How do you prevent whistle inserts from catoing inside the header?

[dangerousamateur]

Hello everyone,

 

when you press whistle inserts, do you protect the whistle fuel with a layer of BP or something, or do you feel/know that this is not necessary?

[dagabu]

There is no need to coat or retard the whistle in any way, it takes a significant pressure spike to CATO a tube and the flat end of whistle does not create the pressures needed to pop the tube. Remember to leave an empty space at the end of the tube so that the whistle has a "sounding" chamber allowing it to oscillate as it flies through the air.

 

I use two strands of black match bent in half and push them down into the chamber to touch the whistle, bend the ends over the tube and tie them off with a clove hitch. This way, the gasses from the break are sure to find something flammable and since the whistle is down a tube, the hot gasses may not be able to push the air out of the way reliably to light the whistle upon the break phase.

 

-dag

[pyrojig]

Geat point Dag>!

I too use the same method to ignite the whistle inserts . It is a extra insurance of ignition. I have seen commercial product with just a priming of nc/bp and a final dusting of granular bp. these "mostly " ignite. I still find many of these un-ignited after a show, during cleanup. I have almost had 100% ignition with the method mentioned above . BM is thirsty stuff for fire.

[dangerousamateur]

Do you think blackmatch is a must? Mine unfortunately does not work so reliable yet.

[Mumbles]

Everyone I'm familiar with use blackmatch to ensure ignition of whistle inserts. Blackmatch is really one of those critical and essential items to have. There was a nice thread here within the last few weeks about someone's evolution to high quality blackmatch you may want to look into for pointers.

 

The majority of people I've seen make whistle inserts tend to use a nosing, similar to a spolette.

[taiwanluthiers]

Black match isn't hard to make, and it's essential for passfires. Visco doesn't work so well for this because the lacquer coating prevents it from taking fire to the side. First ensure you use a suitable charcoal, it makes a big difference. I made black match using bbq lump charcoal that is obviously not suitable, and the match would hangfire and go out when placed on a cold surface such as concrete. Then I used willow charcoal and the match is much more reliable, wouldn't go out from being placed on concrete, etc. Then I used paulownia charcoal and the thing burns almost as fast as fast visco (I don't know how fast that is but it burns through 6" in about 6 seconds).

 

Secondly make sure you get the slurry all the way into the center of the thread so that when you cut one, the center should not be white. You need to take the thread and soak it in the slurry, and knead it until the thread "drinks up" the slurry. Alternatively for faster production have several smaller threads converge in the slurry bath, then the threads are twisted together locking the slurry in the center. You want the center to be saturated with powder so that you won't have a match that is too fragile and liable to hang fire.

Edited September 18, 2012 by taiwanluthiers

[dagabu]

Do you think blackmatch is a must? Mine unfortunately does not work so reliable yet.

 

Yes, I think it is...

 

-dag

[dan999ification]

my willow and newspaper bm burn one second an inch with lots of sparks, suprisingly the newspaper is faster as qm probably because it is less dense and consumes faster similar to algencos paulownia qm it hardly scorches the string, the willow cuts it up a bit and has smouldering fallout.

If your bm/qm is not reliable you could try dusting it in a trough of bp fines/meal d it will help the fire move faster as the surface area is greater, extra work but for the fastest most reliable when you cant make suitable qm yet is attractive.

This depends on the quality of the bp of course it should be as fast as you can make it, even my pestle and mortar bp made usable qm but it has improved since, i want it lift quality or better burst quality.

 

Dan.