Those are very nice sound clips.
I have Tommy’s mellow dog .. Bb .. F .. G .. Eb Gens. The Eb is my favorite … can’t seem to put it down. He does very good work. They are not loud but I play with a mic when I want to be heard in a large setting.
Jim
i actually have a tweaked feadog D that a friend of mine did for me, i asked him one day how it was coming, and he said its in the freezer, so i looked at him funny, but he insisted it was all part of the process.
Turned out beautifully though, but he worried me for a secound 
I keep trying to read Jake West’s post, but get distracted by his avatar. Gosh, your face is holding up well!!!
Is there anyone who has side by side sound clips of a whistle before and after tweaking?
Just got a Waltons Guinness tweeked by Tommy. Sounds fab…looks swanky…now I’ve just got to figure out how to attach the drones and the regs…
…wait…what’s that? No drones? No regs? 
Well it sounds great anyway 
vargas whistles seem pretty lagit. my brother just ordered one I guess we’ll see how good they are in a week or so.
website is http://vargaswhistles.com/webshop/htdocs/shop.html
they have several keys of generation, D and C feadog, clark originals, walton mellow d’s all for $35-45 with free shipping.
This here is probably teaching granny to suck eggs, but I’m going to post it anyways.
Got quite a few Generation whistles, as I dare say most of us here have. Rather concerning how many of them are out of tune, though. One or two, at least a whole semitone out. I had the same problem with a Tony Dixon D (my favourite whistle) when I bought it, which was slightly flat. However because it’s sold with a removable mouthpiece, I sharpened it up by shaving a millimetre or two off the fipple end of the tube with a hacksaw until it was spot-on.
Anyhoo, the reason I post is because I found out that you can remove a Generation’s mouthpiece by immersing it in boiling water. Quite what the science is behind it, I have no idea, but I tried it on an errant, and thus expendable, G the other day and it worked. No melting or deformation of the mouthpiece at high temperatures or anything. So I plan to tune up all my Generations in the near future using the above method - a la hacksaw, for those which are flat. Interestingly, the mouthpiece on the Generation G became stuck solid to the tube again once it had cooled down.
Just to follow on from that, I was doing a bit more of this today. It’s important not to leave the whistle standing upside down in the water, because the mouthpiece will go soft and deform as it slumps under the weight of the whistle. I lost the mouthpiece on my favourite nickel C this way! So this does work - and I tuned a couple of G’s nicely - but you need to suspend the mouthpiece in the water rather than let it sit there.
Does anyone sell tweaked heads for Howard Low D whistles?
I have a Howard low D that I hardly play now that I have an Alba. I guess I could sell the Howard. But, I’m not strapped for cash, and the Howard does have an interesting tone, hmm…
I would think that the low Howards would be ripe for tweaking, as the replacement heads are available separately (right?). Plus, mine clogs easily (although I think it is one of the newer ones), so, there’s motivation for someone to do some tweaking, I’d think.
Very nice sound clips in this thread.
Just adding links to some of my posts here, to make them easier to find.
Susato O-Ring tweak: https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/mtguru-o-ring-susato-tweak/47141/1
Low D thumb strap: https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/mtguru-low-d-thumb-strap/53255/1
Whistle mutes: http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?p=895669#p895669
Whistle holder: https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/whistle-holder-for-mic-stand/56605/1
Frankendixon Eb: http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=70819
Goldie/Overton floss tweak: http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?p=930845#p930845
Also, Jerry Freeman’s Generation tweaks: http://www.chiffandfipple.com/tweak.html
I have tweaked Generations (from BB to F), Waltons (C/D) and Feadogs (C/D) and Clares. Most of theam to hush them down somewhat so i can play them at night.
All of them lost some of their breathiness and volume with my tweaks and thats why i tweaked them with my brass inserts. Especially the nickel ones sound beautifully, almost as if they were made of wood (feadogs). But also the brass ones just work out just fine.
I tweak all whistles with plastic heads like Waltons/Clares/Feadogs/Generations. Just send me your plastic head and i will tweak it to be softer and less breathier so you won’t wake up your neigbhours playing at night.
Mind you: Your whistle will need some breath control after my tweaking. Just breathing will be enough with most of the whistles.
I just want to say that I managed to turn a Clare whistle from a reasonable whistle into an exceptional whistle yesterday.
I have a two piece one that is very good, but I keep it in a cigar case and not in my whistle case. I had the chance of a Clare one piece whistle cheaply so I bought it but the sound was not very good at all. I put it aside until yesterday when I decided to have a go at at it.
The head is removable for tuning anyway so I pulled it off. The end of the tube was very ragged and slightly compressed where a pipe cutter had been used to cut the tubing so I sanded that down smooth. Then I did the poster putty tweak in the head, applied a bit of slide grease to the end of the tube and put it back together. It is now a very sweet sounding whistle. I tried it just with the poster putty tweak, but the biggest change was made by filing down the ragged edge of tubing. If you have a Clare this has to be worth checking.
