New to playing the whistle and the forum. I read somewhere on tweaking the beginner whistle but can’t seem to locate it now. Can anyone point me to where I can get that info. Thanks.
Welcome!
If you do a search on “tweaking,” you’ll find much information.
If you don’t mind my curiosity, what kind of whistle do you have?
There are some whistles where if you tweak it now, you run the risk of regretting it later. There are also some fine players who make good arguments against tweaking at all.
Just food for thought.
–James
Well, I had a little fun yesterday, taking a break for organizing the house and woodshop, I decided to attempt a tweak on my “not-so-great-sounding” Clarke Original.
I have a couple of pictures to show the simple tweaks, in case someone else may feel squeemish about attempting such a tweak. The end result (for mine at least) is a Clarke with solid volume, without losing it’s chiff, easy transition into both octaves and overall playability better than whistles I have that cost more and require a bit more familiarity to play smooth transitions.
I basically pushed the wood fipple plug back out with a small flat screwdriver. I then removed the grey adhesive with a utility knife. There was some minor flattening of the sides of the mouthpiece, so they would lay flat against the fipple plug. I then carefully sanded a bevel to the sharp edge of the end of the windway at approximately 45 degree angle with 120 grit sandpaper, then fit the plug back in, and sliding into various positions until I got the plug exactly where I got the best volume and transition between octaves (smooth). Then I drilled a small pilot hole, snipped a nickel brad nail the the proper length and placed the nail in the hole and carefully tapped in until it went through the plug and made a slight indention on the opposite side. Some people might want to not go all the way through, but my “mistake” turned out to be something I liked.
All in all, I know have a $6 whistle that I will look for the right song to play at church. It plays like a completely different whistle, and I can now see why Thom (The Whistle Shop) sells these tweaked for around ($20?).
I hope this encourages someone else to try out a simple 5 minute tweak.
Here’s a shot showing the nickel brad nail on the left side.
Here’s a shot showing the beveled edge of the windway, on the fipple plug.
I have the Walton high D which sounds great and the Generation High C which also sounds great for me. Actually, the whitles are good on the chromatic tuner. Being new, too much info could be dangerous 
. The next step in whistle upgrade purchase is even overwhelming. Thanks for the info.
Can you tell us a tad more about the bevelling? It’d done in the “action” zone, where the tone is created, not where you put your mouth. but how much bevelling do you do? How far do you go?
fifefighter, this is the page at this website that gives info about tweaking whistles. http://www.chiffandfipple.com/tweak.html
The link is way at the bottom of the first C&F page—sort of hard to find if you don’t know where to look. If your whistles sound good and are in tune, why do you want to tweak them? I think (just my opinion) you should practice on them quite a bit before you mess with them. Then you’ll know what is you and what is the whistle. Good luck. 
Also, you can affect the pitch by how hard you blow, apparently more on some whistles than others. So if something didn’t sound quite right you might think about how hard you are blowing.
If your whistles sound good and are in tune, why do you want to tweak them? I think (just my opinion) you should practice on them quite a bit before you mess with them.
Thanks for the info guys, will practice and tweak later. I tend to always improve any equipment or tool I have, that way I get to know how it works. The info is a big help, will save it for future project.