I use Duponol or a small amount of dish soap in water. Apply it to the windway and let dry. I also breath in through the corners of my mouth to dry the inside of my mouth. Took a little pratice but it works for me.
Hi Wilsing—
I do about the same as Tommy. In a little dropper bottle I make up a concentrated solution of dish-washing soap (if the soap is green, the solution in the little bottle is light green) and when I’m done playing I drip it liberally through the mouthpiece. The instructions that came with my whistle say to then let it dry before playing it again, so I do. I don’t have the type of whistles you mention though. Good luck.
Hi James, the detergents are good.
Another technique is to suck the condensed water out periodically (that’s why I use naturally derived detergents; Ecover).
The big problem with whistles clogging up seems to be mainly with the metal ones. The reason for this is simple. The metal is cool and your breath is very warm and wet. When the warm wet breath hits the cool surface of the metal it condenses and forms water droplets. Most of the moisture is formed in the whistle in the first minute or less of play. After that time the whistle has warmed up and does not condense the moisture from your breath at such a high rate. If you warm the mouthpiece of the whistle before playing you will not experience the buildup of moisture at such a fast rate. There will still be moisture, of course, but it will not build up so quickly. Just hold the top part of the whistle in your enclosed fist for 30 secs to one minute before playing and you will notice a marked reduction in moisture. It won’t remove the entire problem but it will take longer for a whistle that is prone to clogging to do so. Before you scoff at this for being such a simplistic idea, try it. I always warm any whistle before playing and it has cut down dramatically the tendency to clog up.
Warming up the instruments for a few seconds before playing, and using the Jet-Dry technique, results in having zero problems with my Overtons…
Best.
Byll
I have been using a soap solution with some success, but I would like to find something better.
Is Duponol any better than Jet-Dry?
I have never found a music store that carries Duponol while Jet-Dry is off-the-shelf in any grocery.
Is it worth the time/shipping to mail order Duponol?
I don’t know whats going on here as I have played both Overtons and Chieftains for years and NEVER had a problem with water build up in the windway.Are you just dribbling into the mouthpiece too much?.Once they are warmed up all the alloy whistles should play just fine.
Phil.
Phil, I do have a slight condensation problem with one of my Chieftains - a Bb with very short beak (noticably shorter than it’s companion A whistle). When I look at the windway, it’s got noticably less clearance top-to-bottom than the A, and one side is compressed slightly more than the other. And it clogs up much more readily than the A, too.
On the other hand, it’s far from unmanagable; as long as I warm it up a bit before playing and use detergent regularly, it’s just fine. When you have a whistle that’s a big chunk of solid metal, you have to expect a little condensation if you don’t warm it up before playing. I just allow my Chieftains a little warm-up time, and try not to let them cool down until I’m done.
But for those wanting a whistle that is clog resistant, consider a Serpent Sweet Polly - it’s got an enormous windway, and continues to play OK even if you’ve got a LOT of condensation happening. Once, as an experiment on a cold day, I tried to see if I could clog mine. I couldn’t - it kept on playing, even when condensation was literally dripping out the end.
Polymer-head whistles in general seem to do well on this - if not quite as bulletproof as the Serpent, my Humphrey, Susato, and Syn whistles are all pretty clog resistant.
