Hello All,
I am a very new and admittedly novice whistle maker. In a tin smithing workshop I took last year I reverse engineered and built a cooperman tin whistle. A patient and highly capable mentor helped me in my endeavor. Anyway, Its that time of year again and I head back for tin smithing II. I was hoping to acquire some donor whistles to work on. The whistles I am interested in are of a type both conical (tapered bore) and with a wooden fipple. They should be made of tin (tin plate/sheet tin) and have a soldered seam running the length along the back. I am particularly interested in old clarkes and generations, though any that follow the criteria I laid out are fine. I would prefer bruised and battered and unplayable as I will be cannibalizing them and hammering them flat to make templates. Drop me an e-mail if you have any old whistles. I will be happy to purchase them. Donations are also welcome as I will gladly pay shipping. Thanks all.
They should be made of tin (tin plate/sheet tin) and have a soldered seam running the length along the back. I am particularly interested in old clarkes and generations, though any that follow the criteria I laid out are fine.
You sort of make things very unclear by asking for Generation whistles, to which none of your criteria apply. So do you want the Clarke type ones or just any old whistle?
Mr G is correct Gens are seamless cylinders not conical.
And if you just want a template to form a playable whistle wrap a piece of paper around a playable whistle and pencil rub the holes. Allow for a seam then lay that out on a fresh sheet of tin and roll your own. Making a tapered wooden mandrel shouldn’t be too hard since you have the diameter of both ends of the whistle.
Pounding out tin can do some dimensional changes and it seems rather a bit of extra work for questionable results.
Mr G- Any (with the criteria) will do. I have never seen an old generation up close. good to know. The main criteria I am interested in are conical whistles with a standing seam. Certainly I could replace a lead fipple with a wooden one. A clarke would be nice. I know that michael copeland made some early models with standing seams, hardwood fipples, and conical design, however they are quite expensive and hard to source. I would take written dimensions or diagrams but I fear this would be asking a lot from strangers as it would be time-consuming.
Mack- The truth is I never considered that there was another process for making templates. Perhaps, if you have the time, you could explain how to go about making an accurate template from the pencil rubbing technique. I sometimes have difficulty realizing 3-D concepts from written instructions but I can certainly practice. Thanks for the tips.
There are no unplayable whistles!! Just whistles that have not yet been properly tweaked…
Anyway, sounds like an interesting class you’re taking! And I think it’s cool you’re going for the rolled tin, conical whistle rather than the cylindrical tube. There’s something particularly appealing about the sound of old tinplate whistles, be they Clarke or Calura or Schoha or some ancient nameless treasure!
Do you plan on wood blocks, or are you going to try your hand (and newly gained tinsmithing skills) at a metal block of some kind?
Lastly, is there a particular key you’re interested in?
The choice of the Clarke to copy is probably a good one if you want to go with this type of whistle. You may even want to deconstruct a Shaw.
I am not too sure the Cooperman is worth the effort though, other than perhaps to figure out the method of construction. I have only ever seen them discussed here in rather unflattering terms, souvenir objects perhaps the most friendly among them, never as working instruments.
I have never seen an old generation up close. good to know. The main criteria I am interested in are conical whistles with a standing seam.
Well, yes but as I said, Generations are not of that type and never were.
There are these ones but I don’t think you will want to demolish them to look at their insides:
My first conical whistle was of sheet copper rolled around the tapered end of a ski pole which seemed to have the right conical dimensions. It was “playable” but not pretty. Then I thought why not use the ski pole as the whistle? That was playable and pretty (after a lot of sanding and polishing)…and tweaking…
I do condone reengineering! Nick I do encourage you! Do what is fun for you and go with it!
A picture of a finished whistle next to its template, a cooperman. I am having trouble posting a picture, but will keep trying. Class was amazing. I made whistles all week. Perhaps my goal of completing 100 was a bit ambitious as I finished 12, more or less. I stuck to the basic clarke/cooperman style because I found that trying drastic modifications was too time consuming. One thing I wanted to try is a curved windway. The important thing, I suppose, is “stick-with-it-ness” as I plan on making more whistles and offering them for sale when I am satisfied with the results. This would also mean coming up with an original design for a whistle as clarke and cooperman both still make whistles (I think). Thanks for any and all input. So far the tuning on the C natural is half hole or OXOXOX.
