Tweaking Penny Whistles

By

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Chris Miller

www.oocities.org/star_runner2000

chris.miller@inalfa.com

The purpose of this document is to provide and step-by-step method to improve the tone quality of inexpensive penny whistles.    It is not intended to be a repair manual for damage that may occur to a whistle.  All copyrights are freely waved.  The user of this document may reproduce and share this document at will.

Materials Required:

A whistle Fine emory cloth (600 grit) note: this is a black faced sandpaper that is better to use than the beige sand paper.  I do not recommend regular sandpaper for this work.  320 grit will do but requires far more care during use. A small X-acto knife: a knife used for hobby work. A small diameter plastic pipe brush. Coffee cup of hot (not boiling) water. Recorder grease (also known as cork grease)  I prefer silicone grease but it is not critical. Very fine steel wool. Cotton Swab Rubbing alcohol. De-burring tool. Scissors. Small flat piece of plastic or small flat blade screw driver. Poster Tack compound- any color but yellow is softer. A rag cloth and string for tube cleaning.

1.  Make a recording of the whistle so that you remember what it sounded like before and after the tweaking. 2.  Prepare a cup of hot (not boiling) water.  The water must not be at boiling point.  If the whistle is dipped in boiling water, the fipple will deform and be rendered useless.  Normal coffee or tea drinking temperature may be adequate but it may need to be warmer depending on your personal taste. 3.  It will be necessary to loosen the glue that holds the fipple onto the pipe and remove the fipple.  Place the fipple (mouthpiece) of the whistle into the water for about ten-twenty seconds.  This will soften the glue.   Remove the fipple from the water and attempt to twists the fipple loose from the pipe.  If it begins to twist lose, remove it completely.  If it does not move at all, dip the fipple again and wait twenty seconds.  Try again to remove it.

4.  With the fipple removed, you can begin making adjustments to the fipple.                                                  {{ }}Excerpt from http://chiff&fipple/tweak.htm 5.  {{ Now, some background. Some whistles, especially Generations, are often shipped with extraneous bits of plastic in the mouthpiece. These are bad. You want to remove those. You can hold the mouthpiece up to the light and sometimes can see these. Carefully and gently pass the sandpaper strip through the mouthpiece airway. You DO NOT want to sand away any of the plastic that's supposed to be there. You're just cleaning out excess plastic. }} If it is clear, you may skip this step. Cut a strip of 600 grit emory cloth that is slightly less in width than the width of the wind way and about four to six inches long.  Slide it through the wind way and gently remove any material you see there.  It may be necessary to flip the emory cloth over to complete the wind way top and bottom.  Keep the emory cloth for use later in step 9.  Check the wind way again to ensure that it is clear.  If you still see anything in there it may only be dust left over from the sanding but blow them out or slide a plain piece of paper through the wind way to remove them.

6.  Excess plastic may also exist around the inside edge of the window.  This is known as flash in the plastics industry and is often left behind.  It can be removed using the X-acto hobby knife.  Carefully trim it off as you would trim fat from a fine steak.  WARNING:  The knife is sharp and the material is thin.  You must move carefully or you may nick the blade of the fipple and ruin the whistle.  Move cautiously!  While you are still holding the knife, check through the pipe end of the mouthpiece for any plastic chips dangling from the inside.  These are usually the result of the fipple and pipe being assembled together.  If present, remove them carefully.  Use a cotton swab with rubbing alcohol to clean the inside of the fipple when done.

7.  Before attempting to reassemble the fipple to the pipe, use the emory cloth to buff the  end of the pipe that fits inside of the fipple.  This edge may not be sharp enough to cut skin but it can score plastic out of the inner wall of the fipple and continue to give you poor sound.

8.   Apply a small amount of cork grease to the pipe end before reassembling the whistle.  Do not allow any grease to rest on the very edge of the pipe.  This can lead to poor sound.  {{ Replace the mouthpiece and play the whistle. If you are pleased with the sound and especially the high-low octave transitions, skip step 9. }}

9.  {{ If the whistle flips too easily in to the upper range or still sounds ragged, you may want to consider this step: Using the same strip of sandpaper from step 5, SLIGHTLY dull the edge of the blade. (this is the plastic on the south end of the fipple window that the air hits and where the air is split.  Sand a LITTLE, test the whistle, sand a little more if you need to. Once you are done surgically altering the mouthpiece, blow out all the extra polymer debris. }}  In some very gross cases, I have trimmed the excess plastic flash from the blade using an X-acto hobby knife but I do not recommend this step for those who are not accustomed to using them.  The emory cloth takes longer but can do less damage.

10.  One change I highly recommend is to fill the sub-airway of plastic fipples.  I use poster tack.  Candle wax works but is not as easy to use and does not form as well.  The purpose behind this step is to prevent a fluttering in tone that can take place due to the hollow area.  In high end whistles, this area is usually filled with the solid plug.  It will not hurt the whistle and will usually improve the tone.   If you choose to use wax, consider the following excerpt {{ }} from http://www.chiff&fipple.com/tweak.html        {{ You can fill this up by lighting a candle, holding the mouthpiece vertically and dripping wax into the cavity. Avoid getting wax into the airway. It can be a bit tough to clear out. When it fills up, hold the mouthpiece until the wax hardens some. You can put in the freezer if you want. }}

11.  This should complete the work of tweaking the fipple.  Additional work that may be beneficial can be performed on the pipe.  If you choose to attempt this work, remove the fipple before beginning.  The pipe can sometimes have burrs of metal dangling  inside from the tone holes. These burrs can be seen clearly from the end of the pipe when looking at a bright light. The bore should look clean and very smooth! The burrs can cause odd sounds from the bottom of the pipe and on the note from a given tone hole in severe cases.  To remove them, use a de-buring tool and carefully remove only the burr from the inside of the tone holes.

12.  Once de-burred, cut a piece of emory cloth 2-3" wide and 11" long.  Roll it up so that it is a long tube with the grit side out.  Slide this into the pipe of the whistle and stroke it inside the pipe a number of times (5-10).  The emory cloth will tend to unravel as you do this.  It is fine for the emory cloth to create pressure and friction against the inside of the pipe.

13.  Using a plastic fiber pipe brush, buff the inside of the pipe until it shines.  If you still see burrs or other debris, you may need to repeat step 11 and 12.

14.  You may want to remove and reapply the cork grease on the top end of the pipe at this time.  Reassemble the whistle and play it.  Compare it you your recording of the whistle before the modifications.  You can always redo any steps you think may improve the sound of your whistle.  Enjoy!  This tweaking process was inspired by that of Dale Wisely found at: Chiff & Fipple Dale has inspired me to enjoy whistling and sharing with others everything I have learned which can promote the enjoyment of the penny whistle.

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