OMG!!! A NON-OT Thread!!! Review: Busman Polymer #1

Whistle
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First, please allow me to apologize for breaking in here with a post that’s actually about a whistle. But it’s interesting, sometimes, to talk about whistles on the PostStructural Whistle Board… I guess? :laughing:

Today, I received an amazing package - a Busman whistle with NO WOOD and NO METAL and NO GLUE! Yes, it’s the one Paul, himself, wrote about in recent threads. So, being a whistlesmith myself, and considering Paul both a colleague, and (now, with the rise of Polymer) a competitor (just kidding!) :slight_smile: I thought it would be appropriate for me to REVIEW this amazing bit of whistle HISTORY!

The Busman Polymer is machined from pure white, slightly translucent, Delrin plastic. I say “machined”, not merely “manufactured”, because this thing is a work of the machinist’s art nonpariel. Fit and finish are utterly impeccable. The tuning slide, machined right into the barrel/fipple pair, fits with precisely enough natural friction that no other treatment is needed to keep it in place, yet it operates with a wonderful, silken smoothness. The fipple is assembled from tube, plug, and surround, with NO adhesive - friction-fit only, and that fit is PERFECT. No detail has been left to chance. The fingerholes are smooth, the mouthpiece is typical Busman, very comfortable. There is not a single “toy-like” aspect to be found in this whistle. It is a Professional Musical Instrument.

The Busman Polymer plays like a dream. Very low air usage for its volume, with good backpressure. Action is crisp and popping, slides are smooth, every decoration sounds better on this whistle than on any other I own, including the polymer whistles I make. I say that unreservedly - this thing is a masterpiece.

The whistle is perfectly in tune, both with my Korg Chromatic Tuner, and with itself, well into 3rd octave, and there is no discernable veriation in sound intensity between octaves.

Chiff is low in the first octave, a bit more pronounced, mostly as ring, in second. The basic voice of the whistle is sweet and pure, with a smoothness I formerly only associated with wood.

The volume is appropriate for small- to medium session play, and it is going to knock the socks off of any other polymer, and most wooden, whistles out there. If Paul doesn’t continue to offer this gem, I’ll have to send Guido around, because, folks, I want another one, this time E-flat! The Busman Polymer (may I dub it “Paul’s Polly”??? :laughing: ) is about as near to the perfect whistle as most of us will ever come.

I will put up one or more sound files and will come back in with a note as to their whereabouts in a couple days.

Congratulations, Paul! You have created a masterpiece! :slight_smile:

Bill Whedon
Serpent Music

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So, Bill, what exactly DO you think about this whistle. No holding back now, we can take it. :laughing:

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Not to put too fine a point on it,

PAUL’S POLLY ROCKS!! :smiley:

… any questions?

BW

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Perhaps a slightly ignorant question: what’s the difference between delrin and pvc? Maybe Paul explained it in his posts, but I’ve been too busy with the main business of the Board to look it up.

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2 different kinds of plastic. Delrin is harder than PVC; some people love it, some hate. Michael Cronnoly is the poster boy for PVC flutes turned in the lathe (M&E flutes); Seery does delrin. The most famous PVC whistle is probably the Water Weasel, but i’m not sure right now if Slithering Bill is using PVC too. In whistles, delrin usually shows up in the fipple (e.g. Burke, but many others too). I have the impression that most makers prefer to use delrin for smaller pieces; Seery is the notable exception.

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Delrin is a high-density plastic in the nylon family. It is used in gears, bearings, bushings, and anywhere where some rigidity and excellently low coefficient of friction is needed. Tough and strong, almost nothing sticks to it (requires specially-formulated adhesives).

PVC is PolyVinyl Chloride, related to vinyl. It’s lower in density, can be glued with most cyanoacrylates, and is much more common than Delrin.

CPVC is the high-temperature version of PVC, and is mostly used in water systems. It will withstand temperatures to 160C, so is appropriate for hot water piping.

