I’ve mislaid my instruction sheet for the upkeep of my Grinter low F and want to check that I correctly remember his rather unusual recipe for oiling his whistles.
As I recall, he recommends that one immerse the whole of the head in almond oil for (I think) five minutes. Then one assembles the whistle and allows the oil to drain down into the body over night.
Can anyone confirm whether I have it completely right? Are there any other steps I’ve forgotten?
I have a used Grinter (that I like very much, btw!) but never received any instructions with it. I would appreciate ANY info.
I was talking about my wooden whistles with an old whistler friend and he recommends immersing wooden whistles for a few DAYS in linseed oil, then swabbing them out and letting them dry. Any thoughts on the pros/cons of this? If I had a cheap wooden whistle to try it on, I might, but . . . it would make me as nervous as a Cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
I looked for my sheet for you, but mislaid it as well. Other than the follow-up routine care steps, that sounds right. BTW, I omitted that step, fearing that no matter where I left it overnight, my cats would wind up in the all night sticky soak. Have seen no ill effects of skipping that step (I just liberally wiped down with almond oil and let sit for an hour or so before wiping clean.) I swab out bore moisture after every session and light coat with oil outside as well.
Like the man said when he jumped off the 25-story building as he passed each floor on the way down, “So far, so good.”
Philo
I was talking about my wooden whistles with an old whistler friend and he recommends immersing wooden whistles for a few DAYS in linseed oil, then swabbing them out and letting them dry. Any thoughts on the pros/cons of this? If I had a cheap wooden whistle to try it on, I might, but . . . it would make me as nervous as a Cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
I haven’t said this up till now because I haven’t heard anybody reccomend it, but I soaked my entire old model Sweetheart in a glass of mineral oil (the only part that was sticking out was the red tenon part) overnight, then I let it dry for a few days and I made sure the inside of the mouthpiece was dry with a Q tip, didn’t hurt it a all. Just took it apart, plopped it in the oil. Seemed to benefit from it…
Question - what bad things could doing this potentially cause?
Makers usually immerse wood in oil for days as one of the steps in preparing the wood, but i don’t think this is something you should do to a finished instrument. Specially not in linseed oil; linseed is tricky and best left to the professionals. Use almond oil or mineral spirits, or the one i use and recommend.
Oiling is the quintessential “religious” issue for wooden flute players, but in my belief system, all you want to do is maintain a thin protective layer on top of the wood. This layer slows down the moisture transfers between the inside of the wood and the air. I oil my instruments when their bores stop being shiny.
Religiously yours,
g
Clogging of the airway, especially if you’re using a drying oil such as lynseed. You could even close the airway shut. This is less of an issue with almond oil, since it’s non-drying, but i still wonder…
g
Is linseed oil ‘tricky’ because of the drying?
Well, one obvious con to the several day method is that you don’t have your whistle to play for several days!
Steven
I don’t know how Grinters vary from Busmans…I wouldn’t want to “soak” my Busman in oil, if for no other reason than I don’t think that would do the brass fittings much good! I would think it would be past the stage where it would need to be soaked by the time you got it, and would rather benefit from being lightly oiled inside and out with a swab every week or so (how often depending on your climate and how often you play it). I did notice that, when I first got it, my Busman would soak up oil like a sponge (despite having been liberally oiled by its maker), but now it absorbs oil more slowly, I guess because it’s past its break in period.
Redwolf
Michael definitely recommends soaking the whole mouthpiece up to the window. I don’t know that he specified a time. I’ll see if I can stir up the directions when I get home.
RW, the Grinter is totally different from a Busman. The soaking is because the whole head is wood, no metal, no plastic, and the soaking is recommended to stabilize the cedar fipple.
Phil Bleazey says never to let any oil in the windway. Go figger. I have one Bleazey that never clogs and one that clogs frequently. I’m thinking of soaking the one that does to see if it helps at all.
I’m currently using about a 4:1 mixture of extra light olive oil and almond, with a dash of vitamin E. The almond oil is scented with a hint of sandalwood, which gives the whistles and flutes a very subtle pleasant aroma.
glauber wrote:
Use almond oil or mineral spirits,
Waitaminnit, aren’t mineral spirits a solvent? Surely you meant mineral oil?
Interesting. Recorder makers (at least MOECK, but I’ve never heard or read otherwise) say that the cedar block in the mouth piece may not be oiled at all, as it would lose its ability to soak up moisture, which it is wanted to do to prevent tiny drops to clog the windway. They are recommending a soap-water solution to treat the windway with, to prevent drops from forming at all.
Now I know that a whistle may not be compared to a recorder at all, but in this respect, the basic principles are quite similar.
Interesting, really. 
Sonja
Sonja, Grinter is of the opinion that if the cedar block absorbs moisture, it is more likely to become dislodged from growing and shrinking, and that the benefit of the absoption of the moisture is outweighed by this.
Wombat, I couldn’t find my Grinter care instructions. Did you receive your low-F recently? when did you order it? I ordered a low-F and an A in February, so mine might be coming soon!!!
Tyghress: The instructions that came with the Grinter you have said to soak the entire head of the whistle in almond oil for 5 minutes, once a month for the first 3 months (already done) and then once every other month after the initial 3 months.
I thought this sounded like a bit much but I did follow the instructions. It makes the whistle a bit rough sounding for a day or so afterwards but this clears up pretty quick.
