In case you need another reason to quit smoking…
Someone just sent me a beautiful Thin Weasel D which had been clogging badly to the point where the owner couldn’t play it for more than a few minutes. I looked into the windway and saw some “stuff” which I couldn’t dislodge with a scrap of cardboard, so I disassembled the head ferrule and fipple. They were both BLACK and crusted with what appeared to be congealed tobacco residue. It took alcohol and steel wool to remove this, plus a goodly application of elbow grease. Now, the whistle plays just fine.
Imagine that same stuff in your lungs… 
I used to be a smoker…taking up the whistle really helped me decide to quit in 1998.
I have bought a wooden whistle secondhand before that smelled strongly of smoke. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as the one you describe above, and within a month, you couldn’t tell it had been owned by a smoker.
That is soooo nasty… Why anyone would want to smoke is beyond me 
I’ve made it to college without even trying it, and I don’t ever plan to.
Actually, I’ve always wondered if cigarette smoke could be used to look at how the air stream behaves for whistle making purposes. No, not planning to take up the habit (WhoA was enough).
Howdy,
Sure, but so could incense smoke.
Best,
Dave
Tobacco residue INSIDE the windway? Wouldn’t that imply that the person was actually smoking whilst playing? I’m a smoker…probably always will be…but I could never think of of blowing smoke down my beloved whistles!! In fact, I make sure my lungs are completely free of smoke before playing.
I’ve actually tried that in my early testing..heh
The smoke isn’t really dense enough to see what’s happening, not to mention you’re not at a very angle to see it either.
This wouldn’t be any heathier than tobacco smoke. Smoke is smoke. Incense may be worse even because of the added puefuming chemicals.
I smoked for decades, and like Wanderer the whistlling helped me quit. And, anan cara…yes, smoking is nasty. Some humans NEED nasty. Without getting clinical…some folks require a certain element of toxicity and/or self-destruction in their lives. Why do you suppose some wail away on a high G???
I don’t consider my high G “self-destructive” but it does have an adverse effect on those around me…especially my kitties.
But yes…toxicity and self destruction are a must. I smoke cigarettes, drink booze, chase women(if I were single), and I have lots of tattoos. If I had a lisence I’d probably own a motorcycle…lol!
What about pipe smoking that occurs at most like, 4 times in a week? With brushed teeth afterwards?
Yo, Flog…
Sounds like your high G is your one concession to health and sanity. Truly remarkable, as I think…wait a sec…yes, I can actually HEAR the d**n thing from here…
(anam cara…avert your gaze…you could get smudged in a rough-hewn post like this.)
YOu haven’t heard a Thin Weasel high G. No pain involved there at all-- just sweet, birdlike whistling.
I saw the Tossers play and their whistler was smoking while playing, I don’t know how he was doing it. He was also so drunk Im suprised he could play.
well, I quit smoking my pipe about 6 weeks ago, and so far, I can’t taste anything nasty in my whistles.
I can feel a big change in my breathing though, which means that as I learn to breathe differently, I’m re-learning the subtleties of a lot of old tunes I’ve been playing for years.
That’s nice.
Glad to be stopped, though I loved my baccy…
b
I recently had a whistle returned with the claim that it “was out of tune in the low D and E”. The barrel was so clogged with verdegris from not being swabbed that it actually threw the tuning out… that is icky beyond belief and shows a blatant disregard for instrument maintenance…
Hmm … i would think, by now, that everyone knows the minutest details about the affects of tobacco smoking. (It’s all good, but I could think of more deserving causes that we studiously ignore. Values I supose, each to their own .. yaddah yaddah)
The upshot being that most smoke contains a bunch of tars and aromatics - my ham depends on it 
The player that puffs smoke of any type down his/her whistle really should understand that it’s going to alter the performance of the poor thing. If, on the other hand, it’s part of the stage show … hmmm - cost of doing business? (offset it against the savings by not having a fogger, adjust for all the front-row seats that don’t get sold … just don’t try to re-sell that sucker 
)
Oral hygenists make a fortune scraping tar (smoking) and tannins (tea drinking) off of peoples’ teeth - Paul, I think you might be onto a new industry - and the first recorded whistle-hygenist!
I’ll let someone else carry the ball on this one, since I already have three careers: podiatrist, whistlemaker, and nurse
Don’t get me wrong. I have my own set of self-destructive habits. 
Smoking is just not one of them. Sorry if I sounded preachy…
anam cara…
If sounding preachy were a sin around here, we’d lose a whole generation of posts. Thank God it’s almost impossible to whistle and preach at the same time.