Doogie wrote:The only issue I've found in my research over the years and talking to my bagpipe customers who play whistles is the issues with wood movements that we also see in bagpipes with regard to shrinkage that mostly affects the upper narrow bores or throats in bagpipes. Seasoned wood is a must but even the most seasoned wood moves.
What do you guys think about this? Plastic heads versus wooden heads and issues with either.
Seth, I have made whistle out of wood, PVC, CPVC, ABS, Brass, Aluminum, Delrin/Acetal and resin composites - alone or in various combinations. All of these materials will work in a whistle. Each material has its own merits. And each material presents its own issues be they workability, glue-ability, thermal conductivity, weight, corrosion/oxidation, shrinking/swelling, etc., etc.. We use what works best for us as makers and for those that play them.
The more dense woods available will work out just fine. They've been the material of choice in woodwinds (How did we come to call them by that name?) for centuries. Well seasoned wood will last a long time. I have several middle-aged wooden whistles which are just as right as they were when first delivered. Other wooden whistles I have purchased have not fared as well, but they are usually repairable.
One of the things many of us do though is to machine the dimensions of the wood down to rather thin walled tubes. That can leave the timber whistles vulnerable in places, especially if it is not well cared for by the player. Design can be matter of aesthetic fashion I think. Owning largely to the profile of the ubiquitous brass whistles, players want a lithe instrument. Few whistle players want to play something that looks in any way like a recorder. Heaven forbid! But there is a lot of good sense in the design of wood recorders - Baroque or modern designs. But then again ABS is the most common recorder material in use these days. So what have we learned?
There are a lot of tactics you can employ to guard against the issues which give wood a bad rap. It's not magic. It's woodworking and a little engineering. Some makers will use a Delrin head/components with a wood body. Everybody thinks through the issues and solutions in their own way.
I happen to like wood. It's what I want to see. It's what I want to hold in my hands. It's what I want most to bore and to turn. I am presently working with polymerizing woods. That shows a lot of promise. Recorder makers have impregnated wood with paraffin for many years. Polymerization is just a more modern take on that idea I suppose. YMMV.
And Delrin does work just fine.
Feadoggie
I've proven who I am so many times, the magnetic strips worn thin.
