I’ve tried the Blu Tack tweak on several whistles and the results have been very positive. The only issue I’ve had is getting a consistently smooth surface on the Blu Tack plug once it’s installed. It seems like a smooth, even surface would perform better than one with imperfections, cracks, or uneven areas.
Does anyone have a good method for smoothing the surface of a Blu Tack plug? Or is there another material that works better for this type of modification?
My Generation C whistle was also improved a lot by putting blu-tack on top of the ramp to give it a steeper angle, but my Bb whistle didn’t need any such adjustment. The smaller ones could certainly do with modification, but they’re more fiddly, so I’ve never got round to it. The blu-tack blob is ugly and could easily be damaged, so I too want to find a better solution, but I’ve managed to maintain it for over a year without issues. The surface was smoothed with the knife blade of a tiny penknife which I used to push the blu-tack into position, and I doubt a perfectly smooth replacement surface would make a recognisable difference to the sound quality. I could easily replace it if I ever have to, but it always annoys me that it’s so ugly and that the damp will likely turn it nasty.
Now, if it ever gets to the point where it’s solid enough to maintain its shape such that it can be detached without deforming, I could then make a silicone mould from it, then fill the mould with transparent resin, and then glue that replacement part onto the ramp in place of the blu-tack. That would create an invisible tweak which would be permanent, and before fitting it I’d be able to polish the top surface to be as smooth as glass. But I haven’t done that yet as the blu-tack’s still too new and will deform if I try to remove it.
Ideally there would be a third material to enable me to make a mould direct from the whistle ramp, then make an inverse mould of that, and then use the inverse mould to make the resin part to glue to the ramp, but you can’t make an inverse silicone mould of a silicone mould as the two would merge together into a solid lump of silicone, and if you try to put a barrier layer between the two, the part won’t fit. I need another kind of mould-making material that doesn’t stick to silicone or to resin, and I don’t know if such a thing exists.