I was bored the other day so pulled the tops off my generation d and my feadog. I did the sticky tack thing and cleaned up the inside of the fipple. I was really suprised at how much better those whistles sound after messing with them a little bit. I was wondering if anyone has any expirience with reworking the windway and the labium ramp. Also, I was thinking of cutting maybe 1/16 or an 1/8 of an inch off the fipple end of the body so it can be tuned sharper. Any suggestions?
I ruined a generation by filing the ramp too short. I attempted to glue a piece of plastic to the bottom to lengthen it, but it made the whistle much quieter and it still didn’t sound right.
Summary: You’ve gotta have a good ear to do “destructive” tweaking and you have to know what the whistle sounds like at its best - else you don’t know what you’re aiming for.
Next time try to add the plastic to the top, right on the ramp. Search the forum for “gutar pick tweaks” and you should come up with somthing.
I don’t think cutting off the fipple body is what should be done to make it sharper. Cut some of the tone tube at the fipple end to make it sharper.
Try blunting the blade edge a very little before making a new one.
Feadog windways are taperd. I would leave it alone except for removing any excess plastic.
I’ve replaced the blades on several whistles. Usually I will mark where on the windway the blade ends by putting little notches on both sides. Then I will cut out the blade and part of the ramp. Next I take a tiny bit of bluetac and put it on the ramp stump — this is to hold in place the new blade during voicing. I cut a guitar pic (red Dunlop Tortex is my fav) to size and bevel the new ramp so that it has a sharp edge at the bottom, and bevel only on the top (like the edge of a chisel, I guess). I then put the new blade in and start experimenting with voicing, moving it back and forth, up and down, and changing the angle. In voicing make sure to test both octave; if one or the other octave starts sounding really good, you are probably losing the other octave. Sounds harder than it is, normally you find the zone pretty quickly. But keep playing with it, even minute adjustments make a significant difference. You should aim to have the blade end where the original blade ended since window size will affect tuning across octaves. The blade should be closer to the bottom of the windway than to the top.
Once I am satisfied I let the whistle dry (without shaking it). Then I use superglue or expoxy to glue the new blade in place.
I’ve played Bloomfield’s tweaks, and can vouch for them. Great sounding whistles.