Injection Molded Uilleann pipes or Resin casted pipes???

[djm]

@No E

I’d imagine the form for the bore could be machined out of aluminum

What would you use for a release agent if you were using resin?

@PJ

What would be the advantage of molded synthetic chanters over wooden chanters

Repeatable chanter design with minimum time to market. Sound can be a bit harsh compared to wood. I would expect a savings if I were buying a plastic chanter, and perhaps that is the niche the plastic chanters could fill.

djm

[Tony]

@djm

What would you use for a release agent if you were using resin?

Spray on PVA…
Polyvinyl Alcohol

[djm]

Thanks for that, Tony.

djm

[Antaine]

@djm

@PJ

What would be the advantage of molded synthetic chanters over wooden chanters

Repeatable chanter design with minimum time to market. Sound can be a bit harsh compared to wood. I would expect a savings if I were buying a plastic chanter, and perhaps that is the niche the plastic chanters could fill.

djm

exactly my thoughts. if it could be done cheaply enough and reliably enough to turn out something beginners could learn on I think it could offer a benefit in that more people might attempt the instrument in the first place (with the usual small numbers who stick with it that are the norm with musical instrumetns in general), whereas some pipers with great potential may never get started due to cost or daunting wait lists.

cheaply enough, and reliably enough are both very big ‘ifs’…nobody seems to have figured out how to do both at the same time with enough volume to really make an impact so far. Some seem to be done pretty well, considering, but are not priced low enough to really attract when placed next to wooden practice sets.

[fel_bautista]

From the discussion, I think we can reasonably get tooling for $10-$50K for an ACCURATE set of chanter/drones and possibly regulators. What I don’t see happening is the ability to produce consistant reeds from . The reed, next to the chanter and player, is the heart of the instrument. So, how do we pull this one off , Ollie???

[AaronMalcomb]

I thought the inexpensive/available practice set problem was solved by Bagpipes Galore?

Just kidding.

@wharfedalecarving

I can see the benefits of delrin for the GHB’s especially when playing in a pipe band because of tonal and tuning continuity. However, I have a delrin & also a blackwood GHB chanter and although the day to day tuning is somewhat more stable on the delrin chanter the cane reed still has its “on” days and “off” days. In addition there is a difference in tonal quality. IMHO wood gives the richer sound.

Actually, it just comes down to cost and durability as the only benefits of delrin. What makes the tone unstable is too much or too little moisture on the reed. In that regard delrin can actually be a bain, not a boon, because moisture condenses on delrin faster (wood will absorb it some).

If you want stable tone, control the moisture. Uilleann pipes use bellows thus eliminating most of the moisture issues (except for the lack thereof). And though there are a lot of moisture control gadgets for GHB, a lot of great pipers and bands still manage it with wooden pipes, cane reeds, and sheepskin bags.

Cheers,
Aaron

[elbogo]

Well, kick me if I’m wrong, but I am sure I read somewhere that Murray’s chanter was given very good marks by none other than David Quinn…

So, there must be something to this particular process, and/or Patrick Murray knows what he’s doing.