Idea for a Tweaking Business (Commercial Post)

I had an idea this morning when I was trying to revive a whistle this morning and relized that I wasn’t too bad at it. My idea is for the Tweakingly challenged that are either bad at tweaking or have destroyed a whistle in the process. A customer will send me a whistle they would like either tweaked or revived after a tweaking disaster I will tweak/fix it then send it back. As far as I know I am the only person that does this as my idea is different than what Jerry does as he tweaks whistles straight out of the factory. Tweaking will cost between $5-$25 depending on how much tweaking/repairing is needed. For more details email or pm me. Please help me get this going. :smiley:

People have been sending their whistles to Jerry for tweaking, so I’m afraid you wouldn’t be the first. And even before Jerry started doing it commercially, some (including yours truly) would tweak others’ whistles as a favor. I still do it, and just recently fixed a recalcitrant Gen Bb for a friend.

Tell us a little more about what you do to tweak a whistle. I’m always curious to learn, and by my book there can’t be too many tweakers. Wonderful occupation. :slight_smile:

Well I always do the Blue tac or candle wax whatever I have. I usually sand the blade just a little as it is usually too sharp. Most whistles need a guitar pick to make the blade sound good (Sweetones usually do not). Make it tuanble. Close the airway a little on some whistles. There is more those are the pretty standard but certain whistles take special treatment. I kind of figured I wold not be the first but I had not heard of anyone else doing this.

Perhaps if you came up with a good anti colgger. It would sell like whistles or hot cakes.

I am thinking of things that might help with clogging…

Appropriate shoes are helpful …




Whenever I have any questions or concerns about clogging, I’ve always found these folks to be extremely helpful …

Best wishes,
Jerry

:laughing:

Can I get those in black 10 1/2 D?

http://folkharp.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/25_44_73/products_id/152

Duponol works for me

Does Dupronal* work on aluminium whistles??

Duponol works via detergent action..should work the same as the soap-trick that some people recommend.

I have tried the soap and it helped a little, so now I will try the duponol as Wanderer suggested. Unseen, where do you put the guitar pick? On the edge of the blade or under it? And what will that do for the upper octave on a generation B flat? The other day the subject of streaching the tone hole tube came up and Jerry Freeman asked a question about it that may have a serious note to it. I would like to answer now without the humor we got caught up in. When working with steel pipe we never realy streached it on purpose. However when it is bent it will lengthen. This could not help a whistle except to know that if a whistle were bent and try to strighten it, It could become longer slightly. To lengthen a straight tube I did read where one maker redraws their tubes before making a whistle. Redraw means to streach or lengthen or make it tight. They did not say why this was done. If there is enough reason to streach a tube I think a person could make a jig to streach small tubes. It would look like a retangle box with two of the long sides not there. In the ends there should be concentric holes to hold rods the same size as the id of the tube being streached. Threads on the ends of the rod with nuts or a jack would supply the force to streach. the rods would have to fit in the tubes perfect and a perfect size clamp would have to hold both ends. I think some tubes could be streached cold up to about 3/16’’ before stress cracks would appear. I do not know what this would do to the tube in terms of resonating.

I like to experiment with the Guitar pick and find the right spot and shape of the pick to suit that whistle. The whistle will sound different if I use the tip then if I use an edge or one of the parts that has been sraghtened by cutting. I don’t have a Gen Bb to work with so I can’t answer that part of the question. Over or under usually depends on the whistle make and some times it won’t even go all the way over the blade. Like I said there is no set area where the pick goes it is a matter of sound and also the fact that getting the pick under the blade is very hard to do and is not that great on some whistles. So to answer your question I put the pick in the postion that gets the best tone in my opininon.