I’m in a serious Clarke original phase. The tuning is so perfect, it warms up in a second, and it has that lovely traditional Clarke sound. I always squash the windway on mine, which I feel makes it just a great sounding whistle. Through trial and error, I personally found squashing only the end of the windway, leaving the bit your lip touches unsquashed, gives the best sound.
However, the thicker beak on it always bothers me when switching back to flute (it takes me a minute or so to really find my embouchure again on flute), so I bought a Whistle Shop Tweaked Clarke. What a nice whistle! Really well done with the brass nails holding the block in place, the cut away beneath the beak (makes it similar in size to the end of a generation, which I find makes the transition to flute from whistle flawless) is exceptionally well done. My only concern is that he squashes the entire windway, and that makes for a quieter whistle.
So, I took out my Clarke I had been playing recently, and decided to cut away some of the block myself and see how it’d turn out. I only had a small hacksaw and sandpaper, and this was my first attempt…so it’s not as pretty as it could be, but otherwise this is not a hard tweak and one I hardily recommend trying if you find the beak on a Clarke thicker than you like. I also didn’t have the nice brass brad/nail that the Whistle shop uses, so I just used two brass thumb tacks I had on hand.
Here are a few pictures of the two whistles side by side:
Just thought I’d share in case anyone else wanted to try this. I think the tack/nail bit is important to hold the block in place when you’re cutting. I’m not sure what tool Thom Larsen uses when cutting the beak, but he does a great job with no paint flakes…it looks perfect. The cost is so reasonable, if you like a fully squashed windway, just buying from the whistle shop is clearly the way to go. Since I prefer the windway different, I’ll be home tweaking in future.
Eric
Cool. 
Jayhawk, your newly tweaked Clarke looks great. I see it is a “naked black splendour” model Clarke too.
If anyone wants to emulate the full monty of the Whistle Shop style Clarke tweaks you can try these things.
The brass nails can be sourced at Lowes or Home Depot in the hardware aisles with all the drawers. Might take a minute or two to find them. They are called escutcheon pins and they come in a variety of sizes. They are quite inexpensive. Rockler and Woodcraft have them as well. The brass nails used in some picture hangers would probably work in a pinch too.
To shape the beak you can mount a sanding cylinder in a hand drill, clamp the drill to a bench and carefully work the underside of the beak against the abrasive to get that rounded shape.
Cheaper still would be to cut the bight with a saw as shown and then wrap some abrasive paper around a dowel and use that to smooth the edges of the tin and the surface of the block.
I’ve used the same sanding cylinders mounted in a drill press. I wrap the whistle in cloth and then in a wooden block to keep it aligned properly to the drill press table. It’s messy but it works. Clean it up afterwards with files and sand paper.
I would think using a scroll saw to shape the beak would work as well provided that you can get the blade and the speed right to cut the tin. Jeweler’s blades would do it.
Feadoggie
Thanks Feadogie! After taking the pics, but before seeing your message, I sanded down the underside of the block some more and it looks better.
My wife, the anti-whistlite in our house, but who has a good ear, prefers the Whistle Shop tweaked version…so I may have to further squash my windway (but may leave it alone for now). My wife may simply prefer that the whistle shop one because it is quieter, as she feels the very best sounding tin whistle is one played across a 100 yard field from wherever she is standing at the current moment.
We’ve all been there.
Spring seems to finally be around the corner here. I am hoping to be able to get out of the house soon so that I may sit in the garden to play without having to mute the whistle.
Feadoggie
An important detail in tweaking these Clarkes (and all similar conical, all metal whistles) is to get the soundblade edge in the correct relationship to the windway floor.
First, make sure the soundblade is exactly parallel to the windway floor. From the factory, they come with a strange, “M” shape that isn’t correct. With whatever tools you can improvise, flatten out that wavy “M” shape into a straight line parallel to the windway floor.
Then experiment carefully bending the soundblade up or down to get it so that, sighting into the whistle through the windway, the soundblade is about one fourth or one third of the way up from the windway floor, between the windway floor and ceiling. That is to say, the daylight you see under the soundblade should be about a third of the distance above the windway floor below the windway ceiling. Experiment with slightly different positions until you find the exact position for the soundblade that sounds best.
The other part of tweaking these is to squish the top of the mouthpiece to reduce the height of the windway so the voicing is more focused and the whistle doesn’t take an impossible amount of air to play. The important part of this detail is to get the windway roof as low as possible where the airstream exits the windway going toward the soundblade. When you have it exactly right, the whistle will take a more manageable amount of air and the timbre will be well focused. If the windway roof is squished down too far in that spot, the bottom notes will buzz. If that happens, carefully raise the windway roof at the soundblade end just enough to stop the buzzing.
