Best unusual whistle material

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:18 am

Ivory seems to crack rather easily too. There were a huge number of German flutes made with ivory heads and wooden bodies, and it's hard to find any of those where the ivory head is not cracked.

GaryKelly · Post by **GaryKelly** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:23 am

Guess Unicorn Horn is out then?

amar · Post by **amar** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:25 am

how about finger/toe nails that are immensly thickened by a fungus? onychomycotic, so to speak.

ok, that was one of my gross moments.

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:26 am

Yup, it's prone to cracking, so not a good choice at all for something that's going to have a metal lined headjoint or tuning sleeve - gotta go old school, sockets and tenons all the way.

Loren

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:17 am

How about Narwhal ivory! But just not one ivory tusk but two from the same whale.

Inuit hits jackpot: 18-year-old kills rare whale to harvest valuable tusks

http://www.canada.com/windsor/windsorst ... f3df492d20

Trying to find the picture with this story

MarkB

Jetboy · Post by **Jetboy** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 11:06 am

This is probably not a particularly serious poll but if you check out www.westonwhistles.co.uk, there is stainless steel Sop D and A about ready to come out of prototype.

Didn't see stainless steel on the list.

Rod Sprague · Post by **Rod Sprague** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 12:42 pm

In the past, I have seriously considered making whistles out of chemical vapor deposition diamond. I’ve even posted my idea on this forum. Diamond is deposited as a gradually growing layer in a process completely within the abilities of an amateur mad scientist such as myself; http://www.ornl.gov/sci/lsm/projects_su ... inear.html http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/pt/diamond/end.htm http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/pt/diamond/pdf/rscreview.pdf.

Also, my guardian spirit is Sehlat, “a teddy-bear with 6 inch fangs”. Sehlats are sometimes kept as pets by Vulcans and are rather protective of others. If you hurt any sehlats trying to make a whistle with its fangs, you will have me to deal with.

Rod

Daryl · Post by **Daryl** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:26 pm

VDD (diamond) would be something, and amber would be totally cool.

I'm surprised nobody's suggested Kryptonite, but I guess that does lead to a dilemma: red or green? How to choose if one is not Superman?

.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:40 pm

Wombat wrote:Nobody's suggested hashish yet. I'm puzzled.

Perhaps the urge to light it is an issue. The tuning would suffer as the whistle shortens, and blowing into it would waste the smoke.

How about radium? You could find your whistle in the dark.

Darwin · Post by **Darwin** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 3:14 pm

Although ivory cracks rather easily, fossilized ivory doesn't seem to. I have fossil walrus ivory bridge pins on my D-35.

I don't know how large the available chunks are, but John Mickelson, the Fossil Ivory King, probably knows: http://www.fossilivory.com/

(Maybe the original ivory cracked before fossilizing, and all that's left are pieces large enough for bridge pins and such.)

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 4:31 pm

Speaking of fossiles, howzabout petrified wood?

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:18 pm

amar wrote:how about finger/toe nails that are immensly thickened by a fungus? onychomycotic, so to speak.
ok, that was one of my gross moments.

Take it from someone who makes a living from onychomycosis: you don't want a toenail whistle!!

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:20 pm

Loren wrote:Legal Ivory (from both Mammoths and Elephants) is available in sufficient qantities to make whistles from, it's just extremely expensive and hard to come by. We make (elephant) Ivory instruments now and then, and they do sound excellent, although I wouldn't say the sound is "better" than wood.
Loren

I can vouch for that-- I had the pleasure of trying a VonHuene ivory recorder some years ago at their shop, and it was a thing of rare beauty.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:26 pm

Wombat wrote:Nobody's suggested hashish yet. I'm puzzled.

It would be illegal. Besides, it wouldn't work as a whistle material, either.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:31 pm

TelegramSam wrote:Speaking of fossiles, howzabout petrified wood?

Odd this should be brought up. I dreamed, last night, that I was standing on a petrified tree stump.

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Best unusual whistle material

Which unusual material would you like best for a whistle?