Its now a very hot summer here - days and days of 90F in a row in the shade and such.
Playing my Sweet D Whistle (maple) I notice the tenons a bit looser than usual. Is it cos the thread is drying out? The wood in the tenon joint or what? Any advice, any pre-existing topics that discuss this? Any links?
I have seen this sort of info about the place but I just can’t remember where. Can you help?
Thanks>
In this part of the world, wood shrinks in winter, because the relative humidity indoors goes way down due to central heating and the relative moisture content of the wood goes down accordingly. In the summer, wood swells because of higher relative humidity, and doors stick.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Can’t remember where it is discussed (might even be on my website!). Wood isn’t much affected by temperature, but is affected by change in humidity. So if your weather has also been very dry (as has ours in Canberra just recently) you might expect to notice some loosening of tenons. I image maple will be more affected than dense woods like blackwood, although possibly not if it has been PEG impregnated as maple recorders often are. (You can tell because the wood feels waxy.)
Nothing to worry about (just add more thread if it’s too loose), but keep an eye on the rings. If they come loose, they are no longer doing the job of constraining the thin socket wood from being split. If anyone is plagued by loose rings, just ask and I’ll post “the old handkerchief trick”.
Coincidentally, I’ve just purchased a new and rather expensive humidity meter with wider range and higher accuracy for some experiments coming up. It even came with a calibration certificate. I was thus greatly concerned when the humidity on the day I received the meter was lower than I can ever remember seeing in Canberra - about 16%. I left it outside until the weather report on the evening news and was relieved when it agreed with the “humidity at the moment” section of the report!
Incidentally, my previous humidity meter only measures down to 20% and the best it could manage on the same day was saying “Lo”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on the bench before, so it sure is dry.
Ah, today a cool change and even a few drops of rain. Perhaps you won’t need that extra thread after all!
Terry
If you add more thread when the wood shrinks, then should you remove it when the wood starts expanding again?
I had a banjo with a skin head that stretched during the humid Tokyo summer, so I tightened it up. When winter came, it didn’t occur to me to loosen it again, and it burst, prompting a call from my wife to say, “Your banjo exploded!”
Doesn’t Sweet use beeswax on the threads? Would it be possible to just add more beeswax?
on the sweets I’ve seen, there was no beeswax on the threads.
But that was a couple years ago..
My rosewood Pro had a joint that loosened up. Walt fixed it, then requested that I take the whistle apart before storing it. But this is just a corked joint, not the thread-wrapped.
In an ideal world (where I collect all my wooden whistles from all corners of the house and store them in one place) I would be storing them in a Tupperware container with controlled humidity. As it is, they ARE in all corners of the house, and I just try to remember to oil them on a regular basis.
Thank you very much for this very helpful and comprehensive response.
So, it is not the temperature but the humidity or lack of it that is salient.
Nice clarification.
Anyway, Canberra must be wet with excitement these past few days, hmm? 
I thought that sweet used synthetic “yarn” to wrap his joints. I seem to remember reading (on his website?) that natural fibers should be avoided because of the chance that it may be affected by moisture. I would think that Mr. Sweet would best person to ask.
everytime i see your name i think of the abreviation: ICD-10 (international classification of disease…)
Whoa dood. I used to use Zig-Zag. Whoa dood.
My Sweet flute’s in rough shape (dry -40 winters will do that), so just the other day I asked Ralph what to do about rewrapping. He wrote:
If you had ever done fly-tying, or macrame, it would be easier: First, run about 3 lines more or less equally spaced of household cement (Duco?) along where the yarn is going to go. Then start at the lower end, wrap the (acrylic yarn) over itself about two turns, leaving the end sticking out, than hold the end out of the way while you pull the yarn tight +and wrap until you get about 1/8" from the outer end, while maybe every 4 turns or so, pushing the yarn down the tube with a thumbnail, so the coils touch each other.
Then the hard part: wrap loosely around your “winding” hand a loop of yarn enough to do the rest, and a little more. Bring the end (which hasn’t been cut off, yet) down straight, so two more coils will wrap over that part. Push the yarn down with fingernail so the coils are tight - squeeze in the last coil, then pull on the end which is now held down by the last two coils. Then you can cut off both ends.
This requires some fancy holding with one finger, lifting it up to get the yarn under while you hold with a different finger, etc. You’ve almost got to see it to believe it. Find someone who ties flies, or does Macrame. It uses the same tricks. Let me know how you made out!
For a quick fix, put a layer of dental floss over the existing yarn, or even teflon tape from the plumbing dept. of a hardware store.
So acrylic yarn it is. I’ve had good luck with waxed dental floss (the real kind, not the flat tape kind) in the past but teflon tape just doesn’t work well for me at all. It works well on corked joints though.
-Rich