I’ve just done a (very late) spring clean of my shed and found a few bits and pieces of whistle projects I had forgotten about.
So here, for you whistle makers out there, is something that may (or may not, who knows?) be of interest to you.
I have here ten lengths of stainless steel tubing, each piece being 28cm/11inches long. The wall thickness is, as near as I can see with my calibrated eyeball (I don’t have calipers to measure them), the same as the nickel D Generation whistles I own. The diameter of the tubes is very close to the Gen, with the little bit of slop taken up from the ever so slightly smaller stainless tube by applying a coat of (my wife’s) clear nail varnish. That did the trick for me.
These tubes have been lying in my shed for about 6 years or more, and they look as good as new, no scratches and with (obviously) no tarnishing on them. They have a slightly brushed look to the finish…I just went up to my shed and just gave one of the tubes a quick 30 second run on the buffing wheel, they polish up like chrome. Beautiful!
It was my intent to make a batch of stainless steel D whistle bodies out of this tubing, but I stopped making my ‘Ceili’ whistles about five or six years ago so the tubes have been lying just gathering dust.
If anyone is interested in taking these off my hands, free of course, I will send them on to you postage paid.
The only proviso is, if and when anyone wants to venture into the world of stainless steel bodied whistles, I would like one of the whistles for myself, gratis of course 
.
Later I shall try uploading a few pics of the tubes, polished and unpolished. Maybe by then I will have knocked up a quick prototype to show you all. I don’t know about getting a sound clip up though, I have no idea if my wife’s laptop is capable of sound recording. (I’m waiting on a new computer arriving, damn, I miss not having the big comp’ here)
I may split the tubes into two lots of five if more than one person is really interested.
A gratis whistle sounds fair to me. 
I have sent you a PM.
pm sent likewise. A BD with a s/s body might solve a problem!
Ok, Erle, a BD with a stainless steel body; sign me up now please. Really.
Philo
I’ll se how I go with them Philo. What’s the attraction for you? I’ve got an Irish customer who might be interested because his palm sweat etches aluminium…
I have that problem too. Well, it’s more like a quick tarnish. My fingerprints are not actually etched into the aluminum.
The attractions for me Erle are the maker, BD, and a most manly and sturdy of materials that looks cool with black delrin. I hope that qualifies…
Best,
Philo
CWM,
I think I am having trouble sending my address via pm. If you haven’t recieved it, would you mind sending me an email via the link below?
Cheers, Erle.
No problems at my end Erle, I got your contact details (three times!!)
Check your pm’s.
Cheers.
Whale oil beef hooked meself!
cheers.
I’d be most interested in hearing how the tone hole drilling goes. Problems you might have and the tools/methods you used to get around those problems.
I spent about an hour yesterday knocking up a quick prototype D whistle from one of the stainless steel tubes that I have here. (Don’t worry Tommy and Erle, it’s a piece that I had cut to the bell note length of D a few years back, your batches are still intact)
I spent maybe half an hour tidying up around the tone holes and the cut end of the tube, the whistle is still a little rough around the edges finish wise, but I just wanted to show what could be done in a reasonably short period of time in regards to making a playable whistle.
I tuned the bell note with an electronic tuner and then did the rest of the tuning by ear. I was not too concerned about getting the tuning spot on, just close enough to give a demonstration of what can be done in a relatively short time.
This is not to take away from any of the more dedicated whistle makers out there who spend more time than they would like (at the expense of a normal life; been there, done that, bought the t-shirt) making whistles.
There are many more steps involved along the way to creating a batch of whistles (by hand) that could be classed as ‘the same’ tonally, so hats of to you fella’s out there who stick at it to assuage the WHOA of the whistle punters.
Here are a few pic’s of the s/steel whistle I just made.
This first one shows from top to bottom; two Gen D tubes, the stainless steel whistle I made with a Gen D top on it, a partially polished s/steel tube and finally an untouched s/steel tube. They don’t need much buffing to get them shining like chrome.
Below is a view (sorry about the macro focus) of the bottom three tone holes, I tried to show the weld line that runs down the inside of the tube, it is visible to the top of the middle hole in the pic.
A better view of the weld.
A view of two tubes, you can see how smooth the inside of the tubes are.
I didn’t use any special tools, just what I had available at home, a drill press, various sized drill bits, a couple of round files and some different grades of wet and dry paper to smooth off the outside of the tube of any nicks and scratches. The stainless steel is a bit harder to work than aluminium or brass, but it didn’t cause me any headaches.
I realise that not everyone would have a bench grinder/buffer or a drill press in their shed or would have use for a carbide tile-cutting saw, but again none of the tools I used are ‘speciality’ type tools, all are ready available off the shelf in hardware stores.
(Feel free to resize the pics Mr. Moderator, they look fine on my laptop but may not suit others viewing options)
[ The pix look fine. - Mod. ]
Thanks much for all the photos and explanation! Very nice job, considering that SS can be a real machinist’s nightmare. I’ve not had very good experience drilling SS (304 grade - non-whistle related project) in the past. Perhaps more patience is in order.
