Looks like another chanter out of the Ginsberg shop, but this time stamped Leo Rowsome Dublin??? And made out of mahogany???

djm

djm - you suggesting it's not made by LR?

BTW:



Indonesia I understand, but Malaya?

It's a real Rowsome.

PD.

No, asking the question. The wording doesn't say it was actually made by Rowsome, just that it is stamped so (sounds a bit dodgy when worded that way).

I am more curious about using mahogany. This wood is resistant to rot, but is leaky as all hell. Is anyone familiar with this chanter? It must have been sealed with something, perhaps French polish or something like that?

djm

That looks like one of Leo's greenheart chanters. Tommy Martin has one, I had one for a while.

No, the wording may not be Booker prize winning but the chanter just happens to be STAMPED in huge fuggin bleehin lehers
LEO ROWSOME DUBLIN


It'd be fair to say that Leo (not Liam) made it. Leo made a few of those style chanters in the early 1940's during the war when he couldn't get supplies of african hard woods.

t

Apart from it bearing Rowsome's name, are these Greenheart chanters comparable to his other work?

by the way, "greenheart" does not equal "mahogany"

I grant you that there may be someone out there selling greenheart and calling it mahogany, or vice-versa, but the stuff usually called greenheart is not even distantly related to the true mahoganies.

I have seen credible reports that the names greenheart and lignum vitae may have been used interchangeably at one time. I know that Leo Roiwsome used lignum vitae (Guaicum Officinalis/ Guiacum Sanctum) for chanters on occasion. Unlike modern "mahogany", it's very dense, hard, and non-porous. Apparently you can't tell the different guaicum species apart even under microscopic examination, so it could be any guiacum. (Guiacum Officinalis is sometimes called Palo Santo in Spanish, but the name "palo santo" can refer to other timbers as well.)

Greenheart can also refer to Chlorocardium rodiei . Like Lignum Vitae, it was used in shipbuilding, so it makes sense that it might have been available in Dublin in the 1940's and '50's.

Bill

Greenheart used to be used to make fishing rods too.

In fact, I know one rodbuilder who still uses the material for that purpose on occasion.

B

I had read reports somewhere that Leo had gotten hold of greenheart that was used to build docks.

djm

Sean Folsom's set is executed in Cuban Mahogany and the only set of Irish pipes in that wood that I know of.

As far as greenheart, Leo Rowsome, as well as Matt Kiernan, used it. I'd guess that Dan Dowd used it too. I believe Robbie Hughes got a nice bunch of greenheart or boxwood from an old dock - 100+ years old.

But huge in the tradition of pipemaking is trying out different woods. People bring in all types wondering if the pipemaker could make use of this, that, and the other. Sometimes it is for themselves. Many prototypes are generated that way as it is too expensive to experiment in ebony, for instance.

20 hours left - still at approx. STG400.

patience my young paduwan, the force is strong it is.

Sold GBP 1,070.00
(Approximately US $1,930.39)