michael burke pennywhistle company

• Shop
• Illinois

All instruments are hand-made, hand-tuned, and hand-voiced to provide customers with the finest instruments obtainable at any price.

All whistles feature perturbed cylindrical bores. Pertubations in the bore are expansions and contractions placed in the bore to effect fine tuning of specific notes or groups of notes. The result is an instrument that is not only precisely tuned across the two octaves, but also makes smooth transitions between octaves while having strong and stable low notes.

My advanced acoustical design feature o’ring slides, delrin lined windways, and bore perturbations to insure perfect intonation, octave tuning. tone, responsive action, and transient response is insured by design in conjunction with much time spent on each whistle using traditional hand voicing.

Composite Whistles

My composite whistles are made from black bakelite composite, a kind of synthetic wood made from wood fiber thermoset with bakelite resin. This gives a mellow woody sound to my composite whistles without the concerns for cracking from humidity and moisture changes in wood instruments. Composite whistle heads are made of pure black delrin made to the exacting tolerances used in my metal whistles and each whistle gets the same hand craftsmanship that goes into every Burke whistle.

Brass Whistles

My brass whistles are made from lead free alloy #260 and the whistle heads feature precision machined delrin lined curved windways, And black delrin tipped mouthpieces.

Aluminum Whistles

My aluminum whistles are made from 6061-T6 aircraft aluminum alloy and feature delrin lined windways, and black delrin tipped heads for comfort and to eliminate any concerns about metal in your mouth. The slides are precision machined and have long lasting Viton rubber o’rings in them for a perfect acoustic seal and hydraulic smooth action.

Warranty

All Burke Whistles have a 30-day money-back guarantee and a one-year limited warranty. Within the first 30 days, you may return your whistle for a full refund less the shipping charges. For the first year, I will repair or replace your whistle (my choice) at no charge including return postage for failures relating to product defects not including traumatic destruction or abuse. It is customary that I replace any broken composite parts within this period for most causes however. After one year, I will continue to provide repair services at a nominal charge for repairs and shipping.