Hey whistle makers, I’m bumping around with a little project and I’m curious about your opinion on a couple things. First, where do you get tubing with very precise diameters and thicknesses? Do you have to order it special or modify it with a mandrill and lathe or something? The problem I’m running into is that while the diameter and thickness of the tubing I have is PERFECT for an Eb whistle, the change in bore-to-length ratio for a D does not track with the available stock tubing sizes at the hardware store, so I assume I either have to make it or get it special.
Second, assuming windway and airblade dimensions, hole diameter and length scale with increasing size, is the bore-to-length ratio roughly linear going down the scale from E to D to C to Bb? So if I take the dimensions from an Eb and scale them according to what’s required for a D or Bb, could I expect to get a similar tone?
Really, the only way to get that sort of accuracy over a range of tube sizes is to buy solid stock and drill and ream it and turn it down to your dimensions. I’d question whether it is really necessary to go to those lengths though, good results can be had from using less than optimal tubing. I suppose it depends on what your project is.
Thanks for your response! I’m a very precise person. I have never found a cylindrical D whistle I really like, and I think it’s the bore-to-length ratio. Either too open or too narrow. I wonder whether it would be a fool’s errand to anneal a piece of tubing slightly smaller than I want and pound a mandrill down it to expand it a little. Anchoring the tube without deforming it may prove challenging however. My goal here is to scratch an itch that has hounded me for as long as I’ve played; I made an Eb that is the best whistle I’ve ever played. Most people who have played it feel similarly. I really want to make a D whistle I like.
They don’t. The window length you can scale proportional to frequency. However, the bore length, hole diameters and hole positions aren’t exactly proportional to frequency.
No, it’s a power law. Diameter is proportional to frequency to the power of (-5/6). See /viewtopic.php?f=1&t=84789. We came up with an optimum of 12.9 mm for a high D whistle and 23.0 for a low D.
Agreed. 1/2" and 1" I.D. tubing is mighty close to those optima.
I suggest the geometry and fine details of the head will have more effect on the tone than a few percentage points in the bore diameter.
I’m curious what kind of sound you’re going for. Is there another whistle that comes close to what you want? What’s the improvement in the sound that you achieved with your Eb (as much as you can describe such a thing with words)?
I too suspect that the bore ratio isn’t the key parameter that you need to adjust to get the sound that you want. Not that it doesn’t have any effect, but my ear isn’t discerning enough to care much about a 1/32" change in diameter one way or the other. I’ve found that the geometry of the wind way, window, and ramp are where most of the significant adjustments are made, but since you tried the same head, it probably isn’t any of these. Obviously hole size/placement and wall thickness are important too. I have seen some noticeable differences in the quality of two whistles’ sounds that I attribute mostly to small differences in their tone hole configurations. I’ve never tried making fine adjustments to the wall thickness, so I’m not sure how strongly that will affect the sound. My guess is that it’s similar to the bore ratio - big changes matter, small changes are barely noticeable.
I’ll admit that I’m relatively inexperienced at both playing and making whistles, so I hope none of my comments are too presumptuous.
Wow. That is an AWESOME resource. Thanks so much for sharing.
I’m experienced playing them and inexperienced making them, and I appreciate your input! I’ll dremel around with the toneholes on the D tube this weekend and see what I can do. The second hole from the bottom on my Eb is quite large, as it caught on the drill press. I’ll start there for tone, but some of the overarching (headjoint derived?) qualities seem duller.
The sound I’m going for and have managed to almost capture in the Eb is many of the qualities I liked in the pre-1977 Generation D. These are as follows:
A “cold” or “cool” sound to the low D, E, F#. (Possibly wall thickness. Not really present in my Eb)
A distinctive “chirp” or “scratch” in the attack, but not the sustain of many notes. (this is the one I’d like more of in my Eb)
A sweet, slightly breathy, very slightly scratchy second octave. (This one is almost perfect)
I think that many of these qualities arise from raising the airblade slightly into the stream of air (I’ve undercut mine), maintaining a fairly sharp airblade, and creating a slight, perhaps 5-8mm depression under the windway in the fipple block. I have not determined how the shape of the depression influences the tone (i.e. simple inset cylinder, “bowl shaped” etc).
A friend very astutely pointed out that I am “inverse Jerry Freeman,” in that I pretty much take what Jerry does to cheap whistles and do the opposite on expensive ones, haha.
That description is essentially meaningless. They changed the head in 1981 so that would be a valid descriptor but the tubes and hole placement has been unchanged for over a century, even since pre-Generation times.
Ok, pre-1981. I’m not a whistle historian. The fellow I borrowed them from said he got them in 1977, and they’re “the good ones” before the new design. This is the equivalent to correcting someone’s spelling/grammar and adds little to the conversation, i.e.
I asked a similar question some time ago about sources for tubing. McMaster-Carr is a very good source of tubing, as well as delrin rods that can be used for the block.
I just brought up one of their pages that was in my browser history, so it might be an irrelevant page, but you can type in the search to find what you’d like. Lots of various stuff on there that is quite nice to use.
Nice! This will be great, getting the rod stock in the same place. Thanks man.
You approached this topic with condescension and hostility. Quite frankly I’m not sure what you expected in return. This is a thread about sharing knowledge and discussing whistle-making, and rather than contribute to the discussion you made a big show of “oh look I know something and you don’t, but I won’t tell you.”
As for your point, I can only speculate that you misinterpreted my use of the old Gens. That’s the sound I’m inspired by, and I’m certainly using my friend’s set as a comparative and diagnostic aid, but I’m not trying to directly copy their dimensions, and certainly not for the hole placement, as my D tube didn’t turn out, while my Eb tube was a combination of flutomat and trial-and-error.
Name-calling, that’s nice. Is this how you’d act if we met in a pub?
Neat! Thanks, this might help with some of the more oddball sizes I might try. Good to keep in the arsenal.
Open question for others out there; I’d like to experiment with some coloring agents. Nothing garish but it’s hard to get away from the Sindt/Killarney/every-wooden-whistle-ever headjoint design, (simply because it’s the easiest way to create a whistlehead with the fewest cuts and least amount of different tubing sizes) so i want to differentiate them visually. I’m experimenting with some inset rings and contours as well, but it’d be fun to give the heads a little paint job.
Another thing I noticed is that the acid from my fingers has actually etched the metal of the tube a bit, producing a sparkly effect from the crystals in the metal. Would a brief hydrochloric acid etch accomplish this for the whole whistle? Could be a cool effect.
