I just recieved a beautiful new Thin Weasel in the mail two days ago
I purchased it from The Irish Flute Store (great service) and am currently in the beginning stages of breaking it in. It’s a low G (not the real low G) in camotillo and did I say it’s beautiful? I would post some pictures if I knew how, but alas, I’m a bit slow in that department.
Anyway here’s my question/problem:
I have to leave on a trip tomorrow morning and for the next 6 days I’ll be hopping back and forth across the country. Which means that if I take my brand new whistle with me, it will undergo several (8-10) changes in atmospheric pressure. Nothing drastic but the cabin altitude of the jets I’ll be in will go from sea level to 8000 feet repeatedly. Will that hurt my whistle?
Would it be better to simply leave it at home, interrupting the breakin period, than to subject it to those types of changes? Or is it not a good thing to interrupt the breakin? I get the sense from Glenn’s instructions on “care and feeding” that maybe the breakin should not be interrupted.
Any thoughts from you folks who have been doing this for some time would be greatly appreciated!
By the way, did I mention how beautiful it is?
And the sound…! I can’t even describe it. It makes me ache to be able to play it better!
The cabin pressure will not change drastically from what it is at the airport. It is automatically adjusted to compensate for altitude.
The environment in the cabin DOES tend to be a bit dry though. Keep the instrument properly oiled and it should be fine. Maybe even keep it in a larger sealed container with a small swatch of damp cloth.
Actually, if it came by aircraft to get to you it was probably in the hold of the aircraft which, in most cases, would not have been pressure compensated.
Good point! I hadn’t even thought about that. (Although many of the newer passenger planes’ cargo compartments are pressurized.)
It still means that it’s ben through some pressure changes already and doesn’t seem to have been affected.
I travel with wooden whistles all the time, and have not had any problems.
Take the whistle in your carry on bag rather than in your checked in luggage. No telling what the temperatures are in the cargo hold. I’d also oil it before hand. YOu should have no trouble.
Changes in air pressure affect gases, not solids or liquids to any appreciable degree. The air in and around your whistle is not enclosed, and is free to expand and contract without constraint. Your whistle will be fine.
