I decided on a low D, and built a prototype this morning. A couple of hours work, and I have one sweet instrument. Soft and melodic, and a touch of airiness.
I used 3/4 PVC electrical conduit for mine. One mod I made to the design was to extend the little piece that is glued to the outside to form an airway. I left mine on the top btw, and let the extra piece hang over the end, then glued a second shorter piece under the overhang, to form a mouthpiece. I used superglue.
I also found the last hole very hard to reach, so I drilled a second hole next to it but at the 3 o’clock position as you look down the whistle to play it. I plugged the first hole, and I play the new hole by laying my pinky along side the flute body - no stretch.
That could be, they operate exactly the same. If so, Snapfish is buying from York since SF is more expensive for processing than Y is. But just like GC uses the same engine that CF uses it could have just licensed the engine from someone.
The Home De(s)pot Flute has a sweet, breathy tone perfect for solo, introspective playing with a modest volume level to keep you from annoying your neighbors. And the more accomplished musician will be able to coax two pentatonic (five note) octaves out of it. And even a bluesy scale in A.
If it has six holes then you should be able to get 7 different notes out of it by sequentualy lifting your fingers, not considering the half setps (in Cmaj) From Open “Bell” End:
All Closed- C XXX XXX
First hole opened-D 0XX XXX
2nd-E 00X XXX
3rd-F 000 XXX
4th-G 000 0XX
5th-A 000 00X
All Open- B 000 000
That is like a half whistle half flute… a Flistle? Or Maybe a Whute… Native American Flutes Are pentetonic, and they have less holes… Six holes would be… Diatonic??? Dianetic… Aerophonic… som’tin like dat
Ah, the build your own Low D trick. Yep I have also tried to construct my own signature Low D using multiple designs available on the net. Total cost for the first attempt was $20.00. Second try cost I believe $6.00 (because I had left over items from the first attempt). 3rd attempt was $10.00. (yes I have all the receipts). Total for my failure: $36.00. (not including my missed practice time with my professionally built whistles). Now that I have typed this message up I am pissed…I could have gotten a Bingamon PVC Low D for half my cost. $%&^#^&^&, Oh well!
Mine is tuned to D and has 6 holes. I find it plays exactly the same as commercial D whistles, even the high 3rd octave is there - not sure how much of it - I’m really only a beginner on whistles. The low octave is very easy to overblow, you just have to breathe into it to get the notes, but they are very nice sounding. It is, as you say, not too loud, another plus
Sorry to hear yours didn’t work out. Of course, cost and time aren’t really the point. It’s the fun of creating something yourself, and showing/demoing it to friends !
Yeah, I mentioned earlier that I could not reach the bottom hole with my 3rd finger at all, but discovered my pinky could lay up alongside the whistle at the right length, so I moved the hole.
Actually, as it is just a protoype, I will experiment with hole positions to find ones that suit MY hands. Then build another final one.
I was wondering if I could bevel the holes with a cylindrical cut so my fingers would sit down nicely along the length of the bevel. Now is the time to experiment
Edit: Just bevelled the holes… much nicer to play now.
TO take the guess work out of what whole size you should drill and where it should be, you should use the Flutomat http://www.cwo.com/~ph_kosel/flutomat.html it takes a lot of time out of the assembly part. I like to drill my holes 1/32 undersize then tune up to the note for each hole. it take smore time, but you are less likely to have sharp tone holes that way.
Cy
Very informative page. Let me warn the other FireBird users out there that the calculator would not work for me in FB 0.8 (no results appear when you press the button), but I fired it up in IE and it worked fine there.
The flexability of different size holes, and mathematically determined length, is very useful (as opposed to them all being the same size, and spaced at fixed ratios of a length determined by cutting a given pipe until it sounds in tune).
Advice on ergonomics of hole placement is great for me, as I have already started to experiment with that.
but YOU are the one that has to play it. 
