I was wondering where I might be able to get the drill bits and reamers for whistle making here in the UK. I fancy having a go at making a wooden whistle in D and have been offered the use of a lathe, but don’t know where I’d go about getting bits long enough. If anyone could point me in the right direction, or has any hints or tips that’d be great.
Thanks all.
Hopefully, one of the superior craftsmen on this forum will respond to your questions. Paul Busman, Alex DeWilde, and David O’Brien all post in this forum on a regular basis. They make some of the best wood whistles out there. They would know the correct answers for sure.
However, I suspect they use some form of gun drill or something similar to insure accurate, straight drilling at the depth you will need.
I am not an expert on where you might get the tooling in the UK but I can tell you what I use here in the US. But the tooling is not particularly special. A good tool supplier can provide most of what you need.
The big issue, as you have probably discovered, is to drill a long, straight, smooth hole through a 12-13" blank of hardwood. There are a variety of tactics you can employ to do that. We could spend some time talking about the pros and cons of some of those but it really is not worth writing a lot of words since the cons of most methods are considerable. But for the sake of letting you think things through I’ll mention the type of bits you could use. First is a spade/spoon/paddle bit on an extension which is cheap and very available. Next is a lamp auger which is a little more expesive and a little less common. Last is the gundrill which is a fairly expensive piece of kit.
The issue with the spade bits and auger are basically that the holes they drill are not always straight, smooth or of uniform diameter. They will wander as the grain and density of the exotoc hardwood varies. You can drill undersized holes and use multiple reaming passes to mitigate that. But the initial affordability of the drills is then offset by the cost of the various over/under reamers. But these will work fine enough if you are working on a wood lathe - if that’s what you have access to.
The reason a gundrill is attractive is that it will drill a long straight and smooth hole. That is what they are designed to do - and do it in hard metals. The downside is that you’ll want to use these on a machine lathe and it will need a long bed - at least twice the length of the blank you are drilling the hole through. That’s a big, expensive piece of gear. The gundrill is another hefty expense. These come from specialty suppliers like DrillMasters/Eldorado/Sterling and others. They can also be bought through eBay but may need to be re-sharpened. Industrial tooling supply companies will carry standard sizes and mounts. You might need a custom mount - depends on your set-up. The gundrill is meant to have cooling fluid run through it while you are drilling the hole. You won’t run fluid throug it while drilling wood but you will want to clear the dust using compressed air. For that you’ll want a compressor. It can be something small like a tire compressor - don’t need a lot of pressure or reserve volume. To connect that up there are a variety of methods too. Oh, and you’ll want a vac system to collect the dust as it leaves the blank. The dust from working exotic wood scan be quite harmful to your well being.
Method One -The drill can be mounted using an end mill holder on a Morse taper arbor in a tailpiece. Either the drill mount or the End mill holder needs to be modified to accept a nipple on to which you connect the air supply. I can provide some pics if you need them. You could do this on a wood lathe if you are hardcore.
Method Two - the gundrill is mounted in a quick change tool holder which means you have to have a quick change toolpost. In this case the air can be connected to the rear of the gundrill. I can probably find pics of that hookup too.
Now, no matter how you drill the blank, the end of the blank has to be free to be drilled into. This requires that you have some sort of commercial or DIY steadyrest available to secure the blank and to keep it rolling on center. This can be a set of rolling wheels or bearings or it can be a fixture with one large bearing. Again pictures may be needed to show you how that works.
Actually, if you take a look at Tyrone Head’s site, he has videos of the method he uses. That’d be a good place to look into how this is done and what you might need to do it.
No more words then. Everything Ty does is here: http://www.theflutemaker.com/tutorials.php the boring part is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWz3pYKTrf8 Add up the cost of what’s in Ty’s shop and you’ll get pretty close to the high-end for what it takes to make a whistle.
To be fair here’s a lower cost example of how to do things. http://users.skynet.be/fluiten/how.html Yes, that’s a flute but the process is substantially similar for a whistle.
