Question about tin whistles inner tuning slides

Whistle
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve been making my own tin whistles for some time now. I began with simple, non-tunable aluminum ones, then I added an external tuning slide. Now, I switched to POM-C for external parts, and I tried to make a POM-C inner tuning slide, but it turned out to be more difficult than I thought: I can’t manage to have the second octave in tune, and the higher the note is, worst it is. Precision: the bore is smaller inside the tuning slide, I haven’t reamed the aluminum tube for the tuning slide bore to fit the aluminum tube bore.

So my questions are:

  • Do tin whistles with an inner tuning slide have the external part reamed so that both bores are the same?
  • Is there a way to have second octave notes in tune with a tuning slide bore smaller than the aluminum tube one?

Thanks!

2

My wooden and Delrin whistles have a 1/2 inch bore. For the slides I use telescoping brass tubes with diameters of 17/32 inch and 9/16 inch. The inside diameter of the 17/32 tube is 1/2 inch, so my whistles have a consistent bore. I widen the inner diameters of the ends of the whistle sections to accept the glued in brass tubes