Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

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an seanduine
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by an seanduine »

Yes, he did spend a beastly long time in Hospital. I understand he is better now.

Bob
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by irishmuse »

Glad to hear the better news on Brian Howard's health. I have resolved however not to bother him on this issue anyway. My sister has taken delivery of the B blank. I also secured a couple in D to play with. Waiting on their arrival before organising shipping, so I have nothing more to add at the minute re measurements etc. I'd still be interested in how others are getting on though, forewarned being forearmed and all that.
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by Beirneach »

Hi, I'm new on this site, so first of all hello everyone. I also bought one of these chanters has anyone had any luck with the hole positioning? I haven't tried as yet but I want to be careful I don't mess it up. Is there anyone on the forum that owns a Brian Howard B Chanter?
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by irishmuse »

HI Beirneach.
As the OP on this topic let me be first to welcome you to the forum.
It took me a while to get my chanter over to Oz. To date I have only done cosmetic stuff with it on the lathe (tidied up the top boxwood mount and did the combing to hold the thread to fit the windcap). I got a working reed into it just yesterday ( I was not tooled up to make reeds for a narrow bore chanter, had to order more cane from NPU in Ireland and am not greatly skilled in that area anyway, so lots scrapped before that one).
I now have a pretty solid B as a reference bell note and have marked the blank up for drilling the holes using the Kenna measurements I gave before from the SRS website. I am still trepidatious about drilling them though so had been egging myself on to start this week.
Maybe serendipitous you resurrected this thread, in case anyone else who got one is further on than I am and wants to share. It would steady my hand on the drill press knowing another had boldly gone before. Failing that, I had intended to update on my own efforts but procrastination thief of time and all that. Anyway hope the above helps in some way
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by Tunborough »

If you want a second opinion, you could use this program to model the chanter before you drill the holes: https://github.com/edwardkort/WWIDesigner. Experience with a real chanter would be the best, but if you don't have that, WIDesigner might at least give you a bit more confidence in the Kenna measurements without having to remove any real wood. I could give you a hand with building the model if you e-mail me measurements of the chanter.
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by Beirneach »

Thanks for the reply and the welcome to the site, let me know how you get on with the drilling. I noticed that the Kenna chanter is a good 5mm longer than the Howard chanter blank. Will the hole positions still work in this case? The bore on Howard chanter blank measures around 10.20mm at the bell compared to 11.5 on the Kenna chanter. That said the Kenna chanter seems to have an ivory extension (10mm long) added to the bell. Are you planning to extend the Howard chanter?

I came across references to 440mm long Coyne chanters in the National Museum of Ireland:

http://seanreidsociety.org/index.html?c ... 9486185j23

This article by John Hughes might be also useful when it comes to making a reed. It also gives the measurements of the Hanna Coyne chanter which would be interesting to compare to the data on the NPU website:

http://www.seanreidsociety.org/SRSJ1/Re ... 0reeds.PDF
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by irishmuse »

Me again Beirneach. An apology and correction first. I re-measured the layout markings on my chanter blank and realised I had gone with the Coyne measurements I gave and not the Kenna. Sorry if that misled. There was also someone on the forum who didn't go down the DIY path and had used Coyne measurements successfully on one of these blanks (IIRC on the topic of "pin-mounted keys" if you want to do a search).
Richard Evans noted in his earlier reply that the blanks were 440 and shorter than plans he had seen for a B chanter (cf the Coyne /Hannan drawings by Chris Coe on the NPU site). My blank is also 440mm long and about 10.2mm at the bell. Thanks for the link to the John Hughes article. I had had a look at it before while doing my due diligence research but eventually went with the dimensions in Dave Hegarty's guide ( again courtesy NPU) where he describes a typical "Coyne reed" identified by Alain Froment.
I hadn't planned to extend the chanter. Mine came with a nicely-turned and fitted brass ferrule which I have tried to replicate in the ornamentation of the windcap I am in the process of making. Essentially I had planned to drill out all the holes to the minimum size and enlarge them one by one till I had the thing in tune. That will be at the end of the process for me. I also intend to take Tunborough up on his kind offer before i put a drillbit through anything. As my woodturning guru says "measure twice, cut once Grasshopper".
Tunborough wrote: I could give you a hand with building the model if you e-mail me measurements of the chanter.
Thanks for your kind offer. What measurements would be needed?
Cheers
Gerry
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by Tunborough »

irishmuse wrote:What measurements would be needed?
The tough part would be measurements of the interior bore profile of the chanter. I don't know how well equipped you are to make those measurements. If need be, we could start off by assuming it is a simple cone, and measure the diameters at either end, and the length in between. The outer bore diameter only matters around the toneholes, so we know how deep the holes are, and at the bottom end of the chanter for the size of the bottom flange.

