What is this heresy? The famous blue tack tweak is worthless? All the time I have spend carefully prodding tiny balls of blue adhesive on the end of a dowel down long tubes is for naught?
And what about all you professional tweakers out there? Is this a flimflam? Are we about to have an international scandal?
Just what we need in an election year!
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Well, I do have a bit of scientific evidence to share. I've noticed that a blue tack tweak sometimes removes the top one or two notes in the third octave. (Not that I miss them.) If it affects one end of the range, maybe it affects the bell note at the other end.
All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out. -- Mark Twain
If blue tac is not liked. Try the yellow or white.
The yellow can be found at Wally world, and the white is at Hobby Lobby.
Hobby lobby is closed on Sunday.
swizzlestick wrote:Very cool, Tommy. Did you carve that out or reform the plastic?
I used small files to remove the plastic. I have two sets of the same files.
One set is left like I bought it for pushing to cut. The other I removed the handles, and hold them by the tip to pull cut.
Tommy wrote:Or try enlarging, and tapering the windway.
Very interesting. What are the effects you find that can come about from such a tweak?
The fipple is a Gen Bb and the taper gives a more focused air stream at the end. This makes playing with a little less breath and a more stable tone. I made a D tube for it from 19/32''K&S tubing, and it will maintain picth soft or loud. If you have a Mellow D tube and Gen Bb fipple you can put some teflon tape on the Mellow d tube and play it with the Gen Bb fipple.
This can also be done with a C tube. But trying to make a key of A whistle with a Gen Bb fipple did not play to well in the bottom notes. And of course it works well on the Gen Bb tone tube also. I think a D tube and Gen Bb fipple would do ok at a session.
Last edited by Tommy on Sun Nov 05, 2006 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
swizzlestick wrote:Very cool, Tommy. Did you carve that out or reform the plastic?
I used small files to remove the plastic. I have two sets of the same files.
One set is left like I bought it for pushing to cut. The other I removed the handles, and hold them by the tip to pull cut.
Did you do anything specific to protect the soundblade while moving the file back and forth? Also, was it lots of trial and error to get it to sound un-trainwhistle-like, or did it sound good through the whole process?
swizzlestick wrote:Very cool, Tommy. Did you carve that out or reform the plastic?
I used small files to remove the plastic. I have two sets of the same files.
One set is left like I bought it for pushing to cut. The other I removed the handles, and hold them by the tip to pull cut.
Did you do anything specific to protect the soundblade while moving the file back and forth? Also, was it lots of trial and error to get it to sound un-trainwhistle-like, or did it sound good through the whole process?
I did not file in deep enough to reach the windway exit. That needs to remain the same except for putting a very slight bevel on the end. I reach through the tube end to make the bevel. It does not matter if I hit the blade because I make and install a new blade. It just kept improving the more I removed plastic, and I stopped when I got to the outside edge.
It does not sound like a train whistle. lol lol when I think of a train whistle I think of one that plays more than one note at the same time. Oh, and to stay with this thread I did fill the cavity under the windway with good results.
No one seems to have mentioned the main effect of filling in the space under the wind way, which is to sharpen the second octave relative to the first. This is a real phenomenon and with D generation heads and makes them easier to play in tune.
I just got my first Feadog. I think it plays just fine - no blu-tac required - but its intonation is not quite perfected. Strangely enough, when I swap its headpiece with that of an Oak, the tuning becomes spot-on.
John S,
I already pulled out all the blu-tac that I installed, but if what you say is correct about it sharpening the sencong octave, I might have to try it again. The Megs (with their conical bores that are supposed to fix the problem) are all way too sharp in the second octave.
For what it's worth I bought a Gen Bb and it was AWFUL. Struggled getting the second octave without huge amounts of air and much hissing. Resorted to the cleaning up of extra plastic and the blu-tac insertion and it's now one of my favourites!! So much better.
Not sure what did it from the above but don't want to find out just in case I upset it.
A success story and tru believer of the blu-tac remedy!
or what it's worth I bought a Gen Bb and it was AWFUL. Struggled getting the second octave without huge amounts of air and much hissing. Resorted to the cleaning up of extra plastic and the blu-tac insertion and it's now one of my favourites!! So much better.
That's just what I saw with my Bb. Removing the extra plastic helped, but the blue tac really seemed to help the second octave. Now it's my favorite Generation and my second favorite Bb. (The other is a Hoover PVC, so it's a very different animal.)
All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out. -- Mark Twain
twistedfingers wrote:
A success story and tru believer of the blu-tac remedy!
Yeah, at the risk of belaboring an already belabored subject, my tweakings have always either killed the whistle or drastically improved it. I've yet to experience one that didn't change much.
My standard tweak is:
- Clean out the windway
- Fill the cavity w/"fun tac"
- (on occasion) Laminate over the labium with with a bit of plastic and superglue
That third activity killed the first two whistles, but did wonders for mediocre Clare and Walton's Mello-D whistles that I had. They get played lots now.
Charlie Gravel
“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde
twistedfingers wrote:For what it's worth I bought a Gen Bb and it was AWFUL. Struggled getting the second octave without huge amounts of air and much hissing. Resorted to the cleaning up of extra plastic and the blu-tac insertion and it's now one of my favourites!! So much better.
Not sure what did it from the above but don't want to find out just in case I upset it.
A success story and tru believer of the blu-tac remedy!
I wonder why our experiences are different. Simply putting blu-tac in the cavity under the windway and making sure that there weren't any plastic bits did nothing to solve the hissing problem on my Gen Bb, and Yavuz reports a similar experience.
