Generation must be using a new adhesive on their whistle heads. Got a nickel high-D bluefipple jobbie and trundled it home to give it a good tweaking as I’ve done successfully many’s the time before, but this time the head just wouldn’t budge when I applied gentle heat. So I got frazzled, appled more heat, and eventually it did come off, but messily, and by then the plastic of the throat of the head was so mangled and Dali-esque that it was forever useless. If this is the shape of things to come, how are we expected to be able to tweak our Gens, now? Terrible, terrible.
Anyway, my next question is: does anyone have a spare Generation D-friendly head lying fallow around the place? I sure could use one. Let me know how much you want for it. Thanks.
Had a very similiar experience last week. Also with a nickel Generation. In my case I wanted to take off the head and replace it with a Hoover. Anyway, it took several attempts with increasing force. I got it off without deforming it but it now has a very fine hairline crack about half way up the barrell part. A little superglue on the crack and it should be just fine. It’s yours for free if you want it.
Thanks, I’d appreciate it. A crack is no problem. I can deal with that. Let me know how you want to get it to me. Perhaps a trip to MPLS for the 6pm Sunday session at Keegan’s? If not, something else, then. I’ll stand you at least a pint, though.
I’ve noticed the blue heads tend to crack more than the red ones, but at least I could get them off of the whistle tube without a frickin’ battle. This time was quite different, almost as if I could hear the head crying, “No! Nooooooo!!!”. When it released, it just sort of dragged away from the tube into a deformed floppy shape, and the interior of the throat was all rough and topographical, which I assume is from the hold of the adhesive. My vocabulary of invective is not enough to convey my irritation.
I don’t think it’s a look at things to come, probably just a random tough one. I had the same trouble pulling the head off of an Eb Gen over the weekend. I’ve had the Eb for about three years and encountered the same problem with the glue not letting go. Perhaps it’s a combination of a tight fit and the strong glue. I eventually removed it by freezing it and then submerging it in warm water. Even then it still took a good tug.
I have always been able to get the fipple off. But when putting it back on found it to be a very tight fit. I think the nickel plate adds a very small amount of thickness to the standard brass tube. I remove all the nickel where the fipple goes and then it slides on with out cracking. It also helps to remove some brass from the brass tube before putting the fipple on.
The Eb and the C seem to be the tightest fipples to remove.
I’ll second that, I totally wrecked an Eb earlier this week. Unfortunatly I think the Eb Gen’s are some of the nicest they make. Next to the Bb probably the best. The heads of which I cant budge.
Weird, isn’t it. You’d think that from “off” to “back on” should post little if any difference, but I agree. What I do is take an itty-bitty file with a gently curved profile and worry away at the interior of the throat until the fit isn’t too tight, but has friction enough so that it stays in place without me having to wonder about it. Beats fidgeting.
If you have a brass Generation tube that’s too tight, take some acetone or nail polish remover (same thing) on a tissue and wipe off the lacquer coating from the end of the tube where the mouthpiece socket goes. It wipes right off. That will noticeably reduce the diameter of the tube and make the mouthpiece not so tight. (This works on most Generation-type whistles, but not Waltons. Waltons uses a lacquer that isn’t acetone soluble. But you can scrape the lacquer off a Waltons tube with a sharp knife and/or fine sandpaper if need be and produce the same result.)
If you have a tube that’s too loose, take an exacto or other sharp knife that will fit inside the mouthpiece socket, and score a spiral inside the socket wall. That will raise a ridge inside the socket and tighten it up.
Also, I always take some sandpaper or a sharpening stone and remove the sharp edge from the mouthpiece end of the tube. If that sharp edge is left there, it tends to scrape the inside of the mouthpiece socket and make shreds of plastic. However, if the mouthpiece is too tight to begin with, I use the sharp edge on the end of the tube to scrape the inside of the mouthpiece socket a little looser before I remove the sharp metal edge.
This is mandatory on Clares. I really wish they’d deburr them at the factory, 'cause those shreds are a pain when setting up a whole box for kids. On the plus side, Clare heads slide right off. My bunch seem to have the size just right, and no (or very little) lacquer.
Can’t get the C head off at all. D’s pop right off, Eb’s take a good deal of muscle, Bb’s don’t move, I’ve never had a F, and I don’t ever play my G so no use in tweaking.
