Chiff and Fipple Forums

I got a Walton Mellow D in the mail this weekend, and while the lower octave is (as advertised) mellow and pleasant, the upper is hard to get to, and when accessed it's rough and shrieky.

I took off its fipple, cleaned out a sh*tload of plastic shavings, and stuffed a wad of sticky tack under the airway, but while that improved it some, the upper register is still pretty nasty. So I think I'm going to need to do something to the blade...

So, experienced tweakers, which way should I go to improve the upper octave -- I can't remember if I should sharpen it or dull it. Suggestions? What would you do if it were your whistle?

Noel

I have had the same problem with all my waltons, feadog, etc. I usually take a piece of very very fine "Automotive" wet application sand paper and cut a small strip to gently run over the blade to sharpen it. 99.9% of the time it solves my problem.

Hope this helps

Sounds like you need a bit of plastic and glue.
Look up the "guitar pick tweek".

I tried sharpening it, but that didn't do the trick. Went on to cut a rectangle of that stiff clear plasic packaging that they use to make small items more cumbersome to shoplift, stuck on top of the blade with a wad-let of sticky tack. Once I got it positioned right (needed to be much further up into the window than I'd expected), that did the trick quite well. Now it's a very nice whistle in both octaves. I used it exclusively for tonight's practice session.

vomitbunny wrote:Look up the "guitar pick tweek".

Just a little FYI: it needs to be tweak, not tweek (the quoted search brings up only this thread). And then searching on "guitar pick tweak" produces a long list of posts instructing one to look up the guitar pick tweak :roll: (recursion can be fun!) :roll:... but as I'd already absorbed the general idea from other tweaking threads, things worked out OK.

Can anyone suggest a specific brand of glue (available in the USA) that should work to bond plastic to plastic, something that dries slowly enough that one can get the bit of plastic positioned just right? It looks awfully unaesthetic with a ball of sticky tack mooshed under some transparent plastic.

Squidgirl.......love the handle there....an adhesive I use that works for many materials, but is especially good for plastic is: E6000 Industrial Strength Adhesive. This glue can be found in most craft shops...like Michaels, or fabric stores. It dries slowly, but is really strong when totally dry.

You may want to practice with something like Elmer's befor you commit with something permanant.

Gorilla Glue is a good option for something that takes a long time (hours)to dry, and is strong and waterproof when you're done. Just watch out for bubbles since it can expand out into open space a little bit and may require a touch of filing and sanding if it escapes from under your new blade.

You can also get slow-set epoxy, or if 2-3 minutes is long enough to get things set properly you can use the fast-set 5 minute epoxy.

You can also get Walton Mellow-D whistles at Riverton music shops in Salt Lake in case your tweaking doesn't all go as planned. No need to wait for mail order. They come with a booklet and CD, which bumps the cost up a bit to the neighborhood of $15.

You might also want to check the Walton to make sure the bell note is in tune relative to the rest of the notes since it's often sharp. If it is sharp, you can extend the body a bit with a small piece of pipe glued to the end. (I used copper pipe for mine)

One of the things that often causes problems is a blade that is too high compared to the floor of the windway. I always look at a group of whistles by sighting down the windway to see the blade in the windway. I look for one that has the blade near the very bottom of the windway. These seldom need any tweaking except removal of extraneous plastic bits I have seen a Feadog that I couldn't even see the blade in the windway.

Happy tweaking
Ron

squidgirl, your success with your Walton Mellow D led me to dare the same trick for mine, easily my worst whistle. Holy crap did it work! It now sounds sweeter than my "nickel" Generation in the upper octave, and indeed "mellower" in the lower, when before it was basically unplayable.

It's really a tiny difference in adjustment between perfection and a weak lower octave (window too small) and upper octave too breathy/squeaky (window too large, the way Walton shipped it). BTW, I used pretty thin plastic with mine, actually the plastic that my sticky-tack came packaged in. Now to flatten that bell note a smidge...

Edit: No, the Gen is better again now that I tried the same trick with it, with the lower octave a little more solid and less finicky, the upper less breathy.

So why don't these whistle makers try just a little harder? Surely they're not trying to save money on plastic by making the window too large?

I've found that on some whistles, depending on how good or bad they are out of the box, the blade can be pushed down into a better position. I'm not talking about the tip of the blade though, I'm talking about bending the whole ramp down with a little extra force. I use and small instrument screwdriver. Depending on how the whistle started out, it may or not be the best thing to do. But it does work. It's very quick and easy. I havn't gotten one to sound as good as ones I've glued on, but I've only tried it on a few.

Thanks, squidgirl(are you a Newfoundlander from the squid jigging grounds?) for bringing up this topic, I hava pile of old whistles that never played right, and this sounds like the trick! I have almost always tried to play them before I bought them, but I know this isn't always posssible, as I too have also bought them by mail-order. But playing them first is better than repairing them, if at all possible. Hielandman

Thanks, squidgirl(are you a Newfoundlander from the squid jigging grounds?) for bringing up this topic, I hava pile of old whistles that never played right, and this sounds like the trick! I have almost always tried to play them before I bought them, but I know this isn't always posssible, as I too have also bought them by mail-order. But playing them first is better than repairing them, if at all possible. Hielandman

hielandman wrote:squidgirl(are you a Newfoundlander from the squid jigging grounds?)

Nah, "squid" was just my enigmatic tag back long ago when I was an honor student by day and a graffitti-tagging punkette by night -- "squid" being an antiquated synonym for academic geek. It tagged quite nicely, with the tails of the 'q' and 'd' curving around to encircle the rest...