Historic Nose Flutes - Couchois' Whistle: Template

Some historic nose flutes have totally disappeared or haven't even been produced or commercialized. Our goal, here, is to reconstruct them, as close as possible to the original, with the help of the patent drawings and descriptions.


Couchois' Whistle: Drawing a template


Oct. 21, 1899, Garrett John Couchois filed a Design patent for a "Whistle". The very elegant shape is registered one monyh later, on 21st of November. Indeed, it is a nose flute, based on the same principle that the Nasalette, but with some improvements: the mouth tube has become circular, which is more ergonomic than a rectangular section, and the nose hood has been replaced by a simple nose shield.



Before building a template for the replica, I analysed the drawings and, as with the Nasalette patent, found some inconsistencies in the design:

- A. The base of the airway does not correspond on side and front views. Indeed, the mouth hole looks very high on the front view.

- B. The largest part of the nose shield is not as the same height on both views.

- C. The nose shield width does not match on front and top views.



However, these are not "fatal errors" and it is easy to correct them to reach a certain consistency.
Next step was to define the dimensions. I measured the distance between the middle of my open mouth and my nostrils, and was able to evaluate the total height of the Couchois' whistle to 7 cm. Then, it was easy to deduce the other dimensions.

On the original front view, the mouth hole was really too tall, so I chose to used its dimensions on the side view, and I corrected the other mistakes.



Then, as I did for the Nasalette, I designed many templates on cardboard until I reached the perfect one (the nose shield looks different on the first picture, but it is just a matter of folding and view angle). And the cardboard model worked as an instrument!



And I was then able to draw the template:



You can download the PDF full size template here.


To be continued!


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On the same topic :

- Historic Nose Flutes - The Nasalette: Template
- Historic Nose Flutes - The Nasalette: Building
- Historic Nose Flutes - The Nasalette: Review
- Historic Nose Flutes - Couchois' Whistle: Template
- Historic Nose Flutes - Couchois' Whistle: Building
- Historic Nose Flutes - Couchois' Whistle: Review
- Historic Nose Flutes - Grierson's Whistle: Template
- Historic Nose Flutes - Grierson's Whistle: Building
- Historic Nose Flutes - Grierson's Whistle: Review

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