’t you just bite the bullet, get an Abell, and be done with it!”Twenty-four hours later there is an Abell on the board.
It’s funny, my teacher was extolling the virtues of Copelands, and hers sounded so good in her hands, I bought one on ebay a few days later. I hope to have it by the weekend!!
Happy holidays!
Thanks again to all. . .Sturob, its okay; basic advice was sound, and the consensus was the finer the better.
Another bit of advice was to try simple cork grease. I have oodles of THAT stuff around, and if Jessie says its okay for silver, I believe her. Also, it seems that if it doesn’t work out, it will be easy to remove and try something else.
My teacher suggested that I sand the inside of the female part of the joint rather than the outside of the male.
Chas, one of the nicest things about the Abell (given that I haven’t been able to practice with it much, and need a more delicate touch on the high end) is that its sound goes perfectly with my instructor’s whistle. But oh, the Copeland is lovely!
Anyway, thanks all!
Apples, oranges…
On 2002-12-23 22:41, tyghress wrote:
But oh, the Copeland is lovely!
Yeah, there’s just something about my Copeland, too. I’ve got several high-end whistles and with maybe one exception they are all intonated slightly better than the Copeland, yet it’s almost always the Copeland I reach for. Something about its sound just reaches out and grabs me…
I’ve never been able to find a C whistle that I really like. Sometime I’m going to have to suck it up and order a Copeland in C, maybe that will work for me 
John
John, try a Burke pro-C…I gave one a workout at Song of the Sea last summer and would have bought, but I have little use for a good C. To my surprise, my Walton’s C is just about perfect…volume would be nice, but I don’t need volume.
On 2002-12-24 13:13, tyghress wrote:
John, try a Burke pro-C…
Actually, I have one, a Brass Pro-C I bought a bit over a year ago. I have several of Mike’s whistles and of all of them only the C doesn’t really do much for me. It’s not a bad whistle, and it certainly beats my other C whistles, but it just isn’t great like all the others I have from him.
It’s not something I can quantify and ask him to fix, 'cause it’s not really broken, it’s just not “live” if you know what I mean. It’s well intonated, and not overly prone to squeeks or squawks, though it’s a tad less forgiving of breath pressure than my other Burke whistles (non of which are pros, which may be the difference there). But, it just doesn’t feel as expressive as other whistles, including other Burkes.
It may be more of a thing with my ear just not particularly liking the key of C, for that matter. Although I love songs in Am so that doesn’t seem likely, either.
I think that may be part of what I like about my Copeland D so much is that it is a very expressive whistle. I can get a lot of dynamic range out of it without too much change in pitch and with no tendency for it to octave up unpredictably or go ragged. I play mostly slow airs (hymns, actually) and I really like that expressiveness. For faster stuff, I break out the Burkes because none of my other whistles are as crisp for fast ornamentation as the Burkes.
John
The C whistle seems to be
a problem–Susatos are very good
in C, I think. You can get a C tube
for the Abell D, which sounds very
beautiful. The Water Weasel C
is very good, too; again it’s possible
to get a tube that fits the D
whistle head.
John, I feel exactly the same about the Burkes – I have two D’s, C, B, low-E, -D, and -C, and the C is the only one I’m not thrilled with.
My solution is the Thin Weasel. It’s simply head and shoulders above every other C I’ve played (I haven’t played many).
Tyghress, I agree that there aren’t many tunes that must be played in C, but if yu don’t constrain yourself to sessions or session tunes, there are many tunes that should be played in C. O’Carolan’s #171 and Hugh O’Donnell are two wonderful tunes that were written in C and just don’t sound quite right in D.
Chas, have I mentioned that I love your signature quote?
I had a composite Burke C (along with my WBB D, and Al A,G and low D…so you know I’m a Burke fan)…but the C didn’t ‘do it’ for me. As mentioned above, it played fine, sounded okay. . .but didn’t have the quality that made me reach for it. I hope current owner is having a good time with it though!