Ideal for xmas

[bcullen]

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/UILLEANN-PIP ... :Z2QAAOSwX


Might be a good time to pass on a yule tide greeting The bellows look like bee hive smokers

Sad bag

Bryan

[reedmasters]

Saw that. Chanter looks like a GHB one sans sole.

[Calum]

Bagpipes Galore of Edinburgh.

They work, after a fashion. Well enough to teach you the value of a decent instrument.

[pancelticpiper]

A few years ago at the NAMM Show (a huge music industry trade show) Bagpipes Galore had a booth where I tried one of these uilleann practice sets.

My impression was that the guys were Scottish GHB players/makers who didn't have much idea as to how uilleann pipes were supposed to work.

The chanter I tried hardly played, it was awful.

There was another booth there at NAMM, of one of those Pakistani makers. They had sheesham-wood uilleann chanters with shaved-down Scottish plastic practice-chanter reeds that played fairly well, playing both octaves in tune.

I thought "what if..." and I borrowed one of the Pakistani plastic reeds and took it over to the Bagpipes Galore booth and stuck it in their plastic uilleann chanter. Guess what? The thing played fairly well, giving both octave more or less in tune, a decent Bottom D, Back D, C natural, in other words a workable rudimentary practice set.

The Bagpipes Galore guys were enthusiastic. As I recall one of them went over to the Pakistani booth to have a chat.

As an aside, the Pakistani sheesham-wood chanters played well except for an extremely unstable Back D. I got permission to borrow one of the chanters, and at home I shoved a drill in there and enlarged the throat, which solved the Back D issue.

The next day I went back to NAMM, demonstrated the chanter, and told them what ID to ream the throat to. They seemed very pleased and said they would ream out their chanters like that in the future- I don't know if they did.

PS Bryan I see we share a taste in hats.

[bcullen]

Yeah I was trying for the rugged Sean Connery look
Why don't the Pakistan makers employ someone like yourself to set up some decent bore techniques/ quality control etc

Bryan

[pancelticpiper]

Not me! I know next to nothing about pipemaking or reedmaking.

The thing about enlarging the throat was just an educated guess, because my chanter (David Quinn c1978) has an unusually stable Back D and experts have told me that it's because my chanter has a slightly larger-than-average throat.

The situation with those Pakistani makers, and the Bagpipes Galore people was that they were making uilleann chanters without knowing how they were supposed to work. You need somebody that actually plays, to test them.

About those Pakistani uilleann reeds, I'm reminded of the saying "there are no good reeds; you learn to make the best out of the bad ones". It's a fairly time- and money-efficient way to explore reed adjustment, seems to me.

[bcullen]

The cheap reeds: I have opened one up sanded the sides to make less of a boat shape cleaned and used a 70mm block on the
heads and made sure both sides were the same thickness used a brass saddle 52mm long OD 4.75, 1.6 eye and about a 1/3 tapered Overall length 82 when trimmed about 81 The bridle they use is far to thick so I used thinner copper.

Result: a very playable reed with plenty of room for more adjustments

I have just made a Blue Gum chanter to the Rowsome specks. Maybe the Blue Gum 100+ years old and a beautiful honey colour is a first. It has a mid range sound not to mellow

I will run it in (5.000ks) and then try and be objective about the sound
Bryan

[irishmuse]

The pipes went for 53 quid apparently, 2 bidders. BTW Bryan, what chance some pictures of your chanter? Sounds like a beaut!