There are other ways that you might consider. Make the whistle in three pieces (a la O’Brien Rover). No long holes. You can use twist drills. You drill the pieces like you were making pens, just bigger blanks and drills, similar tooling though.
Or you can try the NAF method. Make the whistle in two halves. Route out half the bore from each piece and glue them together afterwards. Run a reamer through the bore to make sure it is centered and smooth.
So while you asked a simple question I am afraid that the answer is not so simple. I’d be happy to answer any questions that come up as you get deeper into this. It’s great fun to make your own whistles.
Hope that helps.
Feadoggie
Thanks for the quick reply guys! Plenty for me to be reading through. I was already thinking of a tuning slide, so depending on what kind of metals I can get my hands on I may go for something like that. I’ll get round to phoning some tool suppliers and see what’s available fairly locally 
I’d imagine that both amazon and eBay would have a very good selection of just about whatever you would need on the tools front in the UK. Many times you can pick up used and/or reconditioned tools for a considerably lower price than new, especially on the gundrill front if you decide to go that route. Alternatively if you are decent with a hacksaw and file or a milling machine you can take tool steel (sometimes heard it called silver steel over in your neck of the world) and make D-bits which can work pretty well for drilling longer holes (although they are quite slow going to drill with) and can be similarly used to make whatever sized reamers you might need fairly effectively (especially if you have access to a metal lathe and the know how to use it, then any size is available to you). The upside is you can pick up all sorts of sizes of the tool/silver steel rods in whatever you need quite cheaply (setting aside the effort to make them into something usable) compared with buying the fabricated tools.
Some other things your going to need to look into will be how you plan to hold the work in the lathe while drilling it, and after it’s drilled how you intend to hold it to turn down the outside. You are going to need the work pretty well centered in either case, but especially the longer the length of the piece. A little distance off center one end becomes a fairly substantial distance a foot away. You will also have to figure out how thin a wall your going to make on the whistle, the thinner it gets the more difficult it becomes to accomplish.
You also need to take into consideration how you intend to cut out the windway and ramp. Whether you opt for hand tools or have a milling machine you will probably still have a certain number of jigs and fixtures to make or some specialty tools to buy in order to do this repeatedly and reliably. This will probably be one of the biggest headaches you run into since small variations while trying to form both the windway and ramp will have significant affect on the sound you get from the whistle, getting consistent repeatable results is the tricky bit.
Depending on the design you have in mind you may need to find sources of metal tubing and/or sheet metal for making your own if you can’t find a desirable stock size. Using a cork lined or hemp joints can also work well as an alternative, but would entail having thicker walls (or at least thicker sections at the area of the joint).
It’s definitely quite the project to undertake, best of luck and hopefully myself and others can help you along the way. Good luck!
I’m gonna apologize for pointing the fire hose at you on full blast in that last post. There are lower tech ways to make a wooden whistle. Just because some of us have a lot of machinery does not mean you have to have a lot of machinery to make a whistle - especially if you are only making a couple. If you’re making quantities then you’ll want to tool up.
While you are reading … there are a few books on making woodwinds that you could look for. These will mostly deal with making classical instruments like recorders and flutes but the tools and methods do apply to whistles - especially if you want to make conical bore whistles.
Trevor Robinson and Bart Hopkin wrote the books I started with years ago. These will outline low cost hand tools that you can get by with including making drll rod reamers such as those Alex described.
Glenn Schultz wrote an article for Woodwind Quarterly back in 1996 on making wooden whistles - Issue 8. He outlined his methods and tools there. The article is out of print but I believe photo copies are available from Lars Kirmser’s Music Trader website. That article started me in the right direction. You have to read between the lines to get the most out of it. Glenn was not always literal and obvious in his descriptions. It’s a good article though.
