A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the possible second coming of the Water Weasel. I asked if somebody could send me a WW, because I wanted to check it out and verify if I could adjust my Low-Tech whistles to match it. Original post: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=44414&highlight=
I received lots of PMs, and two kind people offered to send me their precious WW. (Thanks a lot, Perry_PL and O’Brian!) One of the people who contacted me was Dennis, aka Feadoggie. In his post, he shocked us with a picture full of his wonderful whistles. To cut a long story short, we exchanged a few whistles; I got a soprano D and a low G. Let me briefly
review them.
The soprano D looks almost identical to the WW - as far as I can tell from pictures around the net. Very professional look. The only visible difference are the fipple, white (nylon?) instead of red, and the simpler shape of the bottom of the mouthpiece. The whistle is made of whitish PVC water pipe, I assume it’s the same Glenn used for his WWs. I love its colour, it looks and shines like fossil ivory!
The holes are perfectly aligned and shaped. The window is rather small, therefore this is a quiet whistle. The sound is beautiful: well focused, pure yet full of character. The bottom D is solid and won’t slip up. A characteristic many people will like is the way each octave holds its own. Notes in the bottom range are not prone to slip into the second octave too easily. What I find most exciting is how easy it is to hit the highest notes. The tune I often use to test octave balancing is ‘The Maid Behind the Bar’, which comes out beautifully on this whistle. Need I say that intonation is spot on?
The low G is the best I’ve played so far. It’s a bit louder than a Susato low G, including the bottom G; the sound is even and clear across the whole range. The bottom two holes are rather big and are close enough to let me play the whistle with normal grip (I have large hands, typical of geologists).
If all of his whistles are like the ones I got, the Water Weasel is just around the corner. Feadoggie has clearly the ability to fine-tune his “Faucet Ferrets” to match Water Weasels, if he wants to. Although I never played a Water Weasel, I don’t think there can be much difference; same material, same design… all it takes is (possibly) minor adjustments to the window geometry.
I recommend that Feadoggie send one of his Faucet Ferrets to the Wandering Whistler for a real review. I really hope he’ll decide to start making and selling his whistles on a regular basis.