For the reed, WIDesigner needs measurements of how the reed performs, rather than physical dimensions. For starters, what playing frequencies do you get from the reed in the chanter with no toneholes, in both the first and second register? For more data points, you have a couple of options:

- If you have a finished chanter that you know the interior bore profile of, you could measure playing frequencies for the reed in that chanter. It doesn't have to be in tune, we just need to know what the playing frequencies are.

- If you can make a suitable adaptor from cork or wood, you could plug the reed into various lengths of 1/2" PVC water pipe, and measure the playing frequencies of that, first and second registers if you can manage. The water pipe has the advantage of a known interior bore profile. Several lengths, anywhere between 15 and 45 cm, would be useful.

Finally, I'd want the Coyne tonehole measurements that you're planning to use, to see what WIDesigner thinks of them.

Does this sound feasible?
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by irishmuse »

Thanks again Tunborough. I did have a look at the WWIDesigner link you provided and watched some of the "How to" Videos there, but as a Maths and Physics numpty was out of my depth again pretty quickly. I'll make what measurements I can with the resources I have and email you.
Cheers
Gerry
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by m coulter »

Drilling your holes undersized does make sense in this case but just be aware that there are times when note hole size can have the opposite effect to what you may expect. As explained by Bill Haneman over on the other forum:

http://uilleannforum.com/forums/viewtop ... bie#p11200
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by irishmuse »

Thanks for the link m.coulter, forewarned always forearmed. Hi Tunborough. I just shot you off an email with measurements. Thanks again.
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by Tunborough »

E-mail received and replied to, with a request for more details. I've started to build the chanter model.
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by Beirneach »

[Thread revival. - Mod]

Hi I was wondering had you any luck with drilling the B chanter from ebay? And if so would you be able to share your results?
irishmuse wrote:Me again Beirneach. An apology and correction first. I re-measured the layout markings on my chanter blank and realised I had gone with the Coyne measurements I gave and not the Kenna. Sorry if that misled. There was also someone on the forum who didn't go down the DIY path and had used Coyne measurements successfully on one of these blanks (IIRC on the topic of "pin-mounted keys" if you want to do a search).
Richard Evans noted in his earlier reply that the blanks were 440 and shorter than plans he had seen for a B chanter (cf the Coyne /Hannan drawings by Chris Coe on the NPU site). My blank is also 440mm long and about 10.2mm at the bell. Thanks for the link to the John Hughes article. I had had a look at it before while doing my due diligence research but eventually went with the dimensions in Dave Hegarty's guide ( again courtesy NPU) where he describes a typical "Coyne reed" identified by Alain Froment.
I hadn't planned to extend the chanter. Mine came with a nicely-turned and fitted brass ferrule which I have tried to replicate in the ornamentation of the windcap I am in the process of making. Essentially I had planned to drill out all the holes to the minimum size and enlarge them one by one till I had the thing in tune. That will be at the end of the process for me. I also intend to take Tunborough up on his kind offer before i put a drillbit through anything. As my woodturning guru says "measure twice, cut once Grasshopper".
Tunborough wrote: I could give you a hand with building the model if you e-mail me measurements of the chanter.
Thanks for your kind offer. What measurements would be needed?
Cheers
Gerry
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by irishmuse »

[quote][/quote]
HI Beirnach. Short answer is I wimped out. Tunborough and I exchanged emails on modelling the hole placements but couldn't do it in the end. I practised on dowel in the drill press but was unhappy with the centreing of the holes. Then I tried building a jig for the press and then using my woodlathe. Neither worked satisfactorily. So I moved on to the D chanters which needed mounts, a C#key and filling of holes which had been drilled for other key placement (beyond my skills).

So the B blank is still undrilled but hole placements marked up. The lines show the different Coyne/Kenna placements I listed before. I still intend to give it a go at some point.A few people posted on the thread who also had these B blanks, I don't know if anyone took the plunge on drilling them. If I do get a result, I'll post it.
Cheers, Gerry
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Re: Unfinished Howard chanters in b off Ebay UK

Post by Beirneach »

Hi Gerry,

Thanks for the reply. Did you use the Coyne measurements or did you recieve other measurements via your email. If so I was wondering could you share the new measurements for hole positioning?

Thanks,

Dónall
irishmuse wrote:
HI Beirnach. Short answer is I wimped out. Tunborough and I exchanged emails on modelling the hole placements but couldn't do it in the end. I practised on dowel in the drill press but was unhappy with the centreing of the holes. Then I tried building a jig for the press and then using my woodlathe. Neither worked satisfactorily. So I moved on to the D chanters which needed mounts, a C#key and filling of holes which had been drilled for other key placement (beyond my skills).

So the B blank is still undrilled but hole placements marked up. The lines show the different Coyne/Kenna placements I listed before. I still intend to give it a go at some point.A few people posted on the thread who also had these B blanks, I don't know if anyone took the plunge on drilling them. If I do get a result, I'll post it.
Cheers, Gerry
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