Oak C

Whistle
1

I have an Oak D which I love.
I finally was able to find an Oak C
but I don’t like it so well. It takes
a fair amount of air and it doesn’t
sound very good, to my ear anyway.
Have I got a dud or what? Dale
praised the Oak C highly at one
point. Other reviews?

[ This Message was edited by: jim stone on 2002-03-08 15:54 ]

2

Jim

You may have a leaky head/body connection. Use some “cork grease”(not wax!)to seal it. Check to see if the the leading edge of the ramp has a thin “burr” on it. Scrape this cautiously with a razor knife.

Use the same razor knife to round the sharp corners on the upper and lower lips of the windway exit at the top of the window.These things will improve tone quality but the windway must be reduced in size to lessen wind usage.

Plastic(PVC based)whistle-heads have unequal cooling rates and differences in the amount of solvent/catalyst so windways can vary in size. Metal and wooden whistles must be “voiced” by hand(hats off to Mr Copeland and others)and are more acurate and higher in quality.

3

Does it have an Oak mouthpiece or a Feadog mouthpiece? I have an Oak C that I am not terribly fond of, but it appears to be fitted with a Feadog fipple instead of Oak, in the same manner as the infamous “bad” Acorns.

Sarah

4

Pretty sure its an Oak mouthpiece.
Thanks, Thomas. I’ll see what I can do.

5

I think they play like two different whistles. I love the high D, if you can find a good one, and it only takes a few tries. But the C just doesn’t have what it takes, sounding tired and listless, like I feel right now, because we went out to lunch at an all you can eat. Boy, talk about changing the subject! -JP

6

I used to play an Oak D all the time, but the two Oak C’s I have just aren’t as good.

Maybe there’s hope: just yesterday I was looking at whistles at a local music store and noticed that some of the Oak C’s for sale had new mouthpieces. They are much flatter, without that steep rise that the old ones had. Unfortunately, an employee was very rude about answering a question, and I left without buying to protest, so I don’t know if the new style is actually any better.

7

Thanks to all. I won’t worry about
destroying the whistle trying to
tweak it, plainly.

8

I think maybe it’s appropriate to pull up this illustration from the archives:

I bought an Oak C that had the Acorn fipple.
It was practically D.O.A., and my attempts at tweaking it quickly put it the rest of the way out of it’s misery… and mine! :laughing:

“[Rain Dogs] …the ones you see wanderin’ around after a rain. Ones that can’t find their way back home. See the rain washes off the scent off all the mail boxes and the lamposts, fire hydrants…”
Tom Waits

[ This Message was edited by: raindog1970 on 2002-03-09 18:59 ]

9

The C I saw had a different mouthpiece from either of the two in the illustrations. It was flat-ish like the Oak, but wasn’t quite the same shape at the window.

10

Hello everybody,

I think that Thom, from the Whistleshop, should clue us in as to whether or not he has any Oak C’s with the new fipple heads. I would really like to buy one, especially since I like the Oak D’s so much. I remember when Dale told us of the new Oak D heads, I bought several and found one of my favorite whistles.

As for the uncool fipple head, I have an old Feadog D with that style head, and it is a very sweat-sounding whistle. But alas, so has my Oak C, which is quietly resting on someone else’s piano, and that person doesn’t play it, either.

John Palmer