My first DIY whistle

Whistle
1

This weekend, I made my first whistle following Guido Gonzato’s instructions here: http://guido.gonzato.googlepages.com/whistle.html
Anyone else try these?
The whistle actually didn’t come out too bad (the tuning is quite good), but it’s really quiet and breathy, I think due to a poorly shaped lip. My problem, I think, is the tubing I used to make the whistle is rather soft, and doesn’t respond well to filing or sanding, i.e. I can’t make it very smooth. Anyone have any suggestions? I used 1/2 inch cold-water pipe which is very lightweight and soft (comes in 5-foot pieces from Home Depot), and have been trying to shape the lip using woodcrafting files (too fine, I think) and 220-grit sandpaper.

Another note - It seems Guido left out a step in his instructions, which I’m surprised hasn’t been mentioned on his site, which has been up for quite some time now. Somewhere in step 5, you need to cut the angle in the whistle body to match the angle in the mouthpiece. Not easy to do after the mouthpiece and fipple block are cut and the window is shaped.

Anyway, I’m just whining. Any suggestions for a different or better recipe, or how to correct the whistle I made?

Thanks!

2

Congrats to you! What a rush it is to play an instrument of your own manufacture!!

I don’t usually use PVC when I do my whistles, I prefer copper. But as a suggestion to get it smoother, I use these for violin work:
http://www.sisweb.com/micromesh/

Very fine grit cloth polishing paper, I’ve got grits from 1500 to 12,000. These are fine abrassives used for polishing/super fine sanding. The cool thing is, when they get ‘packed’ with grit, you can throw them in the washer! I’d offer to send you some of mine, but its very, very heavily used, and I acutally need to re-order. When I made a replacement stock for friend’s SSP’s, I buffed the plumbing markings off of some black PVC tube and shined it up very vell (with no scratch marks) using progressivle finer and finer grits of MM.

3

Fyffer wrote:

“It seems Guido left out a step in his instructions, which I’m surprised hasn’t been mentioned on his site, which has been up for quite some time now. Somewhere in step 5, you need to cut the angle in the whistle body to match the angle in the mouthpiece. Not easy to do after the mouthpiece and fipple block are cut and the window is shaped.”

I see your point. Here are several possible solutions (from someone who hasn’t tried making Guido’s whistle, so this advice is perhaps worth less than you’ve paid for it):

  1. Put the fipple block and windway top in position in/on the body and then use the windway top’s angled edge as a saw guide to cut the body angle.

  2. If the windway top won’t stay in position well enough to function as a saw guide, use a pencil to trace the windway top profile onto the body — then remove the block and top and saw the body angle along the traced line.

  3. Earlier in the construction process, before cutting the body to length, cut the windway top at roughly a 45 degree angle from the same length of pipe that will become the body. Now, assuming you have been careful to keep the saw from wandering, the end that will become the top of the body will have an angle equal to the angle of the windway top — it would help to use a saw with a wider blade than the one Guido shows in his pictures, and a miter box. (Note that when the windway top is cut open and fit over the top of the body, the angled ends will not match perfectly, but they will probably be close.)

  4. Cut the body and windway top to length as directed by Guido, but before cutting either the angle on the windway top or the windway slot in the body, slit the windway top, slide it onto the body with the top ends aligned, and then saw the angled profile on both the body and the windway top simultaneously. Proceed to cut the windway slot and the wooden block. You might be able to get away with fitting the wooden dowel into the body before making any angled cuts, and then cutting the top, body, and block profiles simultaneously.

A final comment: If you are using sandpaper for gross shaping, start with a courser grit than 220 and work your way through finer grits to clean up the final profile.

Good luck on your next attempt.

4

Hey Fyffer:

I’m actually doing the same project right now. I’m going for the low D version that he has listed.

The hardest part for me was finding piping that was thin enough. Most PVC in the states is too thick. I finally found some thin walled irrigation piping at a Menards. I’ve made the fipple block and the window, but haven’t drilled any holes yet. I’m waiting for a chromatic tuner that I ordered online.

As far as the breathiness is concerned, it may be that your windway is too tall (Guido mentions this in a section re: thick pipe). He suggests adding a small strip of plastic sheet to make the windway narrower. Did you try this? Also, I agree with the others, you should really try to use finer material for sanding the plastic. If you are doing any rough shaping first, you can actually try to carve the plastic with a utility knife, and then clean it up with the finer sandpaper.

