Just checking the market out. I really want to have made a compact travelling set made and I’m not that big on regulators anyway, maybe a mainstock with three stop valves and paired drones in D, G, E or something along those lines you could bring in and out as you play. Mostly session and band work stuff and I don’t ever plan on being a big regulator guy.
Private Messages welcome. They’re in excellent condition bla bla bla but I haven’t really fitted out reeds in the regulators yet.
Royce
Royce, do you have any photos of this set you could share with us… publically?
Is it real ivory that would restrict the possibility of import/export?
djm
I know this set. It’s really cool!
t
You want compact you should get a MacGregor Barrel. I’m not sure who is making them these day though, if anybody. I have a picture of a beautiful set, but I have never tried to put a picture up on this site before.
Yeah, it’s real. And really big. Great whopping chunks of it all over. Some of you know the history of the chanter and that’s been entirely rebuilt by Bruce Childress. My original plan was to get them going and have a custom set built to my specifications all along, but they’re a classic set by a classic maker and I’ve just kept hanging on to them. In the end I’m too lazy to set up the regulators anyway I guess and would rather have a set made exactly how I want them where I can just send for reeds that I can more or less plug in and play. (Dream on eh?)
I’ve sent the chanter all over hell and back with no problems with the ivory, but I personally get in and out of Canada frequently and I’ve have had problems with GHB that I would prefer not to have with a far far more expensive set of UP at the border etc.
I’m also having problems with my back–lawsuits, waiting for surgery, fusion etc and I seriously can’t spend the leaning-over-the-table time any more dorking around with reeds, it’s hard enough just sitting up to play a while.
I’m halfway through deciding what I want to do with the new chanter reed/s and drone strength setup–considerably easier and more civilized than the Gallagher I had on before but still balancing the drones to the chanter and figuring out how much I’d like to boost the chanter volume if any–has a very flat-set tone, very even across the octaves and so on.
Anyway, bottom line is the bottom line, I’m hoping to sell these and capitalize on the flash/ancient/mastercraftsman elements of them and end up with a plain-Jane little set and some dosh to pay some bills on top of it. I’m also a bit nervous hanging around “the hood” where I often play or practice with an instrument that is essentially irreplaceable and worth more than most of the newer cars in the neighborhood.
I’m not in a hurry, just checking out the feasibility. I see some real crap selling for tons of money on Ebay and these are light years above that level so I’m just wondering how marketable they really are. If not, I’m perfectly happy with them. I have another chanter coming from Childress supposedly about, er, last month or so…when that gets here I have a practice set to get me through till my new set is built/arrives whatever.
http://home.comcast.net/~mybackroom/wsb/media/785953/site1014.jpg
I’m going to put some photo’s up in a few moments:
http://home.comcast.net/~mybackroom
Thanks for the feedback, maybe if y’all have pictures of similar pipes I could also nail down who made them for sure.
That’s a cool looking set. How old?
I can only figure mid-late 60’s.
Royce
I’d like to make an offer but as you say, you see lots of crap going for big money. I could probably offer something in trade - like my house.
Seriously though, that’s a serious set of pipes with probably some serious history behind it. Do you know the history of the instrument since it was made? Who are the previous owners, etc.? That would add to the value.
I know if I had those pipes, I’d not part with them. Good luck with the sale, if you decide to go ahead with it.
PJ
They were bought on a lark by a student from the Twin Cities Minnesota USA, who went to Ireland in the 60’s or maybe very early 70’s. They came back with these and only tried playing them long enough to destroy all the reeds but for the bass regulator. They were then put in a bottom drawer until about three years ago, where I ended up trading with the instructor of a GHB student for this box of parts–as some of the brass had fallen loose by then and they were completely disassembled so the offspring of the original purchaser didn’t really know what they were other than bagpipes. I traded a set of freshly made Scottish Smallpipes for them and then tied them all back in and put them back together only to discover they were complete and almost perfect in condition.
