Wooden Whistle

[bwheeler]

Hello, I've made a wooden whistle on a lathe at school
The only trouble I have is actually making it whistle and it has to do with the dowel
I honestly don't understand why it wont work, I have the dowel fit the hole perfectly, and I have the top shaved off to make it a flat top.
Any suggestions?

The whistle is not complete but will be soon, heres a preview.





Thanks,
Brandon

[artme]

G'day Brandon and welcome to the cubby.

Where did the design for the whistle come from? Maybe we can trace the problem back to the source of the design.

[texx]

looks to me like your dowel goes all the way through the whistle , but from my brief research it should only go as far as the hole as in this site
Making a whistle from Elder wood- jonsbushcraft.com

[mkypenturner]

i reckin texx is right having the dowel finish at the cut on top not the whole length

[Allen Neighbors]

and don't forget to put your finger over the hole in the far end...

[orificiam]

Hello Brandon =Texx is right the dowell should stop just before the hole and the hole in the whistle does not go all the way. have a look at this. Sorry about the poor quality of the photos.
Cheers Tony.

[Texian]

Never made a whistle, but Welcome to the forum Brandon.

[nalmo]

I've just tried making whistles myself this week. Wasn't sure of the geometry, but the first one worked a treat, the second one I shaved a bit more off the top of the dowel in the blowing end and it worked OK, but not as good as the first. I tried making the third one a bit bigger (larger bore and more shaved off the dowel), and it didn't work at all.

With the first one, I only shaved off about 15% from the top of the dowel, and the dowel stops at the start of the hole. The bore of the whistle was 8mm and about 50mm long. I think the angle and size of the sloping bit on the "far" side of the hole seems to be the critical feature. Cut away too much and the air just passes through the hole without a whistle; not enough cut away (= small hole) and the air might be going too fast to resonate in the bore.

[Baldone]

I have made similar whistlers with year 8s at school and theeir seemed to be a bit trial error to get best result. Eg varying length and angle of dowel. Dont have picture handy

[Sebastiaan56]

You actually dont have to trim the top off the dowel to get it to sound. Just bevel the end of the dowel be 1-2mm and cut a small slot with a file in the top of the inside where the dowel fits to make the windway. The slot should be the width of the fipple (the sharp bit) and the dowell should end about 1/2mm to the inside of the fipple window.

The optimum ratio for flutes and tin whistles is 1:30 bore to length. Variations on this will make it harder for the whistle to sound, so the fipple/windway arrangement needs to be reasonably accurate

[nalmo]

I knew there had to be a technical name for it.