Hollow Stocks

glands · Post by **glands** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:55 pm

The Koehler and Quinn Beehive Cn set will undergo modification in that it will acquire a hollow stock in Castella Lemonwood....... same as the construction material for remainder of the wooden parts of the set. The current main stock is of solid maple and is on loan from its owner, Mr. Koehler. I am truly excited about the transition.

I'm curious as to how many of you play sets with hollow stocks. What are your thoughts and experiences? What are your own percieved advantages and disadvantages?

Patrick D'Arcy · Post by **Patrick D'Arcy** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:59 pm

Hi Glands ( . Y . )

Well... the weight factor is a plus, not to mention the buzz of the reeds which is more audible with a hollow stock. I like em

PD.

Mark Byrne · Post by **Mark Byrne** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:24 pm

glands,

I asked this very question some time ago with very little useful advice. Most of the replys were simply wondering the same question. If you would like to take a look at the thread type in hollow stock as the keyword and Mark Byrne as the author and that should give you the thread I raised.
I initially asked the question as I have a B set on order from Andreas and was wondering if I should justify an additional 400 Euro for a hollow main stock. None of the replies led me to be able to justify the additional 400. I will say that anyone I've spoken to who has a set with a hollow mainstock is thrilled with it, but also can't give specific reasons why they think its better apart from the comment "its buzzier" than standard main stocks. Don't really know what to say I suppose it depends on the expense,

regards,
Mark.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:15 pm

Well, in the most practical terms: If I grip the hollow stock of my C sharp drones while they are sounding there is an audable drop in the range of frequencies coming off the drones.

I noticed this while playing in quite a bare, acoustically bright room at Achill Island Summer School this summer.

Regards,

Harry.

mukade · Post by **mukade** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:41 pm

glands wrote:The Koehler and Quinn Beehive Cn set will undergo modification in that it will acquire a hollow stock in Castella Lemonwood....... same as the construction material for remainder of the wooden parts of the set. The current main stock is of solid maple and is on loan from its owner, Mr. Koehler. I am truly excited about the transition.

I'm curious as to how many of you play sets with hollow stocks. What are your thoughts and experiences? What are your own percieved advantages and disadvantages?

My new C set from Mr. D. Boisvert is also made from lemonwood with a hollow lemonwood stock. He said the hollow stock makes the pipes very light and the drones have better a resonance than with a solid stock.

I have not heard the pipes yet, but even though the hollow stock is a lot of extra work, David writes very enthusiastically about them in every mail I receive.

I'm looking forward to hearing the combination of four drones and a hollow stock.

Mukade

djm · Post by **djm** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:02 pm

I have owned sets with solid stocks and hollow stocks. The first significant difference is in weight, as mentioned above. The second significant difference is that with a hollow stock, the drones influence each other more in their tuning, as well as being more sensitive to tuning with the chanter, in my experience. That is not to say that this effect doesn't happen with a solid stock, but I have found it to be more pronounced with a hollow stock.

This sounds wonderful when everything is in tune, but makes tuning a bit trickier because everything wants to drift into tune with itself, so I don't always know if what I did tuned it, or it went into tune by itself. When it goes into tune by itself, changes in bag pressure can cause stuff to fall out of tune, whereas if everything is really in tune, it all tends to stay in tune all the time.

Geoff Wooff and Joe Kennedy make all their stocks hollow. Both my current D and B sets have hollow stocks.

djm

Uilliam · Post by **Uilliam** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 12:34 am

djm wrote:
....because everything wants to drift into tune with itself, so I don't always know if what I did tuned it, or it went into tune by itself. When it goes into tune by itself, changes in bag pressure can cause stuff to fall out of tune, whereas if everything is really in tune, it all tends to stay in tune all the time.

djm

Self tuning drones!!
I'll have three please......
Uilliam

mukade · Post by **mukade** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:04 am

djm wrote:... the drones influence each other more in their tuning, as well as being more sensitive to tuning with the chanter, in my experience.

