Bill, check your PM’s.
Bob
Actually, the specs say the insert is 3/16" OD. 8mm long.
Could you say what the error is?
Thanks.
Yes but that’s O.D. which is useless as far as the bore goes. The spec also indicates “reamed”, i.e. the 8mm 3/16" O.D. tube needs to be altered. Note that these tubes are 1/64" wall thickness telescoping tube, thus a 3/16" O.D. tube has an inner diameter of 3/16" - (2*1/64") = 5/32".
I would also point out that for these narrow-bore designs, the tapering of the bell end of the telescoping tubes is going to be very important - you aren’t likely to get away with just cutting the 3/16" tube at 8mm long. The 20mm “tail length” as specified in the plan will need to be preserved (note that the plan also indicates that the tail edge should have a “slight concave” shape). The plans also point out that extra care needs to be taken to ensure that this throat insert is securely glued, with no minute air pockets or gaps around it. A thick gel superglue, for instance, would be better than the thin stuff for this application.
Bill
[edited to correct the wall thickness, K&S tubing is 1/64" wall thickness, thus the inner diameter of the unreamed “throat insert” is 5/32" - reasonable for some flat chanter designs, but too small for the chanter in question as will be seen from a later post]
The original data for the chanter is here:
http://www.daye1.com/bagpage/makepipe/harrington.txt
The smallest diameter given is 0.168", or about 4.27mm. The actual minimum (throat) is not given, but the length of the section smaller than 0.168" is 5mm. One can extrapolate* that the actual throat might be as small as 4.19 mm, but is unlikely to be smaller.
[* using a 60:1 taper - the actual slope/taper seems more like 90:1 at this point, suggesting a throat slightly larger than 4.2]
I think Daye uses K&S tubing as many other’s in the U.S. do. If he is using the most readily available K&S tubing then the wall thickness is .014-.015. So the 3/16" tube would most likely have an i.d. of .156-.157, or close to 3.98mm. Hope that helps, if your using K&S tubing. Seth
That’s the stuff, Seth., which seems to make the throat consistent with Bill’s original estimate. Also, the instructions say to not glue the piece until after testing, but there is a good, tight fit for now anyway (yes, it has a tail, per the instructions.) So, looks like back to square one. Maybe just enlarge the ID a bit?
OK, it’s 1/64" wall thickness instead of 1/32", my mistake.
However that makes the inner diameter of the 3/16" tube 5/32". This is considerably smaller than the 4.2mm of the original chanter - thus it still needs to be reamed if you want a reasonable comparison with the original. A very fine rat-tailed (round) needle file, followed up with very fine carbide sandpaper, might be the easiest way to achieve this without special tooling.
The instructions for the flat chanter point out that leakage around this tube is a potential issue, and suggest using an alternative glue. Therefore the “just put it in place and test it” approach doesn’t seem to be reliable for this design:
Bill
We are working with a paltry set of facts and measurements. But forging ahead, looking at the measurements of Kevin Rowsome’s C# and Woof’s C Harrington, I think a given measurement of 4.26 mm for the throat is reliable. But, also looking at the record for regulator throats, which are predictably narrower still, I think part of the difficulty in tuning a tubing simulation will be found in the construction of the reed. Narrower may be better than wider. And of course, the staple then becomes something of a problem. This all throws into high relief the difficulties in creating a speculative narrow bore chanter without an extant reference reed on hand as many believe was the normal procedure for the ‘classic’ makers.
My first path of search would be to go narrower on both reed and staple. This could easily result in octave problems, but I would be looking to bring the first octave in first, before sorting out any octave distortions.
Just my tuppence worth.
Bob
There’s really the big problem. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to such a reed, and probably never will. Heck, I’ve never managed to see a flat chanter in person, let alone own one, hence this whole attempt. Thanks for all the input. I’ll keep plugging away in your suggested direction, after I get some more cane. Oh, and Bill, I’m still waiting to see what happens with that other chanter we were talking about before. Unfortunately, it’s been in the shop for over a month now, with no updates.