I just used the excess oil to wipe down the outside afterwards and assumed some ran down the inside.
-Brett
This what I learnt from M. Grinter:
“The whistles should be oiled with almond oil – both inside and out. It is also good to soak the actual block and headpiece in oil. Tip the whistle upside down, and carefully immerse the head and block completely in almond oil. Leave it to soak for five minutes or so, and then after taking it out and draining off the excess oil, place the whistle upright on a stand and let the oil soak in overnight. In the morning just wipe off any excess from the outside and within the bore with a soft clean cloth. This treatment should be given once a month for the first few months, and should help the block from excessive swelling and help stabilise the whole top end of the instrument. You may notice the sound is a little unclear when you first begin to play it again, but this will soon disappear.”
I did follow this advice, and can’t complain.
The only thing is that oiling does tend to attract dust; if you leave your whistle propped on a stand, the windway will collect it. So I use an empty plastic tube (cut out of one for medicines tablets) as a dust cap for the drying period (I count two days but live in a damp–celtic–climate).
Michael Grinter is not alone to advise this. F.i. woodwind maker Yvon Le Coant of St-Brieuc (Brittany) tells about the same. He tells to pour oil in the whistle head, holding it upside down while blocking the window with the finger pad (careful with that blade/labium!), using a second cannister to recollect the precious oil from the windway. He doesn’t use a cedar block, but a similarly pinned junniper block (a bit harder, smells better).
Note that Yvon advises to add a couple drops of essential oil (perfume base, get it in your favourite hippy store) of mint or lemon to the almond oil. It just smells better 
I gather German woodwind makers all recommend linseed (flaxseed) oil instead of almond. It dries faster than almond and hard varnished surface if exposed to light. I’m wary of it inside the whistle, but I do use it for the outside. It brings out a hard shiny finish that non-oily woods (i.e. fruitwoods, boxwood) just don’t get with almond oil. With African blackwood, rosewood, cocobolo and other Dalbergia, it brings them to a beautiful high gloss. Once dry, it does not stick to the fingers, but I don’t find it slippery.
It does have a strong smell before dry, but I find this blends well with cocobolo.
Linseed oil is also an efficient filter against UV. This may protect woods which tend to darken or change tone from solar exposure. It seems to preserve some of the subtle hues of African blackwood, instead of letting it go totally jet-black. Never had experience with lancewood, purpleheart, etc. However I recently started using it also over pink ivory, just in case it would develop carie–how do I know if the donor pink elephant had enough fluorides from his mom?
The difference may be that Moeck and Mollenhauer tend to recommend flaxseed oil, which dries hard, contrarily to almond oil.
However, a cedar block soaked with, er, juice, swells enough to alter the voice of the recorder… Hence the synthetic porous blocks and/or adjustable windways offered by Mollenhauer. This tends to give sense to M. Grinter’s advice of limiting absorption of the moisture: after all, he’s a reputed recorder maker, too.
Btw, nothing forbids you to give the soap treatment after oiling.
Finally, sometimes I wish whistle makers would make removable blocks, just like on any decent recorder. :roll: The only removable blocks I’ve seen on whistles were Susato, Camac, Kerry… but who really cares with pastic windways?
Chas, mine arrived about 6 weeks ago so if you haven’t received yours by now it will be in the next batch of Fs he makes I would guess. Lovely whistle, btw.
Just as a matter of interest, the oil mixture you mentioned in your earlier post sounds exactly like what Paul Busman recommends. Michael recommends just almond oil.
Oh and thanks to everyone for the helpful jogs to my memory. For all those who wonder about the overnight soak, I keep the whistle on a stand in a room the dog can’t get to even in her wildest dreams.
They don’t. They explicitly recommend almond oil for inexperienced oilers. But, as I said, this is only an interesting observation. Oiling style is a religion anyway.
Unfortunately, the cheap beginner recorders (cheap being less then $50) are all treated with paraffine and are thus not usable for extensive long term experiments.
Sonja
Chas,
Sorry, I just realised I didn’t fully answer your question. I ordered my low F about 6 months before I received it. I think Michael’s initial guess was about 4 months but I’d have to check records to be certain.
I think your waiting period depends on when you order in relation to the cycle of batches being produced. Although he’ll have to confirm or deny, I think Zubivka got a low F from the same batch as mine with hardly any wait at all—at least, he was hoping to. So, there’s always a chance of getting lucky with a Grinter, if not with a Sindt. I believe you can also get lucky with an O’Riordan but it hasn’t happened to me yet.
Well… quoting Mollenhauer’s German care page (which English translation is imperfect):
Ein sehr schnell härtendes Pflanzenöl ist Leinöl, dessen Geruch von jedoch von manchen als unangenehm empfunden wird. Man kann auch süßes Mandelöl für die Flötenpflege verwenden. Es ist geruchlos, ist aber für großporige Hölzer nicht so geeignet, da es recht dünnflüssig ist. Leinöl ist da besser geeignet.
Wer häufig ölen möchte, nimmt besser Mandelöl oder trägt das Leinöl sehr dünn auf.
I posted the link some time before, but here it is again: good advice, complete with illustrations.
[u]Mollenhauer’s care page in English[/u]
PS: Wombat, my luck in this respect was only seeming so. I should get in one or two weeks, if nothing fouls up… Btw, please check you PM’s.