Royce
Royce , I have an identical set, down to the smallest detail.
I have been told the makers of my set were “Wilkinson and Glen McCarthy” They made pipes back in the early 1970’s. Perhaps mine are an exact copy of your pipes (or perhaps the maker was the same and i was mis informed by the seller when I bought mine)
Anyhow I can say that if they are the same then the workmanship is good quality and the drones sound great! my regs need some working on but the ones that play in tune are fine!
I had new regulator key plates made for my set and now I hve the Johnny Bourke type teardrop shaped keys.
Ben / Royce
From the photos the pipes are the work of Douglas Wilkinson and Glen McCarthy who were based in the east end of London making between 1975 and 1981. They were selling mostly to Hobgoblin (which had just started up) and Lark in the Morning. Not certain where they found the measurements for their early sets (probably Alan Ginsberg who lived a short distance from them at that time) - later ones were based on Taylor. As far as I know they did not make any in the Taylor style and just adapted the measurements to suit there own design.
The chanters were stamped with an ovoid lozenge bearing the names of the makers. When they went their separate ways the stamp was cut it in half and Glen carried on using his section to mark the chanters he produced.
The partnership broke up around 1981 with Doug going into engineering - Glen carried on a while longer.
Chris
I thought they didn’t look as one of Dan’s at all. Wilkinson and McCarthy’s pipes were the pits. I started off on one bought in Walton’s in Dublin in 1979, I took it to Dan O Dowd later and he told me to get rid of it ASAP, there was no way saving it. I got a Eugene Lambe instead, that made a huge difference 
Peter I agree to a point. The chanters that I have heard were terrible. The drones are very nice, very stable and bang on in tune.
Some of the regs are in tune, others not. The workmanship on the set is quite good, I have seen and heard an awful lot worse (except their chanters which I agree are a heap of shite!)
Well the half set I had was terrible, the blocks on the chanter weren’t finished and folded three quarter round the chanter, the drones indeed worked but the brass used on the bass was so thin it bend at a minimum of pressure. The bag was stitched rubber, the holes let out quite a bit of air I can tell you.
Perhaps they got better (or worse) with time or maybe Glen McCarthy made pipes out of better quality materials when he went solo.
either way the workmanship is really not bad, and as stated previously I have seen a lot worse!
Saying all that… I remember seeing a W&M set at a Pipers meet once and that looked and sounded really bad… very rough workmanship etc.
perhaps it was their budget model. 
STITCHED RUBBER 
I bought one of these W/M chanters from a friend many years ago, but got stuck trying to get the thumb note in tune (other notes were bad too). Comparing the measurements with other chanters, it seems the maker had drilled the thumb hole about a ½" too low, so I could never get it above a C# no matter what I tried.
In August of last year, in a thread titled “Mystery Set on EBay,” Ted Anderson made the right comment:
“They look like a Wilkinson/McCarthy, as sold by Lark in the Morning, who may have had an exclusive for their work. They seem to have dropped out after a couple of years of production. I think Wilkinson dropped out first and some sets were produced by McCarthy alone. Certainly not sought after since, with good reason.”
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?p=256244&highlight=wilkinson#256244
Lorenzo
Some of their chanters are longer than the normal 14.25" - 14.5" and were based on a Taylor chanter that played around Eb. Instead of using a larger reed and adjusting the tone holes they lengthened the chanter (15.25") instead by the frequency ratio and spaced the tone holes using the formula. The chanter needs a narrow headed reed around 11mm. Chanter is also quite thin walled - not unlike these plastic beasties with the ‘lilo’ bellows.
Had one of these horrors in the workshop last autumn and managed to get it going reasonably well
With a Rowsome or similar size reed the chanter will be C#-ish
Royce, so what’s the asking price?
…“…so what’s the asking price?” probably a lot lower after the direction this thread has taken! 
:roll: