I’m thinking of making a stand to hold all my whistles, and my current idea is a series of long pegs to put all the small ones on, and maybe rails to put the low ones one. Something like that. But before I actually start trying to make one, I wonder if anyone has something they recommend? Any interesting whistle storage/organization/display options out there?
For many years I had something with loops of pipe cleaner sticking out which held all my whistles vertically, so I could access them and put them away quickly while maintaining good ventilation through them. The piece of furniture that it was attached to is gone now, so I need to try to recreate that setup somewhere else. It worked well.
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Any old vase or jug will do but I have seen these recommended as a cheap solution:
On ebay : plate rack
Amazon has several options including this one.
And this:
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I used to be part of a group which did school performances and I needed something I could clamp onto an 8-foot table that would display all my whistles and flutes in a single row for visibility.
I found a necktie rack at a charity shop, a sturdy piece of wood around a yard long and around 3 inches wide with a row of wooden dowels going the whole length.
It’s not unlike what Mr Gumby shows, but only a single row, twice as long, and with a wider base.
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For use onstage I bought a regular woodwind folding stand. It’s seen 45 years of regular use.
As you see it has five holes drilled in it. The company that made it offered a number of different holders you could attach, for piccolo, recorder, Boehm flute, clarinet, and sax.
I was using it for whistles and wooden flutes, for which the piccolo attachments would have been perfect, but it was going to be too expensive to buy five of them so I made my own thingies.
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Nothing fancy (the stand) but these were made for function, not show. Simple enough: Smaller/shorter pegs for the soprano instruments, and thicker/longer pegs for the alto and tenor winds. Easy to make if you have the tools.
I’ve also seen similar pre-made racks on Etsy or ebay, can’t remember which. You get the base and the pegs, plus some glue to assemble. Can’t recall the price, but it seemed reasonable to me at the time, which was maybe 2-3 years ago.
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Loren, that is almost identical to the ones I made in my workshop for keeping things organized, even down to the thickness of the base and the number and arrangement of dowels. I had to do a double take there for a moment.
But as you say, a simple, obvious and cheap solution, especially if you have a drill press or similar to drill the holes such that they keep the dowels parallel.
Depending on where you stage something like this, you still have the danger of knocking it over and sending everything flying. In that sense, a cloth whistle roll is more secure, but this solution also serves as a good drying rack.
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Yes Jonathan, kinda interesting how needs often dictate a form that people independently develop. Of course the rack in the photo was designed and produced long before I got there, and the shop is full of them, probably 50 or so, possibly more, nearly all full at a given time with instruments in various stages of production. Critical for drying , as you mention, as well as moving sets of instruments around the shop for various stages of production and repairs.
Risk of knocking a rack over or possibly dropping it while moving around? No risk at all, because it’s not an option if you want to keep your job, lol. Not a problem for you, heh heh, or the OP. But seriously, I simply adopted the same mindset around the racks that you’d have working around the bandsaw and lathes.
But we digress…..
Good functional racks for the workshop, perfectly serviceable for the home user, if not that attractive, but one could certainly make essentially the same thing from more upscale woods and finishes, then you’d have something quite attractive in the end.
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I toured the McCallum bagpipe factory (and it’s a true factory, not a workshop) in Scotland and they had these racks all over the place holding thousands of parts for Highland pipes, Scottish smallpipes, and uilleann pipes.
They’re just bare nails sticking up!! I took a closeup.
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For whistles in size ranging up to about alto A, I used to use a socket stand I bought from a big department/auto store nearby. Happened to see it and realized it was perfect. I put stones in the base to add stability so it didn’t tip over. It was quite inexpensive. They come in different sizes, but all the pegs are thin enough for high G whistles and generally long enough to keep the altos propped up too. Very strong plastic, as they are meant for auto shops to use.
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