I just lost my Thin Weasel and need a new D whistle. I’m looking for some recommendations of reasonably-priced whistles that play well and have good volume, since I play in sessions and in a contra dance band with a bunch of musicians. The Susato I have makes me drool from my chin!
Losing your Thin Weasel. Big Ouch… If you want a whistle of much the same sound and fine quality, I suggest a whistle by Paul Busman, Glenn’s pupil of yesteryear. He often has some finished and ready to go…
Best to you. I hope the Thin Weasel shows up.
Byll
Thanks so much, Byll. I will look him up.
What is a reasonable price?
I’m also a particular fan of Busman whistles,but there are others.
Reyburns, Abell, Milligans, Burkes, Brackers, etc., may all suit you.
None are inexpensive though, if you are in the Susato price range.
Freeman makes a Mellodog whistle that is a great whistle for its price.
Or with practice, you may get used to the Susato beak, I like those whistles too.
A Humphrey whistle would be a good one to consider. I recently acquired a Humphrey D Session whistle, and it is my absolute favorite of all the whistles I own. It plays very well, and has good volume, IMO.
Paul leaned how to make whistles from Glenn, and I can vouch for the care and precision he puts into them. I’m selling a lovely blackwood D that would be likely be similar to the one you lost. Wooden whistles just aren’t my style anymore. Contact me by pm and we’ll talk.
The one I lost wasn’t wooden. In general, do wooden whistles sound more recorder-like? I have only owned metal and plastic. Thanks for everyone’s replies.
Far as I know, all the Thin Weasels were wood. Did you perhaps mean one of Glenn’s pvc Water Weasels? If so, they come up for sale from time to time. And Feadoggie—who posts here regularly—might have some ideas on plastic whistles that would suit…
Best wishes.
Steve
Do plastic recorders sound more whistle-like? My Rottenburgh Yamahas and Moeck Dream Flute sure don’t. The correlation between material and tone is tenuous and highly subjective at best.
Hi Miriam… welcome. If you lost anything Schultz whistle and you’re looking for a recommendation… well, that opens a wide whistle possibility. There are several excellent whistlemakers at that budget level. My suggestion is to try and locate a whistlemaker in your area in order to try out some whistles, or possibly try out a friends’ whistle. Playing and hearing a whistle seems better than just looking at websites, and most whistlemakers (I would hope) would offer some type of return/exchange on a whistle.
I like’em all, cheap/expensive, metal/plastic/wood, and maybe I’m a little biased towards the wooden whistles. Take your time searching for a new whistle, and another thing to consider with a new purchase is if you don’t like it, doesn’t fit, you can trade off or resell the whistle. Seems like several whistles change hands here on the forum. Good luck and keep playing. 
Good advice, thank you. I live in a pretty remote, whistle-free area, so that’s why I am asking for some help. But since I still have the Susato and a somewhat broken O’Brien, I guess I can take my time looking around. I do have a friend with a Sindt and although I like the way it plays, it feels too heavy on the mouth to me.
If you had a Water Weasel you might consider a Parks whistle.
Louder than a Sindt, lighter since it’s made of PVC, and at a pretty good price. http://www.parkswhistles.com/
Another darn good whistle, IMO.
I’m just a newbie compared to most of you but, I own and play several of the whistles listed so forgive me for offering my inexperienced 2cents:
Parks (I have the high D 3 piece black rover model): easy to care for, practically indestructible, probably the closest to the water weasel (don’t own one, but my teacher does) although it might have a larger bore than it as it feels “thicker”. Tone is fairly pure. I carry it everywhere. The volume control thing makes it the perfect practice whistle as I can practice ANYWHERE!
Paul Busman : great wooden whistle (I think he makes them in Delrin now too thou). Mr. Busman also offers amazing service, I wrote to him a few months back to ask if he would do some repairs on my whistle (I bought it from an online irish whistle store as used) and he told me he would do so for the cost of shipping no matter what repairs where needed even thou I was not the original purchaser of the whistle. Beautiful tone, definitely not recorder like, and beautiful to hold as well as look at. I really should send mine over for a looksee by mr. Busman.
Freeman Mellowdog and Blackbirds : awesome price, and awesome whistles. Of all the whistles I own, these two get played the most. Blackbird when I feel like a pure chirpy sound, and Mellow dog for when I need a bit of chiff. Blackbird requires little breath, easy to go to 2 1/2 octaves, not too loud so you can play it indoors, but gets drown out a bit outside. Hard to hit that bell D note sometimes. Slight squeaking can occur until you master the nuances of its low breath requirements. Mellowdog higher volume, nice transition between octaves with little to no squeaking, nicely responsive, easier bell note and pretty mellow .
Tony Dixon : Mentioned as it is also widely available and is also made of plastic, I only have an A. I enjoy it, great spread on the holes so that even the A is easy to play for someone with smallish hands. It does have a bit of a synthetic sound to it at times thou.
Clark Meg: Cheap, narrow bore and very easy to play. Plastic head, metal body. Good volume. Incredibly chirpy and happy tone. Can find them practically anywhere. Can squeak between octaves. Great whistle for the price, like 6.99 Canadian.
I would have a hard time picking only one whistle in the end as I do play all of mine depending on the mood. But the Parks (for the volume control) and the Mellowdog I can not see myself living without at all!
Going to throw another name into the hat; Roy mc’manus whistles. I got one in Spanish olive recently and it’s jumped straight into the slot of my ‘main whistle’. Truly beautiful whistle, great tone and responsiveness, good volume and can be pushed far enough without breaking. I’m never struggling to be heard or hear myself without being too loud and overpowering as I’d sometimes feel with a susato. They’re not too pricey as far as wooden whistles go either. They got some great reviews, take a look at the video reviews on YouTube.
The obvious options have been offered. But I am afraid that none of these is quite like a Thin Weasel or a Water Weasel. They may all be very good whistles but sadly they are not Weasels. Glenn made some spectacular instruments, IMO.
I do know the whereabouts of a genuine Water Weasel at the moment. If you’d be interested in talking about something like that, Miriam123, you can send me a PM.
Feadoggie
Thanks again to everyone for all these suggestions. It’s kind of overwhelming. I will let you know what I end up with. Meanwhile, I have learned the hard way to, in the future, make sure my name’s on my whistle case.
Whistles need a built in micro chip / GPS / lojack device.
Although admittedly, I just lost my Michelin GPS not seriously lost but somewhere in the house where I cannot find it.
I talked to a company exhibiting at the NAMM show a couple of years ago that does exactly that. They’ll microchip your instrument and then provide the infrastructure to track it. Don’t know where/how you’d chip a whistle, though. And the LoJack thing of disabling a stolen instrument may be a bit tricky. 
SNAGG?
I have looked at the devices they use on dogs and cats with our friendly neighborhood animal resue folks. The transmitters are still a little large for a high D whistle but they could be worked into the whistle’s design I believe. For low whistles it would be no problem. They could be embedded into the plug. I have thought through a couple of ways to approach that.
I am thinking of a guillotine type of system that would be activated when it detects saliva from someone other than the registered owner. Of course that would give a while new meaning to the “blade” on the whistle. What d’ya think? Is that too much. 
Oh, I was just going to close off the windway not chop off their tongue or lips. Though there would be a certain type of justice to that. 
Honestly I think the biggest issue is getting pub owners to buy and discreetly use the scanners on the sessioniers that wander in off the streets.
Feadoggie
Could be, I don’t remember. I do recall that the folks manning the booth were from Temecula, California.
Reminds me of a message I had recently from my cousin the locksmith, describing medieval locks designed to facilitate identification of unauthorized access by lopping off appendages.