Mystery whistle--Pipemaker's Union?

Whistle
1

I was down in center city (Philadelphia) today, and decided to stop into 8th Street Music to see if they had any whistles.

They had a display rack of Sweetones on the counter, and in the display case they had a few standard Clarkes, some Walton Mellow Ds in a blister pack with a CD, a few Walton Little Black Whistles, and…several whistles in tartan fabric sleeves. I asked to look at one of these.

The whistle bore no name that I could make out, although there was a tiny logo of some sort on the mouthpiece. It was made of some synthetic material, gray with a muted checkerboard pattern. It was a conical whistle, and very light to hold. I asked how much it was, and the fellow didn’t know but gave me a look that said “It’s just a dumb whistle, how much could it be?” I said I’d take one, so he got out his book to look up the price. The expression on his face changed.

“You may not want that whistle,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s $75. It’s a graphite whistle.”

“Graphite? Who makes it?”

“Pipemaker’s Union.”

Hmmm, I never heard of them, but then I’m new to the world of whistles. I took out my Blackberry and googled and came up with nothing. But he had one thing right: I didn’t want to pay $75 for that whistle, interesting as it was. He had about a half dozen of them there.

Has anyone heard of this whistle, or any other graphite whistles? My curiosity is piqued.

Meanwhile, I bought one of the Walton Little Blacks for $9. I was fully prepared for it to be a POS, it felt so light and the mouthpiece looked so cheap and cheesy. To my delight, I’ve found it to be the most playable whistle I have. It has a nice clean bright sound, and plays easily in the 2nd octave. And it seems to be in tune, unlike my Walton Mellow D. I did a search in this forum and have learned that I’m not the first person to be pleasantly surprised by the Little Black Walton.

But I’m still curious about that $75 mystery whistle.

2

Not a mystery at all. It’s a Carbony whistle by Rob Gandara. There’s been quite a bit of discussion of them here, and some of us have tried them on tour.

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=54937
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=53419

The Carbony website is here: http://www.carbony.com/index.htm

3

Thank you! I don’t know why google came up with nothing, but no doubt “carbony” would have scored a hit. Oh well, it was mysterious to me. Looks like an interesting instrument but at the moment I’m pretty happy with my Black Walton.

4

Walton’s Little Blacks are very nice sounding (usually - I’ve met the odd duff one) but take great care of it: the aluminium tube they are made from is very thin and easily snapped - I’ve had two go at the B tone-hole (T2) back when I was playing them, just from getting knocked about a bit in my rucksack full of flutes & whistles. It also becomes more brittle with age. One production problem they have had over the years is batches where the tube was not cut off correctly (too short) and the bell note was sharp - consistently in a large batch! - I know because I bought a box of 12 or 15 for a school class and they were all identically duff. That was about 14 years ago though…

5

Yep, I like the LBW, too. It’s a bit bland sounding, but an easy player. As Jem says, you have to be careful with the ultralight tube. Mine ended up with the bell end squashed flat in the suitcase on the way back from Dublin, but it was easy enough to put it round again, the aluminum is very workable. My tube was also cut a bit short, but a blue tack putty choke just inside the bell fixed the intonation.

If you like the look and feel of the ultralight LBW tube, and you also have a Feadóg handy, try doing a Frankenwhistle swap of the tubes and heads. The LBW tube calms the Feadóg head, and the LBW head is livelier and more focused on the Feadóg tube. Both are interesting combinations.

6

It just so happens that a Feadóg arrived in the mail today, so after playing it for a while, I tried this swap. Since I’m just getting used to the whistle, I’m not sure what to make of it. The untweaked Feadógs don’t seem to be a favorite on this board, in the inexpensive whistle category, but mind plays okay and has a fairly clear sound. I’ll experiment with the two head/tube combinations until I get a feel for what works best for me.