Hi folks,
I have just updated Kirk Lynch’s web site with some pictures of an engraved full set. All of the engraving was done by hand by Gil Hocker (who also happens to own the set) over the past 10 years. The mainstock ferrule alone took 400 hours. The cup is the last remaining piece to be engraved.
Here’s the link
http://www.kirklynch.com/photos.htm
Take the engraved set link, the images may load slowly on a dial up connection, but they are worth it.
Jeff
Whoa. That’s beautiful.
Amazingly beautiful, never seen anything like it!
I looked through the photos over and over again. I’m speechless, don’t know what to say.
Wow!
Thanks for posting.
/MarcusR
That really is beautiful work - to look at. I would be scared s**tless to ever show up with a set that looked this good. Everyone would then expect me to play equally as well. 
Nice to know someone has the skill, patience and will to make something so nice.
djm
Worth it??
That’s an understatement. It’s by far the most beautifully detailed workmanship I’ve seen.
…as they say in California, “awesome dude, totally awesome”
most beautiful set i’v ever layed eyes on!!
but still, a picture can’t hold the beauty of the way they sound
Very nice work! I bet Gil was happy that it was not a B set!
I’m in love
As a metalsmith, I jealously take off my hat to the engraver.
FREAKIN’-A WOW!!! 
I heard Gil play them this summer at the Adams County (Pennsylvania) Celtic Festival…They sound as great as they look. It prompted me to buy my used Lynch 1/2 set.
Absolutely unbelievable, thank you for sharing that with us!
I decided to tinker…as you know I am wont to do. I took the closeup images of the double cord knot, the reg keys, and the other smaller knot and pasted them into a paint program. I traced the black and eliminated everything else. I then fitted them together to make strips (not for the keys, though, those were complete images). Printed them on clear address labels. Trimmed. Put a coat of clear nailpolish over the ink. Applied to the appropriate places on my set and >pouf< from two feet away you almost can’t tell the difference. From four feet away you definitely can’t tell the difference. Something to try…took about an hour…
You’re kidding…right?
WOW! What a beautiful set! I haven’t seen a set that great since I saw Felix Dorans silver set. I wonder how much that would cost??
That is truly a set of pipes to kill for, man oh man! It would be something to have him do even just on a brass chanter top, wouldn’t it?
Jeff, has Kirk seen it?
yes, Kirk has had this set in the shop many times. He has been gradually replacing the ferrules and mounts to Gil’s specifications.
Jeff
I saw some pictures of a very good (good looking, at least) copy of an Egan set set (much like Dan O’Dowd’s) that was made in the 1950s by a New Zealand Highland pipe maker. He had put the ornamental lines into the ferrules like Highland pipes have.
By the way, the simple lines typically found in ferrules are functional as well as decorative; they cover up blemishes left in the metal left by the bailing wire used to hold a rolled ferrule tight as its seam is soldered.
That maker wouldn’t be James Center would it? That’s who made my Highland pipes, but before he moved to New Zeland from Scotland in 1907. Great workmanship.
Marc
No, I believe the gentleman’s name was McPhee. Excellent stuff; I refused to believe it wasn’t Egan at first. They were a copy of a set which is still in New Zealand in a museum, which belonged to a piper named Paddy Galvin. Peter and Jim McGuire were mentioning him and his set while debating the Ebay old set recently.
…uhh…no. Sorry Kevin, you’re way off base on this one. The lines are purely decorative…any “blemish” left after hand-rolling a ferrule is either buffed out, or the ferrule should be thrown in the trash…