I built this whistle last night:
It’s a low F. Constructed from PVC with a wooden fipple plug.
The problem I’m having is that you can really hear the air moving through the whistle. I guess the term is “breathy”. I’m still not completely up on whistle teminology 
Can someone give me some advice on how make the tone less “breathy”? Thanks in advance!
Mike
when I’ve had a whistle that sounds too breathy I’ve normally got round it by pushing the fipple plug in abit. I think this is caused by too much air missing the blade.
that’s my tupence worth, however on a high d I made I never did get it sorted 
so just had to make another!
Richard
Thanks! I messed with the plug quite a bit but it seems that if I push it in any closer than it is now that it get’s really jumpy or only wants to play in the upper octave…
Hi, Michael.
I’ve nothing to offer to help fix the breathiness, but I just wanted to comment that that’s some mighty pretty whistle playing for someone who’s only been at it a few weeks!
Best wishes,
Jerry
Mike, have you tried bending the lip down a tad more?
Richard.
Thanks Jerry!
Richard, The lip isn’t bent now. I just drilled at an angle and then filed the windway into the top of the pvc pipe. I then sanded a small flat spot on the fipple plug to get tone.
Is there a good method for bending pvc? Sorry, I’m new at all this… 
Well, based on RBM’s suggestion, I do have something to offer.
If you don’t have enough material left (or not flexible enough) on the fipple blade, you can fashion a new blade from a cut piece of soft drink bottle or a thin guitar pick. You will need to remove enough material from the top and cutting edge of the fipple blade so that you have enough room to position the new blade layer where you want.
This might also be something you can use to reduce the size of the window of your copper low D. You can attach the lamination temporarily with double stick tape or sticky tack while you experiment with getting it positioned where you have the best result. Then, when you’ve got the sound you want, carefully lift up the back end a little and put a drop of super glue under it to fasten it permanently. I’ve found that using #400 or #600 sandpaper to sharpen the cutting edge of the new blade gives me more control over the result than if I just attach a squarely cut off edge.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Thanks! I’ll give that a try!
let us know how you get on, I have a copper high d I made a couple of years back using plumbing pipe and solder joint, when filing doen the blade part of the solder chipped out removing about a 1/3 of the blade. anyhow this plays better that any of my others or any of my bought high d’s !! 
It’s not too breathy and is bang on the notes for both octaves, and by modifying the finger holes plays a spot on c nat by cross fingering.
R.
wish i could spelll…
[ This Message was edited by: rbm on 2003-01-21 10:04 ]
Groovehead, I just fitted a whistle with a new guitar-pick blade. I had been scared of that particular tweak for a long time, but it was not that hard at all. Good luck
More info & a picture here:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?topic=7282&forum=1&22
I’ll let you guys know how it pans out after I work on it tonight. I made my wife a Low G flute and she loves it (she plays classical flute already) and now my mom wants to learn to play so I’m making her a whistle tonight too. Making the flute was easy, but getting a good tone out of the whistles is a real challenge…
Thanks for the great advice guys! I’ll keep ya posted
Hey guys,
I didn’t get much chance to work on the Low F last night. My mom wanted me to build her a whistle so I put together a Soprano D for her out of 1/2" PVC. That was a challenge because that was the first time working with the smaller pipe. I found that due to the thinner walls that you can’t dig an airway out of the inside of the pipe sufficient enough for it to play.
After some experimentation and several bouts of cursing , I found that if you sand a small flat spot on the fipple plug in such a way that it “ramps” the air up to the blade that it works just fine.
I did take some time to file the blade square on the Low F whistle. Before it was round (just drilled at an angle), but after filing the blade down so that it’s square it get a much better tone. It makes sense when you look at it. A wider blade will split more air, therefore more sound will come off it… I guess that’s the way it works.
Anyhoo, thanks for all the great advice guys… I’ll be a whistle builder yet!