Okieinexile's Blog

By Bobby Neal Winters

In the end, it is about a journey of understanding: Understanding about nature, understanding about the world, understanding about myself.

And making lots and lots of sawdust.

It began with some whistles.  Some simple wooden whistles.  Whistles that I could easily turn out on my simple lathe in a short amount of time. They were obnoxiously loud and shrill.  I gave them away to children so they could torture their parents.

Then a question came to my mind: Could I make a flute?  A flute is just a whistle with holes in it.  I can still hear me telling myself that.

In my own defense, let me say that, at that time, I’d never even looked seriously at a picture of a flute, nevermind held one. I was blissfully ignorant of the incredible–INCREDIBLE–variety of flutes and the huge amount of variation within each of the particular types.

I am humbled.  And rightly so.

But once my teeth are firmly sunk into a thing, they are not easily removed from it. (I just got a flash of one of those old cartoons where a set of false teeth are left sunk into something, but their toothless owner is forced to slink away. Hmm.)

I’ve spent a good deal of time over the last six months trying to make a recorder.  That goal is still there, but it’s been put on the back burner. The various things I’ve tried have not really worked, and I have no understanding why.  

And–to me–the understanding why is the thing.

To continue, I need some success and I found that success by switching–for the time being–to the Penny Whistle.  I’d been calling them Irish whistles for a while in preference to calling them tin whistles because they aren’t made out of tin.  But then, as I am not Irish, the phrase Irish whistle might be taken to be racist, so I will try out “penny whistle.”

My success came from a site I found on the internet put up by a fellow named Guido Gonzolo who shows how to make low-tech penny whistles using PVC pipe.

This appealed to me a great deal because I’ve used PVC pipe to make a potato cannon or two in my time. The idea of using PVC to make an instrument of music instead of an instrument of destruction was quite delightful.

I followed the directions given at that site, and I was rewarded with a nice penny whistle made out of PVC.

This wasn’t enough.  I am trying to understand, you see.  PVC was chosen as a material because it’s inexpensive, widely available, and easy to work with.  That easy to work with is the point to concentrate on.

Penny whistles (aka tin whistles) are made out of metal. Cheap metal, hence the word “tin.” The question came to me, what can I change in the design and still have a musical instrument?

As I had been spending some time in the Home Despot[sic] plumbing aisle, I’d seen their copper tubing. It is not as cheap as PVC, but I obtained a small quantity so that I could experiment with it.

It’s not as easy to work with as the PVC.  The issue is drilling the holes. You can just use a drill to make holes in PVC. To drill holes in copper pipe, you are better off with a drill press.

I have a drill press.

So, in short order, I made a penny whistle from half-inch copper tubing using our good man Guido’s design.  Its sound is superior to that of PVC.

Then I asked myself whether there might be another material that would be cheaper than copper tubing.  At that point my eye landed on a length of electrical wire conduit that I had leftover from another project that was laying around in my shop.  Following the same plan, I turned it into a penny whistle.

I was very pleased to discover that it sounded even better than the copper one.

I mentioned this to a friend who was able to connect me with some additional electrical conduit that he had access to. Thank you.

In the meantime, I decided I wanted to make some larger penny whistles with a lower register, in particular, a whistle in the key of F.  At that point, I was out watering my paw paws and saw a length of top rail that had been leftover from putting in my chain link fence more than twenty years ago.

It is now in the process of becoming a penny whistle as a part of its own journey.

I’ve left out a lot of stuff here. Some things I’ve done with wood that I might write about later.  Some failures with PVC that weren’t particularly informative.

But the journey continues, and I plan to continue with recorders, but Christmas is just around the corner and I have some presents to make.

Bobby Winters grew up near Harden City, Oklahoma.  He teaches mathematics and computer science, does woodworking, and blogs at okieinexile.com. He invites you to visit the blog and to subscribe.