… just priced some titanium tubing on smallparts.com. At $56USD for one bit, possibly enough to make a high-D? Hmmmmm… I don’t think so, Tim.
Right now, I’m working in half-hard yellow brass (about 65-35), and have no reason, so far, to anneal. The stuff machines well, lovely curly swarf, and takes a superb polish. I think I’ll wait for titanium until I get a special order…
Cheers,
Bill Whedon
Titanium is widely used in jewelry (wristwatches) partly because of its low specific weight compared to steel, partly because its non-allergic (to most people) as opposed to many stainless steels.
It also has a great resistance to corrosion, even in marine atmosphere which will corrode even anodized aluminum.
It isn’t cheap, but I understand the high price of titanium comes mostly from its difficult welding and machining.
There are alternative suppliers of titanium tubes, in diameters suitable for whistles, in Taiwan and Russia. Try also Morati (Moravia Titanium) in Czech Republic.
This got lost somewhere at the end of the stupid chiff thread I started, with respect to shape of the tubing and its effect on the tonal quality of a whistle. I experience more of a sense of reverberation, vibration, resonance, chiff, whatever, with all of my Copelands than with any other whistles of any type of material. Bill, Paul and others have opined I believe in other threads that neither the materials nor the bore diameter or wall thickness should really impact this.
Do you think that the conical bore impacts due to the irregular compression of the air column? Think of other conicals - Shaw, Clarke, etc. Be gentle, I’m a lait person.
Regards,
Philo
On 2002-10-26 05:11, Zubivka wrote:
Titanium is widely used in jewelry (wristwatches) partly because of its low specific weight compared to steel, partly because its non-allergic (to most people) as opposed to many stainless steels.
(snip)
Yep! My watch back is stainless, and breaks me out sometimes, but the clasp is titanium and has no effect, same as the titanium carbide band and body. 'Course, they’re hi-temp impermeable ceramics, so I wouldn’t expect to react to them! Also my earring must be Ti or platinum, or I get, well, you don’t wanna know… 
Thanks for the tips on titanium suppliers!
Cheers,
Bill Whedon
A aircraft shop gave me a piece of Inconel tubing a while ago, (they’re about $10-15 a tube) I have thought of making an indestructable high-D out of it. It wiped out my coping saw and barely scratched it.
I’d have to say, the more money that I put into a piece of material the more careful I try to be with it. I think this affects anyone who builds whistle (or anything else for that matter).
I just recently put up a Nickel-Silver Low-G Whistle on Ebay, I can tell you that I held my breath with each tonehole drilled. (I don’t drill that stuff very often). When you change materials, you have to be familiar with the right drill speeds for that material or you’re in big trouble.
Flute players seem to have experience with better sound with higher density materials. There’s a school on the east coast for building flute and I remember that the maker is famous for titanium flutes.
You also have to consider the dimensions that the material affords. Wood whistles usually have a certain profile to the blade area, the wood has to be a certain thickness in order to be stable. It has a deep chimney in the tone holes. Metal whistles have a narrow chimney. I would think titanium could be very thin and have no chimney, the blade is only limited to your milling skills.
On 2002-10-26 18:36, Daniel_Bingamon wrote:
Flute players seem to have experience with better sound with higher density materials. There’s a school on the east coast for building flute and I remember that the maker is famous for titanium flutes.
Just informational: Jonathan Landell isthe maker/player… nice guy.
Erik
Smallparts is great place to find unusual things but much of what they have is usually on the expensive side.
Regarding the: Running the DC current in a conductive solution to get the coloration effect on the Titanium. If this is a titanium oxide, I know aluminum oxide is very hard, is titanium oxide harder than titanium?
A friend of mine is making titanium parts on his CNC and he uses Carbide tools as well and cobalt for the finishing tooling.
Hey Bill, Titanium’s nice and lightweight, RIGHT? 
You would need a real good drill though. And BTW, I think 90 degrees is best. F*** the bevel. Could be wrong? I’m just thinking about the boat.
Slan
-Paul
[ This Message was edited by: paul on 2002-10-27 23:10 ]
Titanium is, indeed, cool! I have a little from a case I bought to protect a (since superannuated) Palm Pilot. Cobalt tools will cut it, but I think tungsten or molybdenum carbide is the real answer. Carbide drills are relatively reasonable, but carbide mills … Whhhhooooooooaaaa!! 
At the moment, however, I’m having far and away enough issues working with brass. Copper is lovely and malleable. Steel is predictably hard and springy. Brass can be either, but not at the same time. After much study on the shooters’ fora, (shooters probably use more brass by an order of magnitude than anyone else in the world!), I’ve learnt how to properly anneal and harden brass of the more common varieties. Still, there are issues of grain, polish, reaction with ferrous metal contamination, etc., that I have yet to address.
One thing it’s let me do, however, is to predictably form blades! One hit with the torch, and it’s annealed. One hit with the press, and it’s hardened and formed! Then a quick trim/sharpening with the milling machine, and we’re Ready For Prime Time! Wonderful!
Don’t tell anybody, but when I was making my blade forming fixture for 9/16" OD tube, I accidentally milled the initial slot right through the block, instead of stopping inside the clamp area. (blush) Fortunately, it made no practical difference, so I’m not in a position of having to re-do (thanks be!)…
Cheers,
Bill Whedon
On 2002-10-25 05:09, mike.r wrote:
On 2002-10-25 04:46, Andreas wrote:
I heard about an experiment done with flutes, using the same head, but different materials for the bodies. Wood, metal and even concrete (!) ws used. The blind test used to see if people could hear diffrences between the different bodies made clear that it was not so. Now, I don’t know so much about the experiment to draw any definite conclusions from it, but it seems like the material of the body plays a very little role in the sound output of blown instruments.Yes,you heard it on the Whistle tech talk #2 thread…check it out.A bunch of scientists have actual proof that a flute vibrates:roll: Mike
[ This Message was edited by: mike.r on 2002-10-25 05:11 ]
Mike It has to be in caps to work :roll:
Wizzy
Thanks Wizzy,I,ll give it a try :roll:
I’m not really interesting in making whistles myself but I had an idea over the weekend so I thought I’d put it in this thread – has anyone ever thought about making a whistle out of Carbon Fibre (or a Carbon/Fibreglass composite)?
Carbon Fibre is lighter but much more rigid than most metals so it might have interesting acoustical properties. Carbon tubing is available commercially. It can be machines quite easily and adheres well to epoxy. Not to mention the fact that a whistle made out of carbon would look really cool!
[Edited for typos and clarity]
[ This Message was edited by: garycrosby on 2002-10-28 11:22 ]
For those of you thinking about making whistles out of titanium you might want to know that there is a US patent (#6,124,538) on a flute (and guitar) made out of titanium. Given that a whistle is a member of the flute family of musical instruments is there a possible patent infringement issue here? See: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=40&f=G&l=50&d=FT00&p=1&p=1&S1=((carbon+AND+musical)+AND+instrument)&OS=carbon+and+musical+and+instrument&RS=((carbon+AND+musical)+AND+instrument)