There are also several web sites on making recorders and flutes - videos as well. These can also be very illustrative of the methods, tooling and general processes. Several manufacturers of woodwinds have “shop tour” photo montages and videos as well. Look to those for how the big boys do things. Same applies to Irish flute shops - lots of photos and some videos. Just looking around their shops can tell you how they do things and what tools they depend on.
What you should discover is that in the end small hand tools make a big difference. It’s the details that make the whistle work well. So a good set of files in many sizes and profiles is very helpful, as are small knives and chisels. Good lighting and magnified vision help too. Look at a recorder maker’s bench. There’s a lot to learn from those too. The time spent profiling, boring and drilling with big machines is often overshadowed by the time spent on details at the voicing window/labium and on finishing the toneholes.
Be prepared to create a pile of “prototypes”. Remember to learn from the inevitable mistakes. These things take some patience and thought to get right. Let us know if we can help along the way. And let us know what you turn out. Just remember to have fun.
As for the tuning slide, K&S brass makes nesting/telescoping brass tubing in sizes that are generally used in whistles. Many of us use it for our slides, rings and ferrules on the higher pitched whistles. It is available from shops online, Amazon as well.
Feadoggie
Hi–Feadoggie and the others have already covered the territory pretty well. As you may gather, “having a go at making a wooden whistle in D” is not something to be undertaken lightly. Even if you have the loan of a lathe (a metal machine lathe, not a usual woodturning lathe), you’re likely to spend a whole lot of money and time before you get anything remotely resembling a whistle. I’m not trying to discourage you, just to put the venture in perspective. When I started, using a lathe identical to Glenn Schultz’s, it was well over a year before I turned out my first whistle. That included several visits to Glenn and his shop, numerous email and phone consultations, and Glenn’s incredible generosity in personally machining several vital pieces of the equipment used including a ball bearing steady rest, custom tool holder. I was also able to borrow his own drilling jig for placing the finger holes, which I had reproduced (at great cost) at a local machine shop. By the time I sold my first whistle, I had thousands of dollars invested. Now, it’s turned out to be a very worthwhile investment, both personally and financially-- whistle funds are in large part funding our trip to Ireland next month. But, to just have a go at making a whistle it would be a poor investment indeed.
If you’re really comitted, go for it. Most whistle makers, myself included, would be glad to share what we know to help you. Just be sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.
If you just want to try making a whistle for fun, try a PVC whistle from Guido Gonzato’s excellent plans. You’ll learn a lot about making an instrument (particularly voicing it )without much outlay of cash, and you can make whistles in many keys.
This is the type of drill bit I use.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/311025042123?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
My set up for drilling is not a lathe but a pillar/post drill press and a mounted jig that allows quick removal of the wood stock to clean out the shavings every 1/2’’ to 3/4’'. trying to go deeper the shavings build up in the bit flute act like a wedge then split the wood stock. Depends on what kind of wood being used how deep to go at a time. A short drill is used first to start the hole. The wood is lowered then the wood is brought up to the long drill and inserted into the hole.
CAUTION- never turn on the drill when the long drill is out of the wood. The drill end is 1/2’’ and the shank is 3/8’'.
If the drill is turned on when not in the hole it will whip around bend and possibly hit the operator.
The jig holding the wood straight has a quick release to save time when removing the shavings. It takes me up to thirty minutes to drill one blank.
I also use a ‘‘Drill Doctor’’ sharpener to maintain sharp drills. Also have a DIY slow speed wet grinder for sharpening my lathe tools. In between wet grinder sharping I use ‘‘EZE-lap’’ diamond coated paddles.
Dull lathe tools will cause the wood tube to shatter. Another tool is a 1/2’’ diameter steel mandrel to mount the wood stock on the machine lathe.
I agree with the others to start with PVC pipe to start the whistle design learning curve.
This topic http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=60029&hilit=pillar+drill&start=0 has come up several times before. Jetboy of http://www.westonwhistles.co.uk in the UK also uses a pillar drill with a vice.