I have never tweaked a whistle in my life, but I now feel the need for it.
I finally broke down and got an Oak D. It would be EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for, I love the look, the weight, the tone EVERYTHING…if it weren’t for the buzz on middle D and C#…
I know all I have to do is plunge it in hot water, rip off the mouthpiece and fill the well with wax (right?), but the thought of this makes me cringe. I just hear my poor little whistle screaming already!
Just grab the bull by the horns, or in this case, the whistle by the fipple and go for it.
I had the same anxieties when I did it on a brand new Gen Bb but it is OK.
Take your time, don’t force it and you will be OK. If I remember correctly, someone posted on the old board how easy it was to do this on an Oak. They almost didn’t need the hot water.
I was also very leary at first of pulling the fipple off my original Feadog; it’s not the best whistle in my collection, but it has sentimental value. I ended up buying another one - I mean they only cost $7.00 at the local guitar shop, so what the heck.
I then followed the directions on the “How I Tweak Plastic-Mouthpiece/Cylindrical Shaft Tinwhistles” page on the main site - soak in hot but not boiling water, etc…
I wasn’t comfortable using the hot wax method described on the page - it gets Really hot in Fresno in the summertime - I went with the ticky tack suggestion at the bottom of the page (after careful consultation with Anna Martinez, the ticky tacky lady )
Anyway, in the end it wasn’t as scary as I thought t would be, and my second Feadog sounds a lot better than it did before. It is even “semi-tunable,” sort of… the feadog has almost an inch of tube buried in the fipple.
So have at it -
Blaine
BTW, I didn’t find the otboard motor very useful, but the wig and big bag of cheettos made the whole ordeal much more pleasant. I coul’t find a small nuclear power generator; I wonder if Thom, or Steve carry them?
[ This Message was edited by: Blaine McArthur on 2001-08-31 11:07 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Blaine McArthur on 2001-08-31 11:09 ]
I have tweaked many inexpensive whistles with varying degrees of success.
My experience has taught me that Generations are still going to sound a little raspy no matter how much you tweak them.
My experience has also taught me that Oaks are still going to have a buzz no matter how much you tweak them.
I have killed both an Oak and a Generation in my determination to tweak them to suit my taste.
No harm in filling the sub-airway cavity though, so don’t be afraid.
My fatalities happened while using miniature files on the fipples.
Use Sticky Tack or Blu-Tack instead of wax, it’s much easier and safer.
Drop a little ball into the fipple and tamp it into place with an unsharpened pencil or a piece of dowel rod.
It’s easy to drip wax into the windway, but it takes a miracle to get it back out.
Sticky Tack is pretty easy to remove, but will remain firmly in place until you decide to remove it.
I’ll be performing this minor surgery twice this evening myself.
I have a Generation Eb on it’s way, and a Walton’s Little Black D to replace the one I sat on earlier this week… don’t put your whistles in your back pocket.
I agree with the sticky tac/blue tac instead of wax for filling the fipple. Worst case scenerio is you destroy the fipple, you then can buy just a fipple (Walton Little Black fipple from The Whistle Shop $3.50 which fits and works well on an OAK).
And if You can’t find sticky tack, e-mail me and I’ll be glad to send you some! At least you can dig that stuff out, and put it exactly where you want it! I now tweek with confidence and I only ruined one fipple!
The water doesn’t have to be THAT hot!
[ This Message was edited by: Anna Martinez on 2001-08-31 13:51 ]
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