I recently bought a new aluminium low D, and sitting at home last night, decided to give it a clean (it was too late to play it in my apartment!). I was a bit shocked when the rag went through the tube - as well as the usual black stuff, there were lots of small metal filings stuck to the rag.
I would have thought that these would be removed in the finishing process, but obviously not. Given the possibility of pulling air back up the tube with a sharp intake of breath, I’d advise other owners to clean their whistles internally before playing them.
Maybe cleaning it internally when it arrived should have been obvious, but since this was a brand new whistle, shipped from the maker, it just didn’t occur to me.
No but seriously, thanks, I just ordered one myself and will be in next week sometime. So I will be sure to give it a good check over and clean before I risk my life with it.
I would hope that finishing procedures were more thorough than that! Yikes! Let’s hope it was ‘the one that got away’ and not ‘the norm’, but I’m gonna swab em out first anyway from now on… well… I wash them all anyway.
I found the same thing a couple of years ago.
I bought a Chieftain low D from kerry whistles.
Absolutely brilliant whistle but loads of metal filings were in it, as if it had been taken straight off the lathe - and put into a plastic posting tube.
I was just very surprised that a really good quality product like that would be allowed to be sent to a customer with so little regard for, as you suggest, safety issues, or for pride in their finished product.
I never made any complaint or remarks about it, as I just figured it was a mistake and had been overlooked, and as I said, the whistle is brilliant.
Hi
I got a new Cheiftain V3 a few months ago, fantastic whistle by the way,I played it a few times and thought I’d give it a clean. I was quite shocked at how much black oil and aluminium filings were still lurking in there
Like workbase I didn’t say anything, but obviously mine was not the only one.
I bought a $2.50 bamboo whistle once from an international shop and it had bugs inside. I didn’t notice until I started playing it later, when I found dead bugs sticking to my fingertips, and more in my lap. They started the trip from India but didn’t finish it.
I took a moment to pity them, then rinsed the whistle out with water and continued to enjoy playing. It’s kinda out of tune, but it sounds nice in my car.
Well, I wasn’t going to name names in my original post, but this was actually a Chieftain V3 Low D, the same as for the other two posters whose whistles had metal filings in them when they were cleaned.
Static electricity? I don’t buy into that theory. If static electricity was the culprit, the filings would be as likely to be external as internal. Even if static was an issue, a maker could easily ground himself while holding the instrument, before cleaning the whistle out. Seems more like a case of off the lathe and into the packing tube, in my opinion.
A simple swab of the inner tube with a rag would remove debris before shipping. I’m surprised that a maker with a good reputation would ship whistles in this condition. The whistle itself is fine, musically, by the way.
And my consumption of Lucky Strikes probably poses more of a health risk to me than the metal filings in a whistle, anyway. So no big deal, at the end of the day. Just a heads-up for fellow whistlers.
In fact, the makers with the best reputations won’t ship a whistle in that condition, they go to lengths to clean their whistles thoroughly prior to shipping.
One shouldn’t confuse “Popular” with “Good Reputation”…
