Thanks everybody who gave me ideas on how to remove a pure lead fipple from an old pure brass f whistle. A friend of mine arc welded it. Sounds scary but took about a second for the solder to drip out. The mouthpiece wasn’t damaged in any way. I think it would have been if I had tried to dig it out. I bought Fymo like modelling clay and as it bakes at a 130deg will try to make a fipple from this. The heat didn’t seem to damage the whistle at all.
Too late now to bring this up, but maybe for others..
Why bother to remove it and risk ruining the tone of the whistle if the new airway isn’t perfectly shaped?
While I personally think that the lead exposure risk from it merely touching a lip is inconsequentially small (unless you’re a fipple chewer), it can be ameliorated by simply giving the lead a nice coat of lacquer. I used three coats of my wife’s nail polish on an old generation high G and am delighted with both the results and the whistle
This one actually leaked. It had been got at before I bought it. It also tasted foul. I have acquired another victorian brass whistle and after talking to Tony Dixon I am going to coat it with nail polish as you suggest as well.