See the barely playable, Squistle I made:-)

Whistle
1

Ok, this is my 1st shot at this , so be kind : ) well I got the idea trying to think of how to make a simple wooden whistle without boring it out. Then I was shown some contra bass re**rders that have been doing it for some time. Anywho, well I didn’t expect much from this, but I got more then I expected. It’s made from Oak :slight_smile:

See it here: http://www27.brinkster.com/bumtown/whistles.html
(there is a sound clip at the bottom

See the plans here: http://www27.brinkster.com/bumtown/whistle.html

It’s performance is rather poor do to several reasons.

1st the lower notes take very little air, and the upper ones of the 2nd octave take a lot. I think this is because the wind way is too small, but I may be wrong. It’s a little under 1/16 of an inch, and ½ inch wide.

2nd is that it’s way out of tune, but no worries, as I didn’t really try to get it in tune :slight_smile:

3rd is that it is just way too chunky! I mean if I was going to name it, I think Strong-Mad ( http://www.homestarrunner.com/yearbooksm.html ) would be a good name, so the walls have to be thinner and lighter ( it is heavy) :slight_smile:

So yeah, I thought you would like to see my 1st attempt at it:- ) Really this was slapped together in a day, and I used many power tools, so I didn’t get the accuracy or the hands on …. ness that I wanted (the whole thing actually goes to the right, but you can’t see in the pic) So the next one will be far better as I will be using thinner wood, and really just upping the time put in to it :slight_smile:

Anywho, I would love to hear your suggestions, comments, ideas or rants :slight_smile:

2

Excellent tubemanship, El Capitan! I give you a C+ for effort.

3

So I suppose the conical vs. cylindrical bore question is moot?

:wink:

Bobby

4

Hey Lark, At least you made one! Bravo!! I’m sure the next one will be better. You might want to try beveling the blade on the top and bottom next time. I’m not sure what exact angle the bevels should be but a lot of whistles have this feature. From the picture, it isn’t clear as to whether you did it or not on that one.

5

I’m impressed.

6

Well the Conical Vs. Cylindrical debate is still important as there is this…
http://www27.brinkster.com/bumtown/whistle2.html

And the blade is only slanting on the top, the underside of the blade is flush with the bottom… of the top.. Is that understandable? Anywho, the plan was to just rough it out like that, and then to make adjustments as needed, however is seemed to do fine right away :slight_smile: I could actually get the bell note no problem until I cut the tone holes, then it became almost inaccessible due to the low air requirements.

7

Not that it matters or anything, but square whistles rub me the wrong way. Or something.

8

it’s the sharp corners :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Long Live The Squistle!! :party: :party: :party:

10

Hear, hear.

The squistle gave a squawk
Like a lazy-circling hawk,
When Lark wandered from the flock
And made that rectanglewhistle rock.

11

Oh. So you’ve made a pencil case.

( :wink: Prety cool!).

12

Oh. So you’ve made a pencil case.

( Prety cool!).

A Gen G might fit up in there…

13

So, just a thought, but would glueing an old guitar pick or a piece of your partner’s credit card to extend the blade down a fraction make it ‘whistle’ more?

14

I’m not sure, I’ll try it tomorrow, as it’s too late to be loud now :slight_smile: However I don’t think it will make much of a difference as the tip of the blade is level with the bottom of the wind way, but what do I know, I mean, it’s square! :slight_smile:

15

“monstrosity” is the standard spelling, but i often prefer non-standard spelling myself, so i’ll leave that up to you. Sometimes the substitute teacher in me just cannot help being a pain in the a#se.

It looks nice though- maybe you should look into Native American flutes, they LOOK similar to your idea, but have different fipple configuration. You can find all kind of sites using google. I’ve heard some beautiful beautiful tones come out of Native American flutes. The fingering is a bit different from tinwhistle from what I understand. Thought you might be interested as it seems you kind of went in that direction (accidentally or intentionally)…

16

Boxwood?

:wink: Jef

17

Interesting design, with its separate windway “hood” to check the oil level…

Mollenhauer makes a “Modern blockflute” where this part (top of windway) is also separate, but strapped. The… er, multi-holed duct instrument :blush: is supplied with three different wood-plates (from ebony to boxwood) to alter the “colour” of the sound.

Nope–cratewood.

18

errm… intresting design.

mind you if you look a overton’s or alba’s or a whole host of others they start off square at the top.

I’m going to use a square taper inside the wooden low d I’m making.

19

Good Job Lark!

Now you’ve got me interested in giving it a try. You can get spruce sticks of different widths and thickness at hobby shops and I am going to see if I can fit something together.

One comment; in one of the previous post, the whistle makers were discussing the relationship between the blade edge and the windway.

I believe I remember them saying that the blade edge should 2/3 of the way down the windway airstream for optimal results. I’m sure someone with a better memory can comment if I am remembering right.

Anyway, great job.
Bill

20

So you finally built it! The octave shift is more affected by blade angle and position in the windway than the amount of air required. Finding those is the tough part.

Tuning: If you get the bell note right, then use Peter Kosel’s Flutomat and it should still work. The resonant length of a column of air isn’t that dependent on the shape of the column. Set the embouchure at 7/16" and just use the calcs as they come off. Get the area of the bore and calculate the diameter of an equivalent circle, add in the wood thickness (thinner is better), and do the calcs. I’ll bet it’ll come right in!

Let us know about your improvements! :smiley:
serpent