I drilled the holes in the stainless steel in increments, starting with a 3mm pilot hole then working up through each drill size until I was close to the correct tone for each hole. It also helps to keep your drill bits sharpened to avoid binding.
The small step method means that there is less grabbing from the drill bits on the work material, remember, what you take off from the tube you can’t replace, so when near to the right tone it’s softly, softly.
Speed doesn’t always win the race.
I should also mention that when I trimmed the tube to length to get the bell note of ‘D’, I used a carbide blade fitted on a hacksaw to cut the tube. Stainless steel tends to turn ‘blue’ where the metal is exposed to any high temperatures from carborundum cutting discs.
I got the first stainless steel bodied whistle from Erle Bartlett today. I had a bit of a play with it, the sound was a bit fuzzy, I then realised on closer inspection that it needed a good cleaning around the headpiece. That sorted out the sound problems.
Here are a few pic’s, I shall post a sound clip tomorrow.
A back view of the fipple, see the black lines created by the oil residue?;
Here’s the head taken apart, an easy task as the retaining pin is easy enough to remove, you can see the residue from the machining process;
A view of the cleaned up fipple. Notice how the fipple plug projects out past the end of the upper section of the windway, this has an impact on the overall sound of the whistle, I shall elaborate a bit more tomorrow when I make a sound clip.
(edit to resize a massive pic 
)
It’s good to see someone who’s not afraid to take things apart and put them back together again! Nice job on the clean-up CWM, I’m afraid it will be temporary and the white Acetal will accentuate any build up of grime over time. It was the first time I have used white Acetal and also the last!
Also the first and last for Stainless Steel. I’m well set up for milling wood and non-ferrous metals but that stainless resisted the usual machining processes and I returned to more primitive methods to achieve the length and finger holes. The result was not a nice crisp finish, but the more typical out-of-round shape you get from using a drill press. Also a bastard of a stuff to file!
I don’t know how you will find the playability, but the diameter of the tube was just that tiny bit smaller than what I usually use for D’s, I think roughly 1/2" OD as opposed to 1/2" ID, and that felt just a little bit uncomfortable. I’m sure that if you were using that whistle a lot then you would become used to the narrower bore.
Overall, many thanks for the opportunity to try out the stainless tube, I won’t die wondering on that score anyway! The problems with machining spell the end of any further serious steps with that material, for me anyway!
Sorry to hear your SS machining experience wasn’t so nice. (Been there, done that to use the cliche..) Usually, the biggest problem is running the tool bit at too high of a speed and trying to “worry” your way through the machining operation. The stuff work hardens (“glazes”) and then you’re not going to cut smoothly, at best. Usually your bit (end mill or twist drill) will dull in a hurry a this point. The solution is to slow the bit speed down (say 200 to 800 rpm), heavy feed into the work and lots of coolant. What’s wrong with this picture? - Lack of speed control on single phase motors (the kind on most small shop tools), small machine tools aren’t very rigid - won’t support heavy feeds, and most folks hate spraying coolant all over their shop.
Maybe Chuck will jump in with some better suggestions.
SS does make a very pretty whistle tube, though. Anyone want to try titanium? You can get it from OnlineMetals.
At last, a wee bit of time with no one at home, I quickly played a run through of ‘Happy to meet, sorry to part’, once with the fipple plug in the original position (sticking out slightly into the fipple chamber ahead of the end of the windway) and then with the plug slid back so that it sits flush with the end of the windway in the fipple chamber, does that make sense?
See if you can hear the difference in sound between the two positions.
First the original position; http://www.box.net/shared/b2pnkvch9r
And then with the fipple plug flush with the end of the windway; http://www.box.net/shared/bprkqpfl5v
I tried to play the tune the same way both times for comparison, I tried not to put any ornamentation (that’s hard) so that there wouldn’t be much difference between the two apart from the actual sound of the whistle with the two fipple positions.
I’ve done 3 in titanium, and many in stainless. Best advice is to plan on getting a $7 small set of drills that you won’t be doing much else with afterward. I don’t use coolant on these harder metals as it has a tendency to make the hole wander. The holes must be stepped up in size, patiently in thicker walled material - say .035" or so (this also gives you the opportunity to correct, if the hole starts to go off center). I have a length of .500"OD x .022"wall ordered and in transit for the next one, and I plan to hand ream the holes to size, since it is quite a bit thinner. I used 5/8" titanium tubing with a wall thinkness of .040 to do a large bore session whistle. It was by far the hardest one I’ve ever done, but I also think it turned out the best out of all the whistles I’ve ever done. Aronia has that one, actually. That said, I’ve been using 3AL-2.5V for all of these, which is quite hard. I recently came across something about a Russian titanium alloy used in their space program that has the machineablity of cold rolled steel… now to find a source…