A while back, at her request, I bought my wife a Ralph Sweet tunable blackwood whistle. Not at all unexpectedly, she barely touched it at first and hasn’t in months. So, looking on the bright side, I can now play another whistle.
And that brings me to the problem. This whistle clogs horribly. I don’t think its me, since it doesn’t happen with any others, but I just don’t know for sure.
Is this a normal issue wth this whistle? What can be done about it? I’m a little hesitant to to the detergent thing with a wooden whistle.
I’ve done Jet-Dri treatment to some all-wood whistles. It’s not a problem at all. Blackwood, being oily and hardly porous, is gonna bead water up much more than cocobolo or boxwood.
All the Sweet whistles I’ve played had this problem - not to mention sounding quite UN-whistle like to me. Guess it’s a matter of taste though. Have you looked into an O’Riordan with the delrin moughpiece? And if I recall…wasn’t Paul Busmann doing some work in delrin too? That suff never seems to clog that I’ve noticed.
Didn’t say it didn’t sound nice - just not like I expect my whistles to sound. And of the three ‘pro’ Sweets I’ve played, they all had similar clogging issues. I don’t think of myself as a particularly wet player as I don’t have trouble with many whistles, as it’s rare that I encounter this problem on a whistle of any make.
That’s very strange…I play mine out of doors, indoors, in the wind, and I haven’t gotten it to clog yet!..not even on May 1, when I was playing literally all day.
Although you can easily make your own detergent solution, the Duponol comes in a handy little dropper bottle which you can carry with you and use it as needed. I know that they recommend letting the stuff dry in the windway before playing,but I’ve often applied it, shaken out the excess and played the whistle/recorder right away with great results. Works on metal and plastic windways too.
Perhaps it is strange…perhaps not. Three for three and they all exhibited similar playing and clogging characteristics seems fairly straightforward to me. I think the only other whistles I’ve played that have a similar tendancy are the Laughing high D and Chieftains. The Sweets are not a whistle for me in either playability or tonality, but some folks seem to like them well enough.
Hi Chuck.
As has been pointed out this is a problem with Recorders as well as Whistles.
I just checked on the net the specific heat capacity for woods is somewhere between 2 and 3 Kj/Kg*K, water is 4.2. I think African Blackwood is probably at the high end of this range, so warming it up with your body heat for some time before you play should help, and when you’ve finished a set put it back some where warm.
Detergents definitely work on plastic Whistles and Recorders; I use the natural ones derived from Palm oil.
Does your Whistle have a soft wood block? If so, it might be a good idea to let it air after playing to allow the block to dry out a little.
Good luck
John S
Well strange…or not, I’ve had a couple of Sweets (neither were laminated) and numerous Chieftains and have to say that I’ve had no clogging problems with any of them. The Chieftains, of course do have to be warmed up before play. I’d guess given the variables of both whistles and players the answers are in there somewhere.
I never had problems with the older Kilhoury series with a cedar block.
The new model, which is based on the “Professional”, has a plastic block, and it does clog, though its windway is plenty high enough.
I really preferred the wood, even with its normal swelling issues after a long playing.
The company is aware of my complaint, and seems to research an adequate change of material.
What I suggest is dismounting the block, and unpolish it, give it some grit with steel wool, or even fine grained sandpaper. It should clog less, also the detergent will hold on better, and the turbulence may even ad some back-pressure. The slightly rough surface of the cedar blocks is a part of their efficiency. Also, it ads some “grain” to the sound.
I believe it may be one superiority of Delrin blocks compared to more trivial plastics : they’re machined, not glazed by casting. Same with Alba’s composite plugs.
With a wood block, do as Paul says: use detergent. I do regularly on my Strathmann flute, and it works just fine. I did the same with the Silberton wood “cap” and wood block.