Can anyone explain to me what makes the tweaked generation whistles so much better than one off the shelf? Is it just the possible imperfections of the plastic fipple? I would think the hole sizes and spacing should be accurate unless they have a major problem with quality control. I am just curious after seeing so many post about the generation tweaked whistles by Jerry Freeman. Seems to have a pretty good reputation which I think is just great. Thanks for any info.
Scottie
Off the shelf the head is not optimum. Most tweakers modify the head in various ways. They modify the blade to change the blade to windway alignment, the window length, fill the empty space under the windway etc. In other words you get a handcrafted whistle that starts with a commercial whistle.
Ron
yes Ron, nice post BUT you didn’t really answer the Q.
It’s all about the tweaker’s mojo! 
Feadoggie, you didn’t answer the question at all
and I didn’t find your post funny either.
Tal, neither of your posts have answered the question.
Two seperate issues here, the head and the body.
With the heads, tweaked Gens aren’t necessarily better than off-the-shelf ones, just more consistent (in my opinion). If you try dozens and dozens of Gens you’ll find that they are all over the map, mostly mediocre. But every now and then the Gen company makes a fantastic whistle (by accident it seems).
Gens usually are flat in the second octave which is corrected by the most common tweak, packing the headspace with something.
Often the chimney and blade are misaligned and this can be corrected either by altering the blade (per Freeman) or by cutting the head in two and gluing it back together. (I’ve had great success with the latter recently.)
With the bodies, for some reason Bb Gens tend to have the holes accurately placed/sized, but most D Gens need to have the F# hole enlarged. (In my experience…But they vary like the heads do.) On my wonderful 30-year-old C Gen I chopped the bottom and enlarged most of the holes, because the “G” (actually F) was much sharper than all the other notes.
So, my Gens have the heads chopped in two, glued back together, and packed, and the bodies usually have one or more holes enlarged. I’m extremely happy with some of them.
That’s just the thing: they do. (have horrible quality control, I mean.)
You might get a box of 100 Generations, all the same key and material. Some would only make breathy noises, some would be horribly out of tune, some would be “passable”, and then there’s that one out of 100 that’s the stuff that made Generation famous.
Plus, sometime in the 1980’s, Generation changed their plastic molding machines and/or processes, which changed the tone a bit. Pre-1980’s are generally considered to be superior to the 1980-or later made ones.
Jerry Freeman’s tweaks aim to improve each whistle (tuning, intonation, removing excess breathiness, etc.) to where you can get “that Generation sweetness” in each whistle, without having to worry about quality.
Of course, you could get some off-the-shelf Gens and tweak them yourself (and some have), but most people would rather just pay a little bit more and let the pros handle it, particularly those who don’t know how to tweak a whistle.
I’m sure Jerry wouldn’t mind if you sent him a PM asking for more information.
Yes, it’s nice to see an honest businessman who really cares about the quality of his products.
Whoops, cross-posted there.
Pal, of course they don’t and they don’t even try to. I am interested in the question myself. Your observation is redundant.
Yes but how (or why) is the question that is not being answered.
If they are mass produced, then, subject to the combination of batches of components and assembly batch, they should be consistently mediocre or phantastic by whole batches or statistical incidence within every batch at end of production..
Why or how the ALLEGED one off phantastic?
This is the the underpinning Q as I see it.
STILL NOT ANSWERED.
Perhaps people need to be reminded that this is a discussion forum, not an examination hall.
Goodness Gracious its the Sheriff of Nottingham …
Beer and whistle playing = good. Beer and whistle posting… not so much. 
Jerry Freeman’s tweaks aim to improve each whistle (tuning, intonation, removing excess breathiness, etc.) to where you can get “that Generation sweetness” in each whistle, without having to worry about quality.
Jerry has, as far as I remember, stated here in the past he found Generation tubes quite consistent. Unless you know things about Jerry tweaking scheme that I don’t , I think you’ll find Jerry does not alter tubes or hole placement. In effect he doesn’t alter tuning.
Talasiga, you didn’t answer the question at all
but I did find your post slightly amusing.
@ the last sentence:- I cannot believe that adjusting or altering the mouthpiece will not have an effect on tuning.
I do adjust the tuning on some keys of whistles. Some other keys, I don’t adjust.
Some need the top of the tube shortened slightly so they can be tuned sharper if desired, and some need the bottom of the tube shortened slightly to correct a flat bell note. I don’t know if this is only needed to bring the tube into tune with the adjustments made to the whistlehead or if it’s something that affects all of the whistles of those keys, whether tweaked or not, as I haven’t tried to evaluate the tuning before tweaking. I don’t find it necessary to adjust toneholes.
Carry on.
Best wishes,
Jerry
To give a more complete response about adjusting the tuning of whistle tubes:
I did experiment for some time with a device for moving toneholes up or down the tube.
I had some success with this but found it difficult to get consistent results. In particular, I found that after moving a tonehole once, it would become brittle and tend to break when I tried to move it again to fine tune the placement.
I also experimented with ways of removing a tonehole and re-installing it in a different position on the tube.
Again, I had some success, but there were problems. Once I had removed a tonehole, I had trouble finding it again so I could re-install it in the new position. I often ended up with tubes missing toneholes that I then had to discard.
And especially problematic was what happened whenever a tonehole accidentally came to rest on some important piece of equipment. I had to replace several computer keyboards because of this. Eventually, I gave up the approach because I found it too stressful, always having to worry about what might happen if I accidentally dropped a tonehole in my lap.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Jerry’s too embarrassed to tell you about the whistle he sent me, where the toneholes all fell off as soon as I tried to play it. Something about his supplier selling him defective holes. To be fair, to make up for it Jerry did send me plans for a lovely miniature table lamp.
Can’t you just tweak a dust collector to make sure the tone holes don’t get lost or onto some sensitive machinery like your lap?
Best wishes.
Steve
P.S. Best wishes to the mouse also.
S.B.