thanks to blackhawk, i am the proud owner of a thin weasel! any weasel owners out there have any advice for me as far as the care and playability of this instrument? Living in the phoenix area, i assume i’ll need to provide extra tlc to conteract the desert climate.
i recognize that most quality instruments take a while to get used to, but i must admit, this weasel sounds awesome already! i can tell that it will be a tooter i can grow into. any advice on how to maximize its beautiful sounds?
Oil it inside and out per instructions…
If you play it regularly you probably won’t have an issue with humidity, but some people store their wooden instruments in a humidified, but NOT HUMID, box like a Tupperware container.
Don’t take it from an airconditioned condition and put it outside in the sun.
Weasels rock!
You may contemplate putting a few orange peels in with it…or even buy the type of humidifiers that clarinet players use to keep our instruments working well. A couple of good humidifiers:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/1stopclarinet/plwahu.html
http://www.wwbw.com/Item/?itemno=83741
And you could get really anal and get one of these: http://shop.store.yahoo.com/1stopclarinet/plwahuse.html
I haven’t gotten that anal with my clarinet…yet!
Does anyone know what kinds of wood he makes his whistles out of? This is something I might contemplate in the future when I have a job and a few more bucks in my pocket (though I’ve been happily rejoicing over playing an instrument that the weather doesn’t effect!).
~Crysania
For violins they have this thing called a Dampit, which is green and slender. You dunk it in water and then slide it into the F hole and it keeps it perfecty moistened to the desired 42-50 percent. It cost under 5 bucks. I suppose it would work for any wooden instrument.
One place to get them is Sharmusic.com
Yep…the second link in my post takes you to one of these dampits. For other instruments, we just put them in the case and they do the trick well!
~Crysania
One guy also said that we could take a plastic film cannister, poke holes in it, put a piece of sponge inside, wet it and put it in the violin case and it would work the same way.
If nothing else, the whistle will smell good! 
Funny side bar… My wife Charlene actually used to work for Sharmusic. She would answer the phone “Hello Sharmusic, Char speaking”. People used to think they were talking to the boss !
Just make sure that any sponges and such are damp, but squeezed dry enough that they can’t possibly drip. I’ve seen posts on the Flatpick-L guitar list by a couple of folks who damaged their guitars by using sponge-type humidifiers that were too wet.
I don’t know about orange peel, but back in the days when I smoked, I often rolled my own, and I had a big jar of tobacco that I humidified with a big chunk of apple. Everything was fine untill the apple, buried out of sight, got moldy. Boy, did that result in a nasty-tasting cigarette! I was still spitting an hour after I lit it up.
I’ve been told to avoid using orange peels… mold and mildew are common problems in Florida.
Hey!
What’s that green fuzzy stuff growing on your expensive wooden whistle??
Not to be confused with armpit, for although a convenient means of temporary storage and carriage, and often possessing a high moisture content, it might make the whistle unpleasant to play.
Definitely don’t leave the whistle in the car. Rapid temperature changes are not good, as Tyghress has already said. With the kind of daytime in-the-sun temps you get around Arizona (and Nevada, where I once lived) it’ll go from aircon chilly to Death Valley in a matter of minutes… Pop Goes The Weasel…
Might as well put it in the freezer beside the parrots and chickens.
lets see . . . oil it, damp-it, refrig it, don’t sun it or pop it, but do play it . . . .
you gotta love this community…