I was considering making some tubes that would work with an old soprano recorder mouthpiece I have, and was wondering if anyone has tried doing that. I was thinking about trying a couple of things. One was to just use PVC or copper tubing and trying to match the inside diameter of the recorder tube at the junction point, i.e. making a cylindrical bore instrument with no discontinuity in diameter at the mouthpiece-tube junction. The trick here is finding an off-the-shelf tube whose I.D. matches the recorder. I was also thinking about turning a wooden tube and reaming it to get a conical bore and using that - I have some nice african blackwood turning blanks that are long enough and that I’ve been trying to find a use for that I might sacrifice to science and art. The third notion was to make a set of different tubes to use with it. I actually have a couple of extra wooden and plastic soprano recorders that could contribute to the cause.
I had the notion that this would be an easy and cheap way to get a low D whistle to try out. And I am suffering from first-time fipple phobia, which recycling a mouthpiece would circumvent nicely.
Isn’t a soprano recorder tuned to the same register as a (high) C whistle? I don’t pretend to actually know the answer, that was just my assumption at the idea of a soprano recorder in “C.” If that’s true, then the bore is probably too little to make a low D whistle out of.
I don’t really know anything about it, but I thought I’d throw in my hat.
You could try just getting a tube that will fit closley to your mouthpiece and try cutting off the end until you find a nice length that works for that mouthpiece. I tried it with a wooden recorder mouthpiece a while back and it was hopless. I doubt that you would manage a low D on a soprano rec***er mouthpiece, the sizes are just not suitable. You could try just purchasing a Howard Low D mouthpiece which you can buy seperatly and make up your own tubes if you are wanting to experiment with an already made fipple.
I agree. Unless you have tenor or bass recorder mouthpieces, the bore is going to be too small, and you will have to make your holes 5 inches apart…
I would look into getting a howard head. ($40 at thewhistleshop.com) and making your tube to fit that.
I think a conical wooden tube would be pretty neat, but since wood changes shape with the temperature/humidity, I don’t think it would be a good match for a plastic head. Unless you devise a metal tuning slide, and at that point, you might as well make your own head.
Isn’t a soprano recorder tuned to the same register as a (high) C whistle? I don’t pretend to actually know the answer, that was just my assumption at the idea of a soprano recorder in “C.” If that’s true, then the bore is probably too little to make a low D whistle out of.
I don’t really know anything about it> , but I thought I’d throw in my hat.
Well, now that makes two of us. The inside diameter of the recorder tube at the mouthpiece junction is 0.5". Coincidentally, the bore of my C Generation whistle is also 0.5". I found an article on the web by, I think, Dennis Havlena?, on making a low D whistle, and he recommends using nominal 3/4" tubing. I ran TWCalc for both bores for a low D whistle and found a difference of less than an inch in length, and a maximum difference in hole spacing of a little more than 1/4". So it’s possible to create a low D whistle with a 1/2" bore. What it would sound like is another question. I don’t know how to interpret the graph of cut-off frequency versus frequency. It seems to be flatter for the narrower bore whistle, i.e. that the ratio is more nearly constant for all the holes than for the wider bore instrument. I have to think about what that means.
Are narrow bore whistles “squeakier” in general? Quieter? Harder/easier to play?
I tried fitting a pvc tube onto a soprano recorder mouthpiece. It didn’t work well at all. If you succeed, it would probably need to become about a B whistle, since the upper bore is so wide. The best way I found to make something sort of like a whistle out of a recorder is to use the whole thing, and (assuming a Baroque fingering recorder) enlarge the hole that would be covered by your second finger (the longest finger) on your right hand. Make it large enough so that F# will just be played with the first finger of your right hand. Some recorders will play the middle D [with all your fingers down (not opening the half hole for the thumb)] fairly well in tune. Others are hopelessly sharp, and you will have to use the 0X0 000 recorder fingering. (no thumb) The other difference is that you will probably need to use the thumb half-hole technique in high register, A and above. But the modification will allow you to play the recorder with whistle-like fingerings, and use whistle rolls and cuts with normal fingerings almost everywhere except around middle D and C. The tone will be somewhat like some conical whistles.
Phil
I have found the Best thing is not recycling a recorder. Yes, making the fipple is the hardest part of whistle-making. In answer to my recent post on this board Mack Hoover helped me with this link: http://profs.sci.univr.it/~gonzato/index.html
I have found that the method at the site really works well and is very easy. Easier than recycling a recorder, because you can get the keys and sizes of instruments you really want.
I will be posting more on the thread about fipple adjustments.
Phil
Heymaitaminute!!
You think you can machine a conical bore in blackwood?
Do it!!!
Get someone else to make a head, form a partnership…
Last time I tried to reame a conical bore in grenadilla (for a flt head-joint) the piece exploded on the lathe. Pieces of it went through the gyprock walls. If you have the cajones to try, then go for it.
I’m sure you’ll have better luck: I’m fairly explosion-prone.
I went to the hardware store and asked for some whistle tape today and they told me to go to the music store. So when I asked for whistle tape at the music store they wanted to know what color did I want. So what color do we need to make this whistle and which hole do you start with?
And if a person put a piccolo head on two d whistles taped togeather, would they have a low piccolo. Vbunny could you give us some more details here?
Thats a tenor piccoloisimo. Somewhat different instrument. Not traditional at all. We can’t discuss it. Off topic. That’s the Tenor Piccoloisimo forum. ( the TP forum)
Let me qualify what I’m going to say by admitting that I haven’t actually done this yet, but I’ve read through Trevor Robinson’s book a number of times as well as every article on the subject I could find. I do use the lathe for some precision boring, but haven’t done anything this long yet. The approach I was going to take is very conservative:
First I would bore a pilot hole at 3/8" using a shell auger. There is one that can actually be used with a brace, which I was considering. It’s also much cheaper than a lot of the other options, and is probably good enough for this application. Here’s the link:
Once the initial hole is made, I would true and shape the blank around the hole using a 3/8" rod as a mandrel. That done, I would ream the bore to the correct shape by hand, with the trued and shaped blank held in a vise. I intend to make the reamer out of an old file (or a piece of 1/4" O-1 bar stock). I don’t have a metal working lathe or a milling machine, so I wasn’t going to attempt a fancy conical reamer.
I don’t think I need to worry about exploding stock using this method. I believe your problem came from going a little too fast with the reamer in the lathe. If I can make the wood explode driving the reamer by hand with a T-handle, I’ll just have to start calling myself “sir”.
I haven’t tried blackwood (yet), but I have reamed mopane and bubinga by hand. I tried doing it on my mini-lathe but had to hold either the stock or the reamer by hand (and wrench) because of the 14" between centers. That resulted in the end the reamer entered being reamed too large. Possibly if you had the reamer fixed in the tailstock, on a 40" bed, it could be made to work.
I make wooden-bodied reamers with hacksaw blades epoxied in and ground to shape. I work them by hand, using a vise-grip wrench. I start with oak dowels from Home Depot. See http://www.flutes.fsbusiness.co.uk/Wooden.html
Reaming a flute joint takes over an hour and does wonders for my grip, but using these methods I can make any taper I want in any wood I’ve tried to date. But as I say, I haven’t tried blackwood yet.