My Clare whistle was sounding a bit like it had asthma. I followed Gordon’s advice and cleaned up the burred top end of the brass tube. It has made quite a difference with a cleaner tone and easier octave change (speaking as a rank beginner).
I bought a Clarke Sweetone a few weeks ago for a more even sound through the range. I am happy with the Sweetone, which is a pleasure to play, but I like the brass construction of the Clare, although they could afford to improve their finish.
A little shop tip for potential tweakers: Drill a 1/2" hole through a block of wood (eg. 3"x2" pine) - preferably using a drill press - and insert the tube through until the burred ended is flush with the block. Use a fine file against the block to remove the burr while holding the tube on the other side of the block. Finish up by running the tang of the file carefully around the filed edges. This will keep the tube end square and avoid scratching the outside, which can happen with sandpaper.
PS: I just noticed that this thread was not originally for DIY tips but I thought Gordon might be pleased that someone out there is taking notice.
Cheers from Tasmania,
Peter
I have just added ‘blue tack’ aka ‘poster putty’ to the cavity under the windway of a Dixon solid brass high D (DX203), and I think the effect was a marked improvement in the high end of the upper octave. This tweak might apply to several Dixon whistles as I suspect that the head is common (at least design-wise) to C and D whistles with brass, aluminium(DX006), and polymer(DX005) bodies.
Has anyone else tried this?
I tried it on my Dixon Trad after reading this last weekend. The whistle went from playing a tad flat w/ the fipple in all the way, to now being in tune. Plus the little buzz I had when playing the D (covering the bottom hole) disappeared. I’ve done the poster putty tweak on some of my other whistles, but for some reason never tried it on the DIxon. Thanks for mentioning it.
Hi
Following the above remarks concerning tweaking. I thought some members might be interested in a tweak that i finally complead today. I have owned a Dixon Polymer Non-Tuneable low D for about 15 months. Whilst I liked the sound of this whistle I found that the Lower D, E, Fsharp and G were relatively weak compared to the note in the upper register. It would only reach the botton half of the second octave up to G.
I at first managed to improved the strength of the bottom 4 notes by inserting a wedge consisting of standard 3/4" plastic water pipe. The wedge is 3and3/4inches long, 5/8" one end and zero inches the other. This was placed in the bottom of the whistle with zero inch end in line with beginning edge of the bottom G tone hole and the 5/8" end just past the bottom edge of the bottom D tone hole. This improved the lower register so that all the note in the first octave are about the same strength. It did not however improved the air requirements which I found to be very high. (I also play harmonicas so breath control is not a problem I usually suffer from).
In order to overcome the high air requirements and taking a tip from the C&F website I attempted to narrow the windway by placing a piece of Electricians plastic tape to the upper inside of the windway. This worked well by lowering the wind requirements and allowing the whistles to play reasonably into the second octave. However the whistle was prone to severe clogging.
What was needed was a way of narrowing the windway with a material the would prevent the build up of moisture, C&F to the rescue again. I read somewhere on the site that a member used aluminium tape to narrow the windway on a whistle of theirs’. Alumnium tape is available in the UK but in rolls of 10meters, so this was not and option. The solution was aluminum cooking foil and double sided adhesive tape. I made up the tape (3and1/2 inches long and 4/8" wide) passed this through the windway from the end of the whistle and pulled this through so that 1" could be bent back and placed on top of the whistle the other end was then bent back and placed on top of the other part of the tape. The tape on top of the wind way was sealed with clear nail varnish (Aluminum cooking foil is rather fragile).
The difference this has made is amazing, the breath requirement have reduced by 30 to 40per cent and there is a nice back pressue that was not there before. The whistle plays strongly up to the A in the third octave and has a brighter and what I would describe as a tighter sound without loosing the unique Dixon tone, and it no longer clogs.
Thanks to all at C&F for the ideas that has brought about a transformation of this lower end instrument.
Ian
Is there anyone who tweaks existing whistles? Like, I ship it to you, you look it over and see if it needs anything? My mum and I have just acquired our first whistles; for me a Walton Irish D that I’m starting to love the sound of, and my mom has a Sweetone that I think is right for her in her beginner-ness, but neither of us would know if a particular whistle is any good or would require tweaking if our lives depended on it! Especially, ahem, with our current playing ability (read: lack thereof). And it seems silly to buy entirely new tweaked whistles when we already have untweaked… although I realize that when it comes to the cheapies, just the shipping would probably cost as much as the whistles themselves, never mind also the tweaking!
Still. Would be silly to acquire the exact same whistles over again and let these sit unplayed (no, I do not think that would have anything to do with WhOA, to have two of the exact same whistle, so don’t any of you try that voodoo that you do on me! You’ve already got me jonesing for more whistles even though I’ve only had this one two days and show no promise of even becoming a passable player , let alone a good one… I do draw the line at duplicates! Though you may speak to me of the Walton Mellow D. I’m already thinking “what if” about that one, wondering if it would be different enough than my regular brass one to justify having both.)
I had the same delima with a whistle I bought in a store. I ended up getting some tweaked ones so I could compare them to the one I bought. And then you will know if the one you have is any good or not. It may not even need tweaking.