I also did notice the skipped step regarding cutting the body to match the fipple plug and mouthpiece angle. I did notice a picture in the instructions where it seemed that he had clear tape around the body and the mouthpiece. I haven’t cut mine yet, but I think I’ll do the same where I tape the mouthpiece in place so it doesn’t move while I cut it. Hopefully I’ll get it pretty close to match the plug, and will only require light sanding to clean it up.

Post pictures of your whistle and sound clips if you’re able. I’m very interested in seeing how others faired on their whistles. I’ll make sure to do the same when I finish mine.

Cheers!

John

5

Thanks, John. What I’ll try to do is post some pics as it is now, along with a little clip. Then I’ll see if I can clean it up a bit to get a cleaner sound. I think I just may have started with too small a project (small in size, not scope). Trying to clean up this lip that’s 9mm by 2mm is like trying to thread a microscopic needle to me. I’m not a fine-motor-skills kinda guy.

Wish me luck.

6

You’re right - it’s about time I made a new picture and rewrote that paragraph to make it clearer. This week or the next at most, I promise :slight_smile:

7

I’ve been doing this for ages. The tubing I get is stuff called “pipex” - it isn’t PVC: it’s a kind of polypropylene. It doesn’t sand. It frays in a very ugly fashion. It took me a long time to realise that that was the problem. So I’m reduced to ONLY cutting.

Regarding the lip business: Cut an approximate windway cover and put it in position at the top of your whistle. Use masking tape or something similar to secure it in place. Then cut it in line with the top of the whistle.

(And I would move the second hole down by 5mm from Guido’s measurements. That’s the E hole on a D whistle.)

8

Wow - THE Guido. Thanks for the response! I was actually going to contact you personally, but since I’m here reading a lot, I figured I’d take the temperature of the collective. Great instructions BTW, that missing part notwithstanding (it really wasn’t too hard to figure out without it, but I was just a tad confused at first). My next attempt is not too far off, but this time, I think I’ll shoot for a low E-flat whistle (Bigger=Easier to work with).

:slight_smile:

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Hey Fyffer:

Well, after posting to you yesterday about my progress and suggestions, I decided to go work on my whistles for awhile.

Remember that part in Guido’s plans where he warns us to be careful with sharp tools? Well, being a model builder I am very used to handling sharp tools, and usually am quite careful…until yesterday.

After several hours in the emergency room, and several stitches later, I’m here to throw out that friendly reminder to take extreme care when working with xacto blades.

I knew the way I was cutting wasn’t the best way to handle the particular area I was working on, but proceeded anyway. Listen to your gut, if it doesn’t seem safe, find another way.

So, would it be considered ironic that I was making my own whistle, and now I can’t even play it for the next couple of weeks until my finger pad heals?

Here’s hoping nobody else does what I did. :boggle:

Cheers!

John

10

OWW! That totally sucks!
Thank you for not including pictures of that.
It was for just that reason that I chose not to open a beer until after I had completed my whistle.
I’m so sorry you hurt yourself. Please do take care in the future.

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I think you would have the most luck working on the height or thickness of the windway. As Guido says, thicker is more breathy. The smoothness of the labium ramp isn’t going to make as much difference as the windway height.

The easies way to make a thinner windway is to use thinner pipe. Then you have to do less fussing. I turn (on a lathe) both the ID and the OD of the CPVC I use for my whistles so I can achieve the windway dimenstions I want. I suppose you could spend some quality time with some sandpaper. A LOT of time. Or as Guido suggests, build up the roof of your windway to reduce the height of the opening.

12

Hey fyffer:

Well, I’ve pretty much wrapped up my Low-tech Low D. Overall I’m happy with the fact that I made something that actually produces musical notes. It’s my first attempt at playing a low D, and man is it a workout on the fingers! I’d be interested in holding a professionally made Low D to see how it compares.

This definitely won’t be my last one as I’ve already found several things I need to do differently/improve upon.

The main things I’ve noticed is that I need to move the holes closer to the window. My E hole got ridiculously large, and it still is a few cents flat, but I don’t dare widen the hole any further.

