And what would happens if we make some kind of filing over the new hole? I guess they call it “scoop”. Just to reduce that chimney at 1.5 or 1 mm.
Would it be a viable solution?
I suppose this ought reduce the effect, but it could not eliminate it. Also, sinking the keypad seats so deeply into the chanter might involve more structural risk to the instrument, especially if you tried to go as thin as 1mm. I had an unhappy experience with an instrument of my own manufacture once, when trying to do something similar 
I should point out that you might ‘get lucky’ and fail to notice any effect from a new tonehole, i.e. things could more or less cancel each other out, or have a negligible effect. But it’s not a low-risk procedure, which is what this discussion is about I suppose (i.e. “can cause trouble” as opposed to “will definitely cause trouble”). If the instrument is working really well already, I would not take that chance, even putting considerations of ethics and conservation aside for a moment. [And if the instrument is not working really well, why add keys to it? 
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Bill
You probably touched on this earlier.
Let’s say the original chanter that was copied was fully keyed. The new pipemaker decides to produce only keyless chanters. They sound good… but nothing great. (though he could never figure out what the problem was)
One day, the same maker decides to bore out ‘those other holes’ and produce a fully keyed chanter, just like the original and (possibly) to his surprise, this new chanter sounds really great… and those annoying intonation problems he had before are gone or substantially minimized.
To your knowledge, has this scenario really happened?
Forgive the potentially dumb question from someone who is bad with math and heavy machinery, and who would consequently never dare try to make a chanter, but:
Marcelo’s question and Bill’s response got me to wondering whether any pipemakers have ever made keypads that “fill” the tonehole, effectively recreating the wall of the bore. That is, the pad itself would have a protruding circle (or oval or whatever), shaped to sink past the exterior of the chanter and past the seat of the pad into the tonehole, and deep enough to match the inside of the bore. In my admittedly very limited experience I’ve only seen keypads that cover the tonehole, and I wondered whether anyone made them in any other way.
Just curious.
KAD
Violins have been modified - longer necks set at steeper angles were put on the old Strads etc. in the 19th century, and newer designs of bows were adopted as the music became more virtuostic. The improved violins look so strange players reject them purely on sight; violinists are twisted, though, remember the story about the classical muso who selected the best ax in the shop but couldn’t buy it because it only cost $10,000?
Uilleann pipes don’t have an orthodoxy to depart from. What does an uilleann pipe look like? Coyne? I’d say the most influential modern maker is Eugene Lambe. There are plenty of odd ducks working now, though - Daily, Lynch, O’Briain.
My old Patsy Brown chanter had pads like that - they were like little leather stubs that filled up the tonehole’s bore. When I repadded the chanter I didn’t bother with it - dunno how he did it. I don’t think it mucked up the tuning much - it needs a rush to play in modern CP anyway.
Forgive the potentially dumb question from someone who is bad with math and heavy machinery, and who would consequently never dare try to make a chanter, but:
Marcelo’s question and Bill’s response got me to wondering whether any pipemakers have ever made keypads that “fill” the tonehole, effectively recreating the wall of the bore. That is, the pad itself would have a protruding circle (or oval or whatever), shaped to sink past the exterior of the chanter and past the seat of the pad into the tonehole, and deep enough to match the inside of the bore. In my admittedly very limited experience I’ve only seen keypads that cover the tonehole, and I wondered whether anyone made them in any other way.
Just curious
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The curiosity is the thirst that led us all here, isn´t it KAD?, and it´s great, I thought the same ´cause I saw that thing in a sax, the keypads had a brass circle attached to some depth to fill the chimney and to suply the bore with the same material of it´s wall.
Kevin, were the pads a loose fit?
A few thoughts:
keep it simple, make it strong, design it to require as little maintenance as possible/necessary.
Leather shrinks and swells with moisture changes, so a plug style key may fail (or require too much maintenance) over long period of time.
Very interesting discussion.
Irish Flutes use pewter plugs for the bottom two tone holes - I wonder if they would work in this application?
The resonators on a sax pad don’t protrude much into the chimney - they are there o provide a solid resonating surface. The total sirface area of the pads on a sax is large compared to the bore and I do believe they make a difference to the tone. I repadded a sax, reppalcing plain pads with resonators and the tone was brighter.
Some time ago I had a couple of keys added to my bassoon (high e and f near the top) and dicussed the implications with the maker. He confirmed much of what Bill has said. The modern conical basson bore has evolved over four hundred years and theoreticians from Helmholtz onwards have contributed to the understanding of the acoustics, however it has always been necassary to experiment when making bore and tone hole changes. The equations cannot be solved with enough accuracy for precise hole placement.
Bernd manufactures his instruments with great precision and he did understand from experience the impact of these extra tone holes (not huge because they are small and shallow compared to the total volume of the bore.) Some re-voicing of a couple of notes was required.
I suspect the opposite might be the case with a UP chanter. Adding a D and E hole would be a proportioinaly much larger change to bore.
No, stiff stuff.