I looked but I did not see among some of the major Fife manufacturers, at least the ones I could remember, to see if anybody was making a QUALITY Fife out of some sort of polymer. I’m not talking about that standard practice black one that can double as a police truncheon, but something that might actually look more “Fife like”.
So are they out there , for a decent price, or is one pretty much stuck jumping to the various wood offerings?
Yamaha:
https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/winds/recorders/abs_resin_fife/index.html
That Yamaha is a bit different, it plays like a recorder, it has 7 finger holes & a rear thumb hole, & is a C instrument.
I bought my fife off Ebay, it is an “Original Pastalit Trommelflote (Querflote) Nr. 130P” - fitted with ferrules, 6 finger holes plus a raised (stands up higher) 7th hole. Other than that, I know nothing about it - I bought it to practice my embouchure for flute.
Edit: Maybe try the Tony Dixon ABS piccolo high D, it has a nice tone, if you’re not specifically after a Bb.
I have a Tipple Bb Fife. Simply lovely to play, tunable…I would suggest reaching out to Doug. Please note, though, I am a flute player and play this Fife in place of a BB whistle…I do not venture up into the higher ranges a real fifer does.
Eric
Hi fatmac, Are these Trommelflöte instruments unique to Germany? I can’t find them anywhere, except on the German ebay, some old military ones in grenadilla it seems.
Is there a current source? Is Pastalit a defunct maker?
It’s possible that some individual fife makers would consider making a Delrin fife as a special order; my understanding though is that Delrin is hard on tools so it’s probably not something they’d be eager to take on. But you could try someone like Skip Healy to see if he’d be willing. I have a Delrin fife that was made by Chris Abell many years ago as a prototype; I don’t think he ever made another.
Any good to you?
I’m sorry, I really don’t know any more about it - I bought it because the Yamaha was so unlike a simple system keyless flute - it is made of a hard plastic of some sort, & the chap I bought it from had 3 for sale, at £20 each, (but that was over six months ago).
Right, and that’s precisely what I was looking for. But I wasn’t interested in paying somebody a premium to make me a one-run item.
I know bagpipe manufacturers have been making everything from practice chanters to blow pipes to drone pipes to actual pipe chapters out of it. And of course you have all the regular keyless flutes and piccolos as well as tin whistles…so I can’t figure out why it has not caught on with Fife manufacturers to the point where there’s not a general offering of Bb Fifes out there
Quote:
I know bagpipe manufacturers have been making everything from practice chanters to blow pipes to drone pipes to actual pipe chapters out of it (delrin)./Quote
There is a world of difference between wet, mouthblown bagpipes and dryblown, bellows driven bagpipes. Wet pipes by virtue of their narrow bores suffer the same trials as oboes. They crack, they warp and they can rot. Delrin is tough on tools and has not found that much favour in the Uilleann world. The Maker of straight bore wet-blown pipes can simply send his tools out to be sharpened. He has geometry and the economy of large demand on his side. Uilleann makers have nuanced tapered reamers and much smaller demand working against them and have little interest in materials that dull and damage their tooling. There has been some interest in 3D printing, but this is not Delrin.
Bob
Perhaps Peeler Fifes acrylic resin instruments (scroll down), especially if you like bright colors…
Or maybe these
Best wishes.
Steve
Okay, thanks Bob. Information I had not known so therefore did not consider. I just know that derlin GHBs or their components are far less expensive than the various wood ones, but wasn’t sure what all the factors were involved with that.
So, being thus uninformed, I wondered how hard could it be to drill out a fife from it in the same manner and offer it for less.
Now I know.
Aulos produce one too.
Delrin is tough on tools and has not found that much favour in the Uilleann world. The Maker of straight bore wet-blown pipes can simply send his tools out to be sharpened. He has geometry and the economy of large demand on his side. Uilleann makers have nuanced tapered reamers and much smaller demand working against them and have little interest in materials that dull and damage their tooling. There has been some interest in 3D printing, but this is not Delrin.
Bob
This got my interest. I’ve worked with Delrin for years, making flutes and flute parts from it regularly and I’ve never noticed that it has the slightest detrimental effect on tooling. I’d be interested to hear more about this–what is it about the material that is supposed to cause this? There are definitely some high silica woods (like purpleheart wood, for example) that are very tough on tools, but I hadn’t noticed it with the Delrin. It machines like butter, really. But my not noticing it does not mean that it’s not problematic–it might simply mean that I didn’t notice 
One thing it does do, is that it shrinks when it gets hot. I’ve had it trap a reamer before and I had to use a pretty serious amount of leverage to get my reamer back!
When I trained as a machinist, I found I had to adjust the cutting geometry for efficient machining of small delrin parts. Threading in particular, especially cross sections of about .375 in.,were especially problematic. The delrin exhibited a lot of ‘rebound’ due to the ‘toughness’ of the material. I think a ‘scraping’ action would have been more effective, but rather that modify the rake of my cutters, I abandonned the project.
My experience making chanters is limited to three or four prototypes. The throat diameters were between .281 in. and .187 in. To successfully ream such bores with accuracy would probably involve hand reaming with very sharp tooling and very little force. Considering all the other hours involved with making all the other parts of a set, I, for one would view such a prospect with apathy.
Other plastics might be more appealing from a machining perspective but I’m not sure about customer acceptance. Woods of various types are well accepted. Even with wood, the reamers could be seized, and are quite ‘wiggly’ as it is. I used a single reamer method. Even using staged reamers still confronts the narrow bore problem, and demands acute sharpness to maintain the integrity of your designed bore profile. But, don’t let me discourage you
Bob
I’ll definitely second the “sharp tools” advice. I ended up making new reamers for that very reason (and not just for Delrin). I used to use D-profile reamers, but they only have one cutting edge and they produce massive amounts of friction. So instead I manufactured 4-flute reamers and distributing the cutting load over four different blades really made a difference. Much less friction, sharper edges and of course they don’t dull as quickly. Sharp is good.
I had heard similar observations about Delrin on a visit to the Practical Machinist forum. I’ve been fortunate so far because I do cut threads in Delrin for my Boehm headjoints (I have developed a threaded metal tenon that screws into a Delrin-lined, threaded socket on the headjoint, obviating the need for glues). Basically a removable tenon. There was a learning curve with the Delrin, for sure, but it’s such a versatile material I find all sorts of applications for it (I also use it for bore rings on some of my wooden flutes when they need reinforcement around sockets).
When machining Delrin you need to keep the speed down as well as have sharp tools with plenty of rake. I found that it is very easy to build
up enough heat that the Delrin gets soft, and then doesn’t cut properly, which compounds the problem further. It has a fairly low melting point.
Amen. I drill at half speed and I’ve developed some “pecking” techniques which reduce heat. First time I drilled Delrin I melted it. What a mess!
So would it be viable to make a Revolutionary War or Civil War looking Fife out of “plastic” if the hair-splitting differences between Acetal and Derlin were considered…
For most practical purposes Acetal and Delrin are the same. Delrin is slightly harder. Both are good. We use Delrin and Acetal for harpsichord plectra, as an aside.