I’ve been searching about in some old notes. These things are reedable, and it doesn’t take fairy dust. I can give you some pointers as to directions to explore. The ‘Harrington’s are wider in the throat than the Coynes, but may still respond well to a Coyne style reed. First, the crow will be appreciably sharper than for a modern wide bore. Some Rowsome family modern bores want a free crow of F# or G. I can’t find my notes, but a crow of A or even sharp of A# seems to ring in my memory for narrow bores. You might check the reed you’ve already made against this. This could explain why your upper hand notes are flat, if your crow is flat.
A good start would be with cane that is narrower in O.D. than common for wide bore chanters. An old formula seems to have been an O.D. twice the width of the finished chanter reed. For a Coyne reed of 9.5 mm you might start with 19 mm cane tubing. Considerably narrower than the more common 1’’ or 15/16ths inch. I’m sorry if I’m mixing metric with Imperial measure but these are old notes. You’re going to have to search about for the right sanding diameter. . .I’d start with 1 and 7/8ths, to get the elevation right. The slip can be .040 in. California cane could be a little fatter. . .this isn’t going to be a lot different from a modern reed and will give you a nice long scrape. Overall length could be 72 to 74 mm. The old reeds seemed to use thin brass rather than copper for staples.
The area around the staple opening seems critical. At one time Rogge was using red cheese wax to fill in around the area just outside of the staple eye. . .sort of anti-chambering as opposed to his wide bore reeds gouging out more chamber.
What I would try, and it may not work worth a tinker’s curse, would be to use hobby tubing for my initial staples for a quick and dirty ‘look’ at overall reed size. . .if your bottom octave seems close, carefully retie to another staple with more/less eye elevation to the staple eye.
Once you get close on the bottom octave you can address the question of taper in your staple.
Your Mileage may. . .etc.
Bob
Bob - thanks. Excellent advice, I never would’ve thought of roughing it out with tubing first. Could save a lot of time. As soon as I get some new cane, I’ll be trying all of the above. I did ream out the throat piece significantly, and it seems to help some with the top hand, so it may be down to the reed now. I have to say, you and Bill certainly know your stuff!
I just plotted the original Harrington/K-Rowsome data alongside other chanter measurements I have to hand.
It looks to me (with the important caveat that it can be VERY misleading to judge a chanter by its ‘numbers’) as though a Coyne-type reed may do the trick - I’d suggest a larger I.D. than standard tube - rolling a cylindrical staple at about 3.4mm I.D. may be a good start. You may have to go up to 3.5mm I.D. for this chanter, time will tell. I’d suggest a length in the 80mm range, with a 10.5 mm head. It may need to be quite thinly scraped - the bottom D may tell you that. The bore resembles a Timothy Kenna C# I’ve seen, but is a bit larger (0.1mm larger all the way down).
I would say, however, that relatively few people are experienced reeding original narrow-bore chanters of any description. Reeds that perform well in modern “replicas” may fail to bring the best out of the originals, in my experience.
Note that the length is a bit shorter than other “C#” chanters, but 8mm longer than the “Coyne D” described by Craig Fischer.
Bill
Bravo, Bill!
Bob
Bravo, indeed!
I hope you are successful in making and reeding the “Harrington” penny chanter.
I looked at the specifications for this chanter on David Daye’s site a while back and I have to say that it raised some doubts. I noticed that the fingerhole placings and diameters were almost identical to the original. I didn’t expect this because the chimney heights and the chanter bore (especially towards the bottom end where there are no “tails” on the tubes) were inevitably different from the original because of the penny chanter construction. By way of constrast, the fingerhole diameters and placings of the Daye concert pitch penny chanter are subtly different from those of the original Rowesome chanter on which it is based and I guess David Daye worked long and hard to get those dimensions just right.
However, I don’t want to worry anyone unduly and it may be that my observations are not relevant. All the best.