I had the plan for quite some time but never got around to it, until a member of a FB-group brought it up. Others have done it before–some time ago you could even buy a whistle with a Sweetone mouthpiece and straight bore metal body from TWZ. So I thought I’ll give it a shot.
In the first experiment I simply took the body of a Waltons “mellow D” because it has a wider barrell. I wrapped some sticky tape around the barrel and stuck the Sweetone head on it. Worked like a charm but it was no perfect fit. So I made two bodies from PVC–the first one had tuning issues as it was just a quick and dirty job. Made another one today and this time it plays gorgeously. Insanely agile whistle, snappy ornaments, in-tune cross-fingered C nat–it performs better than any plastic whistle I have bought so far. And it was a fun little experiment. I used a small insert in the head to bring the octaves in tune since it is now a wide-bore whistle and without the insert the 2nd octave was flat – bigger holes might have solved this, as Chuck Tilbury told me, but it would have made it louder. The 2nd octave is also less loud with the insert. It is still a bit louder than with the original body but it plays so much better and finally I can use the fantastic mouthpiece of the Sweetone and got rid of the annoying seam of the rolled-tin barrel.
Thanks – it is a slightly different material than what I normally use. It’s more of an off-white and less grey like the usual cable canal stuff from the hardware store. Looks definitely nicer.
Your wish is my command. I am still working on that tune. It is “The High Level” as played by Micho Russell but my execution is still sloppy and I am not the best player. It is also just recorded with the built-in mic of the laptop as my son “borrowed” my Samson GoMic for his online gaming. https://youtu.be/USyBwi_RJjo
Thank . I also think it sounds better than with the original tube. I do like the sound of the original Clarke, too. I also like my Shaw. Not too fond of the air requirements though. I sometimes run out of breath on long phrases. I wonder how a tweaked version plays. I heard that Jerry Freeman has tweaked them for instance.
Yes, I also thought about simply using sandpaper to make the seam less pronounced. But the experiment proved a success. And it was not really a lot of work.
The tube has 16mm but the inner diameter of the mouthpiece is 17, so I had to add some clear sticky tape. The insert inside is just a small piece of tube, cut to size so it will fit inside and then stuck inside the tube from the top right under the mouthpiece. Maybe 2 cm long. It’s just to bring the octaves better in tune, otherwise the 2nd octave is slightly flat. But knowing what I know now after making a bunch of whistles, I’d probably bring the octaves in tune just by making the holes bigger. That will also increase the volume.
I think about 1mm. And maybe 2 cm long (just checked the tuning again and the 2nd octave is much too sharp, I should make it smaller, but I never play that whistle anymore so I didn’t bother). Enlarging the holes has a very nice effect on flutes. The last one I made plays and sounds exceptionally well. Should work on whistles, too however. The trick is, to make the window just right in order to make the 2nd octave blow a bit harder (but not too hard) so it will be in tune by itself. Or make the window shorter but the holes larger (Chuck Tilbury builds his whistles like that, short window and large holes, and they are among the best tuned whistles out there, next to Carbony whistles). There’s many different ways to get the tuning right on a whistle. I experimented a lot with wedges (on whistles and flutes) but I didn’t like how they affected the sound. They had an effect but you needed to blow a bit harder anyway, which would probably have taken care of a flat 2nd octave even without the wedge. I like to keep the construction as simple as possible. So no more wedges or inserts for me .
It was kind of the transition to making complete whistles for me. I started out a few years ago with plastic quenas (but without the thumbhole, so they play like whistles). But I had problems making a proper mouthpiece. That got solved later when I switched to the square aluminium tubing.
At the moment though, I concentrate more on the flutes. (Don’t tell anyone but it’s much easier to make a nice-sounding flute than a whistle.)
The thing about whistles is that we players want them to do everything a flute does, but a whistle has so much less to work with.
A flute, in effect, can change its windway height and width, change its window length, and change the angle at which the airstream hits the blade while on whistles all these things are fixed.
So, a whistlemaker is confronted with a complex set of conflicting requirements necessitating a large number of compromises.
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