Just found this set on Ebay. Chanter by Charles Roberts and drones by Martin Preshaw. It says the chanter is slightly bent. Does that happen often? What do you think?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320165930552
Chanters get stolen all the time.
RORY
Narrow bore chanter.
Warping seems kind of unusual for blackwood…
Ik think the wood wasn’t old and dry ennough. But it also can be a manufactures “failure”. The is a recorders builders “trick”: When the wood is turned down. you can see (but very difficult) there a straight line from top to bottom. That will the site to drill the holes.
Patrick
I have only ever had one Blackwood chanter warp on me, I got the wood from a Mr. Zuher Panju from Africa, I found out later that the timber was newly felled and really needed at least a couple of years to settle after long boring it.
DDS.
Can such warp be fixed?
I can only imagine that it would take a specialized contraption to apply targeted forces. Would oiling or humidity treatment also be involved?
There was some discussion in the past about a warped boxwood chanter being straightened by heating the chanter in a microwave. Opinions were mixed.
Warping makes no difference in the playing and tuning of the instrument.
PD.
Such as one of these common Bonsai tools might do the trick -
We used them for bending some pretty thick trunks, so could work on a chanter too, over time, perhaps. But you’d need some way of helping the wood cells ‘stretch’ rather than tear - constant heat perhaps?
http://www.bonsai-tools.com/tools/branch-benders/large-basic-21-branch-bender.xhtml
“Tool is primarily made for bending branches and manipulating them in place with the duration of time. However, the tool could be used any place where pressure, bending, or anchoring is required.”
I think it can. I remember that years ago I straightened two warped Lignum-regs (tenor and baritone). I removed the keys, put them (the regs) into my lathe, heated them carefully with a “paint-removing-heater” and bent them straight with the cross slide. As there is no varnish, the looks is no problem. I´m not aquainted with ABW, though. The Lignum-regs have stayed straight since.
Interesting. As long is it sounded okay and could be played with no problem I probably wouldn’t care.
Must… not… give… in…
Oh do give in annie 
David
I tried this once, but forgot to remove the keys first. Nearly burned my apartment building down. 
If the chanter plays well and in tune, why straighten it?..it seems to me you are only asking for things to go wrong. e.g. cracking breaking or no longer playing in tune.
Its much more of a conversation piece with a ‘crook’ in it…there’ a lot of jokes you can make, that you can’t with a straight chanter.
(I’ll leave them to your imagination). 
-g