when this kind thing happens, does it make chanter unplayble? or what
are the main effects?
Are you meaning you have a bent chanter? As in it bent in half? Usually, no chanter should be able to be bent, it would split and shatter before that. Wood, in most cases anyway, and in partucular hardwoods such as ebony or blackwood is not a very flexible material. Can you give us any more idea what happened to the chanter in question?
Hi,
Once saw a boxwood 3/4 set, the two regs and the chanter all had noticeable bends.
It played fine and drew crowds of astounded pipers at Miltown.
David Lim
some( boxwooden) ones tend to bend ( i’m told) by time and humidity
changes.experiences about these i’m looking for.
Am guessing your chanter is made of Boxwood - it’s winter, central heating is on and drying the air nicely. You may have to consider getting a humidifier to put in the case if the warping is bad. Hopefully when the spring comes and the good old central heating is off it will return to normal.
On this subject have recently watched the plug fly out of the top of the chanter head piece in mid performance in a heated room (DDTional) and a customer has had to ask me for a replacement bellows inlet bush as his has just popped out straight into the fire !
Playing a set of pipes next to a fire probably is not the best of ideas as you will be filling it with nice overheated air
Time to check all your wrappings are nice and secure
So you mean a “warped” chanter, not one actually bent at an angle? Sorry for the misunderstanding. I don’t know what it would do…depends on the severity of the warpage and how it’s affected the internal bore I would suppose. Probably no difinative answer there…I’d have a reputable pipe maker take a look at the stick in question to help sort it out.
I’ve read that good straight English/European boxwood is hard to come by anymore. You turn it straight, yet the grain was never straight to match.
Also, the area of the log chosen for the flute or chanter seems to be important. This piece shows the southern exposure with huge growth on one side, but where’s the best place to choose a sample so that the wood has no internal pressure or inherent tendencies to warp, ie bend?
I have also read that bending of the wood doesn’t effect the performance.
My O Briain boxwood chanter is a little bit bent. Usually very slight, but it has been known to get a bit wonky (in appearance) on particularly dry days, in which case wrapping a damp cloth around it for a while tends to set it straight again. Plays fine.
Hamish Moore’s website (http://www.hamishmoore.musicscotland.com) has a very interesting article about a “microwaving” process he uses on boxwood to help prevent it from warping.