Also, I followed Guido’s plans by using a scissors to bore the holes. The problem with that is my scissors blade wasn’t wide enough before the tip hit the bottom of the pipe. I had to finish enlarging the holes using an xacto blade, so now my holes are a bit uneven. I don’t know if that affects the sound at all, but asthetically it doesn’t look appealing.

I narrowed the windway to try and reduce the breathiness. It worked somewhat, but in the future I’ll have to use thinner pipe. I’d love to bore out my own pipe, but I don’t currently own a lathe.

Carey, do you do yours on a regular wood lathe, or do you have a metal lathe, or some other kind specific for this use?

Anyway, it was a fun project (minus my self inflicted wound), and I’ll definitely be doing another.

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It’s a metal lathe. There are some limitations to the length of pipe I can work because of the size of the lathe. Let me know what pipe you end up using next time. I can turn the OD of a short piece for the head but there needs to be a joint in it since the low D is so long.

I’ve been thinking of turning parts for the mouthpice for folks, and letting them do the rest, but then it’s not a DIY, is it? More of a kit. What fun would that be?

14

Hi

Great to hear the “voice” of the LTW guru himself on here!

Wednesday I built a D+ LTW from PVC hot water pipe. It just took one hit, and now I’m an addict! :slight_smile:

(I call it a “+” because it’s got seven holes so it can play a C with all holes closed). I’ve made it tunable and plan to build seven hole bodies for Eb, C and Bb as well. I’ll also make a standard 6 hole D body to compare how the two behave to try and figure out whether the seven hole configuration has any disadvantages.

The finished instrument is well beyond my expectations. Pure and sweet and in tune with itself and the world. I keep picking it up to play it again - and again. It’s a very special feeling to play the first instrument I built myself. It’s hard to be objective about this, but I’m pretty sure that if I walked into a music store and found a whistle that sounded and played like this one within a reasonable price range, I would buy it.

The only negative would be that I would have liked a little more chiff. I’m not sure how to accomplish that. The hot water pipe is approximately 11 mm inside dia with 2mm wall thickness, so I had to sand it down a bit to each side of the airway as it sounded a bit breathy and needed too much air with the 2mm high airway. That seemed as good a way as any of dealing with the wall thickness issue. Of course it has to be done in stages as it’s difficult to put back what I remove…

The really nice thing is the hot water pipe is cream in colour and when matted down with 400 paper to make the surface dull it could actually pass for bone at a distance. I’m thinking of telling a story as I play it of how I met this old man in Africa who was making these wonderful instruments of Antilope bones. Then before the last number, I’ll let the cat out of the bag and admit it’s PVC waterpipe. There might be an opportunity on Sunday… I’ll look for some electrical conduit tomorrow which has larger inside dia and thinner walls.

A question you might be able to answer. On the Low Tech Whistle site, you say the airway should be no higher than 1.7 mm to avoid the whistle becoming too breathy and that was my experience too. I assume you were talking of Soprano D whistles and the height would be different for a low D, which may be my next project? Any idea what range to look for on the airway dimensions on a low D? Also, there is very little in the article about the actual shape of the lip, except that it should not be too sharp as that makes the whistle sound like a recorder.

After the Low D, I think I’ll start on my sister’s Christmas present. She lives in Norway and has recently taken up the whistle and as far as I know, all she’s got is a crummy Generation. (she’s a professional opera singer and music teacher). It would be fun to send her a home made soprano whistle set with Bb, C, D and Eb bodies.

Well, this means I’ll probably skip buying the Syn set with four bodies I was considering, but I’m still ordering a Dixon Trad. Got to have something to aspire to…

SOMEBODY STOP ME!

Regards,

Owen Morgan

Yacht Magic
Anchored in the lagoon, St Maarten

My new blog.
Click here for my latest reported position. (Use the satellite view.)

15

Great way to deal with the windway height Magic. Well within the scope of simple hand tools. If you sand more at the window and less at the mouth end you will achieve some bernouli effect - for better or worse depending on your taste. The open bottom of the LTW mouthpiece allows lots of leeway in the creation of the windway.

Thanks to Guido for heading us all down this particular path.

16

Hi

One thing I forgot to mention is how I made the fipple block. I bought some wood dowel at a hardware store. As expected, I could not find anything that fit exactly inside the hot water pipe, so I cut off a couple of inches, put a small drill bit in my battery drill and drilled as exactly as I could down the middle of the dowel. Stop drilling immediately when you reach the bottom.

I then left the drill bit in the hole and sanded the dowel down by wrapping sandpaper around it and running the drill. Don’t grip the paper too hard, as that will cause the drill bit to spin inside the hole and open up the hole so the drill will no longer drive the dowel. If that happens, just replace the drill bit for a slightly bigger one.

As suggested on the LTW site, I boiled my fipple block in candlewax. The trick is to boil it until you can no longer see air bubbles escaping from the block. That means all the air has been replaced by wax. Oh, and make damn sure you don’t get water anywhere near the boiling wax. That will make it splatter all over the place and you could get some nasty burns… (like the one on my left hand…)

Regards,

Owen Morgan

Yacht Magic
Anchored in the lagoon, St Maarten

My new blog.
Click here for my latest reported position. (Use the satellite view.)

17

Hey Owen:

I’m glad to hear your D whistle was a success. I’m not so happy to hear you hurt yourself just as I did when making my low D. Man, they say God watches over children and drunks. I wish he would add clumsy whistle makers to the list! :laughing:

I really like your idea of thinning down the business end of the whistle to compensate for thicker pipe. I’m going to have to try that on my next one.

On my low D I added some sheet styrene to the windway to reduce the height, but I don’t think it was as sucessful as I would have liked. Still experimenting.

By the way, where did you get your candle wax from? My wife has 8 billion candles around the house, but I don’t know if I should melt any of those down being that they are of the scented variety. Did you use “plain” wax?

Well, it’s off to the hardware store to pick up more whistle supplies!

Cheers!

John

18

Hi again

I’ve now posted a recording of my LTW on my WildVoice site. Follow the link at the bottom of this post. It’s post number 8 which at the time of writing is the newest. While I have your attention, could someone please help me name the tune?

You don’t have to thin down the whole circumference of the pipe, just a bit either side of the windway so it makes a nice curved top that the windway cap can rest on. If you want to stay with water pipe, I suggest using the CPVC hot water pipe which has thinner walls than PVC cold water pipe.

I bought a candle (the type in a glass jar) from a local Chinese grocery store. It’s not scented, but it is green because I bought it to fill the cavity under the airway on my Soodlum’s which has a green head. Hopefully, it won’t poison me.

Oh, and today I made a flute head for the whistle. I’m not having any great success playing the flute version, but I don’t know whether it’s not very good or I’m not very good. I’ve never played the flute before, but I am capable of getting sound out of a bottle… once I’ve got the beer out of it… :wink:

Regards,

Owen Morgan

Yacht Magic
Anchored in the lagoon, St Maarten

My new blog.
Click here for my latest reported position. (Use the satellite view.)

19

Thanks for the info Owen!

Well, I finally finished my second LTW, and let me tell you I am much happier with this one than I am with the Low D I made. I guess you could say I went to school on that first one.

Owen, I have to agree with you…I think I enjoy the sound of this whistle over the two commercial ones I have. I don’t know…maybe it’s because I made it, but in all honesty I think it has a really nice tone to it. Even the higher notes of the second octave sound nice.

Now, I’ve only been whistling for a couple weeks now, so I’m not sure I’m ready to post any samples yet, but given time I’d like to let others hear how nice it sounds.

A great big special thank you goes out to Guido Gonzato for his most excellent tutorial. I’m not sure if you are aware how great a thing you’ve done for the whistling community, but I for one am very appreciative.

I plan on making another one for my brother. He unfortunatley is on a very tight budget, and doesn’t get to buy too many nice things for himself. He loves all types of musical instruments, so I will be very honored to make him his own whistle.

Thanks again Guido, and thank you Owen for sharing your experience with me.

Cheers!

John

20

Hi again

UPDATE!
There’s now a photo of my LTW on the WildVoice site. Just follow the link at the bottom of this post and have a look and listen to my LTW. Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger photo of the whistle. (Please listen to the whistle, not the player…)

Of course our LTW’s sound better than anything commercially available, and of course we are being totally objective about that… :slight_smile:

My thanks also to Guido who made it possible! :thumbsup:

Regards,

Owen Morgan

Yacht Magic
Anchored in the lagoon, St Maarten

My new blog.
Click here for my latest reported position. (Use the satellite view.)