http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=308&item=3725839971&rd=1
Bruce’s work is as sturdy as it comes. THis would be a nice set for someone interested in moving up to a half-set I would think. Interesting about the tenor drone having been broken off - I wonder why the part wasn’t just replaced instead of being “pinned” - but the seller claims it works alright now. A fully keyed chanter with stop key would be nice to have too.
I’m curious about the pricing on these. BC Childress’ web site lists a blackwood half set for $2020 with a two-year lead time. The Buy It Now price for the eBay pipes is $3100. Isn’t a 50% premium for immediate availability rather steep?
Just wondering, as I’m hoping there’s a half set in my future (I play Northumbrians now) and I’d like to know what to expect if I decide to purchase a used set.
Cheers,
Mark
Not if someone is willing to pay it to avoid the wait. Whatever the market will bear, then that will be the price, just like with gas prices.
djm
It appears to be a deluxe set. The chanter has 4 keys plus a stop key. The set has maximum mounts (those fancy rings everywhere including the front of the bass drone resonator)
You’re quite right, I didn’t include the options. With the keys and mounts included, the premium is around 20% - a bit more reasonable IMO.
Cheers,
Mark
So it’s 20% over the price for a new set with the same features? For a used set with a once broken and now pinned drone? I guess it’s whatever the market will bear.
Dionys
Auction ended.
Zero bids.
The seller ended this listing early because the item is no longer available for sale.
Guess the market wouldn’t bear it. Or else everyone’s chasing after the narrow-bore Wooff.
Dionys
I am waiting for Royce to comment.
I’ll do the honours. this set clearly highlights the advantages of the drone lay-out discussed in the narrow bore thread. in the BC set the bend sits on top of the tenor and baritone, which makes them harder to reach and leaves them sitting on your knee, carrying the weight of the pipes [and in the case of a full set taking the impact of the reg playing]. In the Wooff set the bend, when put in correctly by the owner, carries the weight of the pipes and the two smaller drones sit neatly packed and out of harms way. Thinking about things functional during the designprocess, makes all the difference 
We do not know what the market would bear since the auction did not complete. Wonder what the reason was that made the item ‘no longer available for sale’?
Auction strategies come in to play, too. Starting an auction at its almost positive closing price can affect a Buyer’s mood.
The marketplace is sacred.
BC Childress makes great pipes.
This set isn’t slant-bored and more like what I expected the Woof set to lay out like but obviously Woof likes to slant drill.
Childress completely rebuilt a certain chanter of mine of which one contributor here once said: “Jesus Christ Himself couldn’t get to play…” Bruce effectively removed all the original wood and replaced it with new, utilizing all existing trim, mountings, keys, brass and hardware from the original. The tone is excellent and it plays great in both octaves, and with a little more reed experimentation it will soon be my main chanter.
I had originally only hoped to save the ivory, maybe the cap and some brass ferrules, but he volunteered that he could probably reuse every bit of existing hardware, which he pulled off magnificently. The only adjustment I wanted after getting it back was to send back the Bb key for him to move the spring pin a bit so the length of the shaft/tab could be more severely ground and shifted to give my fatter G finger more clearance. I don’t have the facility to drill and tap a very small screwhole like that, and I also had him rough grind the tab and then finished it myself, taking a bit more off in the place where it tended to poke me. I also took some width off the stock Fnat key pad. It’s a side-rocker that fits between the fingers, and since the original chanter was a half inch longer than this one, and longer than it should have been probably, it needed some slimming for the same reason.
It really was clever of Bruce getting all those old keys, layed out entirely too long and in entirely odd positions from his standard design, to both install, work, and tune in this new chanter so the original maker’s workmanship could be preserved.
Which points out an interesting observation: all told, the existing cap, stop valve, keys, ivory and other hardware saved me something on the order of 700 US in its reconstruction, except of course, that wouldn’t include the use of African elephant tusk ivory, as that might have run another six or seven hundred dollars to procure and replace. I just find it interesting that there are apparently so many delerlict chanters/pipes cluttering up the place in Ireland that I was being mocked here for wanting the thing back at all, and was once derisively offered 30 pounds for scrap value. Like I said then, most of the original chanter (more than I thought possible, but Bruce was better than your average whittler I would suppose) was completely useable and is back in better playing form than it ever has been. That not only saved me a very large sum of money, and Bruce a lot of time in fabrication, but it has preserved far better than I thought the work of the original maker.
It makes me wonder if a smart UP investor might just take a lengthy holiday to Ireland simply to scrounge through pawn shops, instrument stores and poll local musicians about derelict pipes.
Royce
(OK, I did go back and do some editing for clarity…)
(Boldface added by me)
Ever hear of calipers?