I made a whistle this weekend using the Fulton-Bennet method (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/6611/makewhis.htm). It actually came out very nicely for a first attempt. It’s a bit breathy, and the second octave takes a bit more focus than I would like, but it is quite playable. And it looks pretty good if you don’t get too close.
Anyway, I learned a few things that I thought I would share with any other budding whistlesmiths out there using these instructions.
- Make sure you use type ‘M’ copper pipe. I used type ‘L’ which has much thicker walls. It took me a bit longer to work it, but now I have a very solid whistle that can beat up other whistles.
- There is one inconsistency I found in the instructions. The one figure shows the center of the fipple hole as 2.45 cm from the bottom of the connector:
Actually it should be 2.05 cm. Otherwise your whistle will never look like this:
- My files had about a 1/2" smooth section at their tips. This made them nearly useless for whistlesmithing. I cut the smooth part off with a dremel tool with a cut-off wheel, then they worked fine. I also used the dremel tool to rough out the fipple hole and various other tasks. Dremels are really handy if you like doing these kinds of projects.
- I was too cheap to buy an electronic chromatic tuner, so I used this freeware instead:
http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tuner/tuner_e.html
I found the link in an old C&F post. It worked just fine. Take the money you would have spent on the tuner and buy a Dremel tool. - I took a 12" length of 2x4 and cut a 1/3" deep v-shaped groove the length of it. This made a handy support for the whistle tube for drilling, hammering, etc.
- I also made a stand for spray-lacquering the whistle. This consisted of two 3" pieces of 1/4" dowel stuck into a block of wood. It allowed me to spray finish all sides of the whistle at once.
Hopefully, someone out there will find some of this helpful. I really got a kick out of making my own whistle, and look foward to knocking out a few more.
Eric