For whistles, especially for those whistles machined with no reinforcement, Delrin is a better choice.

Cheers,
Bill Whedon
Serpent Music

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“Slithering Bill” indeed! :smiley: And here I am trying to lose that stigma!

I use CPVC in the Polly line. It’s tougher, and takes to machining better’n plain PVC. I can also crush it in a die and expect it to retain the shape I give it. Plain ol’ PVC tends to slowly spring back a bit.. annoying.
Bill Whedon
Serpent Music

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Whistles are among the happiest instruments in the universe! Everyone should have one!

Another slightly ignorant question: why only one? :slight_smile:

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I’m not greedy. I figure with a few billion folks in the world today, if everyone ordered just one, all us whistlesmiths would have plenty of business well into the next millenium! :smiley:
Bill Whedon
Serpent Music

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Sounds enticing…!

:party:

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Paul is supposed to make ‘A’ polly busman for meh(someday). :smiling_imp:

For those who are interested in this.Recently I found a company(called NTN in Japan) which have recently invented new plastic which (as the company says) overcomes drawbacks of most plastics. This plastic is basically aimed for the food industry and I am very poor at technical issues but it seems that this plastic is good for making wind instruments.

Basical property of this new plastic.

(The specific gravity)ASTM D792 =2.02
(hardness)ASTM D2240 =64(durometer?)
ASTM D638 =20(MPa)
ASTM D638 =234%
(compression set 24hours)ASTM D621 = MD:4.9% CD:8.4%
(permanent set)ASTM D621 = MD:3.2% CD:5.4%
TMA method =MD:15.2% CD:7.0%
(water absorption 24hours)ASTM D570 =0.02%

It also withstands temperatures to 260C

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Good for those particularly hot sessions :laughing:

Paul, if you’d told me you had a Delrin Proto in the works I would have stopped by for sure on my way back to Boston! Actually, I almost had to call you as I was passing by - one of my tires blew about an hour past Albany and my spare (a cheesy donut type) was coming apart as well :angry:
I spent the better part of the day limping around the Berkshires (you were right, it is nice up there Jessie) trying to get a tire to fit my odd size wheels (dang VW’s). And then there was this… er, whoops, getting way OT, pardon me.

So Paul, you got a picture of this new beastie?

Loren

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From another Thread:
quote=“brewerpaul”]Not a commercial message, 'cause this one isn’t for sale.

Serpent bugged me about making a white Delrin whistle, and went so far as to send me the material. So, I started tinkering and came up with this:


[/quote]

the thread is: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=17757

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Alright Paul, enough messin’ around; get 'em up on your site; I want one!

PhilO

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Just to make things perfectly clear, M&E flutes are machined from solid polymer rod stock. They are conically bored flutes, and are not made from PVC plumbing stock, as Water Weasels are. Michael is also making whistles of this material, with a choice of color. Check 'em out:

That pink whistle might be just the thing for me, don’t you think, el? :wink:

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That pink whistle might be just the thing for me, don’t you think, el?

That happens to be the one I keep in my glovebox. But I’m wise to your tricks, and there’s no way I’m gonna let you drag this thread down into the OT mire.

BTW, thanks for getting my name right–lower case “e”. Nothing makes me more irate and prone to start up OT threads than people getting my name wrong.

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Tony Dixon also uses Delrin for his conical flutes - at least I’m about 90% sure, but for some reason I can’t get his webpage to come up right now to verify that. However, having owned both a Seery and a Dixon they seemed like they were both Delrin.

Eric

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It’s PVC, nonetheless, turned in the lathe as i said. I think he buys the stuff from Germany. Polymer is a polite word for “plastic”. PVC = poly vinyl chloride; poly… polymer. :slight_smile:

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Where’s Paul on this thread? I don’t normally care about appearances–in fact, I’ve bought some butt ugly instrments in the past–but that back-lit delrin is IMO way cool.

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the thread is: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=17757[/quote]


Is that a photo or an X-Ray? :laughing: