Today I finished my first aluminium whistle, with a delrin fipple! I am very pleased with myself! It is well in tune, but I am not very keen on its tone, which is a bit breathy for my taste - sounds like a Clarks original. I have just spent a long time with a friend’s camera taking pics (including orange peril) but can’t get them on here! I’ve been to Imageshack, where I end up in Truprint or Kodak and can only share with friends by giving email addresses. I knew I was not technical! Anyway, I am really pleased to have done this as I have never done metalwork before and it actually doesn’t look too bad. The holes are in a straight line, although one or two have not drilled quite straight down into the tube. The mouthpiece is a slightly bigger tube fitted over the end and cut into a mouthpiece shape! A bit fatter than I meant it to be (think Susato, unfortunately!) but it works and looks quite good. What do you all use to polish Delrin with? Very fine sandpaper? This is such fun! I’ve ordered more tube, as my bit was a tatty old bit from the loft (again) and I hope next time I get the sound more how I want it and a better shape on the mouthpiece, but all the same I keep looking at it and thinking “I made that”! It’s so exciting: I dream about making them now! I am definitely hooked. I was even considering pinching my patients’ metal walking sticks - very nice tubes!
Edited a bit later: I bravely wiggled the fipple block and did some tidying up filing and it doesn’t sound like a Clark any more - it sounds gorgeous! I am so happy!!!
You might want to look into a couple other web-based photo repositories. Two that I have used recently are Webshots and Photobucket. Both have fairly easy interfaces for uploading. Sharing across the web is part of the deal. Both also have shortcuts for the sake of posting the images on forums like C&F.
Delrin can be polished to a gleaming mirror-like finish. It can be sanded, wet-sanded and then buffed and polished. Any commercial polishing compound will work, even automotive compounds. I use polishing compound sticks on a buffing wheel and get good results. These come in various grades and colors, one is for plastics and soft metals. I have also used a variable speed Dremel to facilitate the final buffing. If you are using the “natural” colored delrin, I would stay away from the reddish brown polishing compounds because they can discolor the plastic. Another compound you may like to try is toothpaste. It is a mild abrasive, is generally available and tastes much better than most other polishing pastes.
Thanks a lot. I use toothpaste on my brass whistles too, so will try it on the delrin. I’ve been polishing it on the knee of my jeans while sitting, and it is quite shiny! I will try those photo places too.
Congrats on the aluminium whistle
I use ‘Photobucket’, very simple just upload your pics into ‘My Pictures’ on your computer,then upload what you need into your ‘Photobucket’ album.
Must be simple even I could do it
You’ve really done it now Dancer, fancy contemplating stealing walking sticks off poor disabled people, tut tut tut. I am glad you got it sounding right, I’ve found that all other things being equal, it’s generally the fipple block that governs how the thing sounds. As you will have found, alterations in or out of fractions of a millimetre will make quite significant changes to the tone. I’ve only recently tracked down a supplier of Delrin here, so have put whistlemaking on hold until I get some in. (It’s not very expensive, but there are other calls on my cash at the moment.)
Congratulations,
Ian
Thanks again, everyone. It doesn’t have a fipple like a Susato any more, as in fear and trembling I hacksawed and filed it today (in between stripping wallpaper). It now looks more like an O’Brien - sorry, David! But I love my O’Briens, so it’s a compliment! I still have to do the toothpaste trick on the Delrin to make it shiny: a job for tomorrow.
As for my poor defenceless patients, those walking sticks are lethal weapons! It would be in the public interest if they were all turned into whistles!
I will try Photobucket again, but yesterday I got all the pics on there and still couldn’t get them to here! Useless!
Incidentally, what happens if you make a longer beak? More back pressure? More breathy? I want to try that soon, as well as a tunable D, a Bb and a low D (when I get fatter Delrin).
Plastiman - I hope you get back to whistlemaking soon; yours are great.
