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Just on a lark. Tried once before but with little luck. This time a little more organized.
3/4 inch sq by 4" blanks from scrap reclaimed hardwood.
Drill a hole 3/8" x 3-1/2 deep in one end.
Cut a notch 1" back and 5/16" deep from the open end, with a 45° back side.
Trim a 3/8" dowel 0.090" deep flat on one side for the "reed". It took a special table saw jig to do this consistently. Microadjusting the rip fence width allowed me to fine tune the reed size that worked most consistently. The dowel was a tiny bit oversized so I drilled the block with a lettered drill to get a good fit. And drilled the 6-7" block from both ends using a vertical drilling fence I posted in jigs once and the drill press. Holes met perfectly! Rip the block about halfway through. You will make about 4" on each pass.
Zero the calipers on the dowel diameter and then measure the flat depth (comes out negative, that's correct).
Cut the dowel about 1.25" long pieces and insert into open end; test blow, adjust back and forth to get whistle sound; usually the inner end is right at the vertical edge of the notch.
This is the hard part - although I cut them fairly precisely it took a lot of playing and sometimes trimming the notch a little deeper to get the whistles to work.
Mark the reed location depth, then remove and glue in place. Then trim the mouthpiece bevel 45°.
Ended up with 11 working whistles and one that never worked for some unknown reason.
PB230494.AVI me and whistle in action!
It was fun and challenging how to make the cuts consistently - made or used existing jigs I had. I was a little disappointed in how critical it was to make it work with a lot of fine tuning on each one until it worked. I was thinking I could just cut and assemble and they work, but it was not easy. I don't really understand why its so critical... and that bothers me a little.
But elating when they work!
3/4 inch sq by 4" blanks from scrap reclaimed hardwood.
Drill a hole 3/8" x 3-1/2 deep in one end.
Cut a notch 1" back and 5/16" deep from the open end, with a 45° back side.
Trim a 3/8" dowel 0.090" deep flat on one side for the "reed". It took a special table saw jig to do this consistently. Microadjusting the rip fence width allowed me to fine tune the reed size that worked most consistently. The dowel was a tiny bit oversized so I drilled the block with a lettered drill to get a good fit. And drilled the 6-7" block from both ends using a vertical drilling fence I posted in jigs once and the drill press. Holes met perfectly! Rip the block about halfway through. You will make about 4" on each pass.
Zero the calipers on the dowel diameter and then measure the flat depth (comes out negative, that's correct).
Cut the dowel about 1.25" long pieces and insert into open end; test blow, adjust back and forth to get whistle sound; usually the inner end is right at the vertical edge of the notch.
This is the hard part - although I cut them fairly precisely it took a lot of playing and sometimes trimming the notch a little deeper to get the whistles to work.
Mark the reed location depth, then remove and glue in place. Then trim the mouthpiece bevel 45°.
Ended up with 11 working whistles and one that never worked for some unknown reason.
PB230494.AVI me and whistle in action!
It was fun and challenging how to make the cuts consistently - made or used existing jigs I had. I was a little disappointed in how critical it was to make it work with a lot of fine tuning on each one until it worked. I was thinking I could just cut and assemble and they work, but it was not easy. I don't really understand why its so critical... and that bothers me a little.
But elating when they work!
Attached Files
Loring in Katy, TX USA
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