This sounds wonderful when everything is in tune, but makes tuning a bit trickier because everything wants to drift into tune with itself, so I don't always know if what I did tuned it, or it went into tune by itself. When it goes into tune by itself, changes in bag pressure can cause stuff to fall out of tune, whereas if everything is really in tune, it all tends to stay in tune all the time.

djm

I detected eleven verbal and nominal varieties of 'tune' in this post. Can anyone confirm this?

Mukade

John S · Post by **John S** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:55 am

This phenomenon of Drone coupling is very important in GHB, as djm discovered the Drones do not act totally independently, but as a coupled system. The more the Drones can "talk" to each other the stronger the coupling.
In GHB The Drones become incredibly stable and lock together like one entity.
I would see this as a definite advantage even a necessity for any bagpipe and the stronger the coupling the better.
I've not tested it but I think the Drones must be phase locked as well.
When your pipes are going really well I think the chanter notes also lock with drone harmonics making the system intonationally bomb proof, at least for a while.

TTFN
John S

Rick · Post by **Rick** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:09 am

I don't think being in the same "room" as the other drone reeds does much, tuning wise, in a hollow stock.
I mean, they are in a different "room" in a solid stock with a hallway leading to all the "rooms".
In a hollow stock the walls were just taken down and the air just doesn't float around the "walls' anymore but basically it's the same thing.
Marc and I did some experiments with pumping air through smaller or larger openings and we can safely say it doesn't matter how large or small an opening is (or it has to be REALLY small in which case the airflow just breaks down) as the air will go through it anyway and the change in pressure is not noticable.

I do find they sound more "ringy" in a hollow stock and paying extra for a hollow stock is a bit weird as it is actually easier to make than a solid one.
Even wooden stocks are easier to make hollow, there are plenty of pipemakers that just use metal tubing as a stock, try to get a solid one off one of those guys hehe.

Seanie · Post by **Seanie** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:40 am

Hello

I suppose that following on from Harry's posting that the addition of the base regualtor (esp. the plate that attaches to the stock) would negate most of the effects of a hollow stock.

Maybe hollow stocks are better with 3/4 sets so.

Regards

John Moran

nwhitmer · Post by **nwhitmer** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:56 am

My two cents:

I make hollow stocks out of wood. It is more work for me to make a hollow than non-hollow wooden mainstock. I do it because I believe having the drone reeds in the same cavity makes the sound of the individual drones blend better and helps make the pitch of the drones more stable. There is a bit of a weight difference with a hollow stock, but that's not why I do it. The walls of the mainstock are still pretty thick; if I put my hand on the mainstock I cannot feel drone vibration. Nonetheless, I experimented with hollow & non-hollow wood mainstocks & found hollow to be more musical.

Nick Whitmer

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:05 am

mukade wrote:I detected eleven verbal and nominal varities of 'tune' in this post. Can anyone confirm this?

Sorry, but there are so many people on this forum looking so desperately for any excuse to crawl up my arse for the slightest perceived error that I sometimes tend to overcompensate.

Cheers,

djm

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:14 am

djm:"slightest perceived error that I sometimes tend to overcompensate. "
===============================================

...WRONG!!! Again you have demonstrated a keen knack for the inane and incorrect!! Dammit! Get it right!........uh, what perceived errors?

Kevin L. Rietmann · Post by **Kevin L. Rietmann** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:41 am

Elder drone reeds can be a bit curvy at times, in a solid stock they can bump against the bore walls sometimes. In a hollow stock this isin't an issue. A rather esoteric advantage I suppose.
I've a concert pitch bass regulator with a metal extension to give three lower notes. When I remove the extension (and put an ordinary cap on the keyed portion of the regulator) the tone is less "metallic" in the keyed notes, which you'd figure would sound independently of the extension. So it seems tone can be influenced by factors you'd think were external to just the tonehole and bore per se.

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