I switched to a new chanter at the start of this year, and what a lovely chanter it is! (a fully keyed ebony chanter by the Australian maker Malcolm Mclaren)
I was having sinking back D problems with every reed I made for it (i.e. back D easily dropping in pitch if slightly too much pressure applied). I found out that a sinking back D is usually down to an overscraped reed, but the reason I was over scraping them was just that I kept scraping until a sharp back D came into tune. Rather than redevelop my particular reed design that’s worked well for me thus far, I just decided to tape over the trim back the reed to restore the right reed strength, tape over the hole a little, and the sinking problem was solved
So now that I’ve ascertained that I need the hole smaller to make my reeds work well in the chanter, I’m contemplating putting a little black timber putty inside the hole as a neater fix than the usual electrical tape solution. However, this is a chanter modification that I worry would be a lot harder to undo than just peeling off the electrical tape.
Therefore, my question is ‘Is it easy to remove timber putty at a later date?’ (i.e. do most puttys crumble if you poke at them like plaster filler does, or would I have to drill it out?). Has anyone done this before? I know many of you will be thinking “what’s wrong with just leaving the tape there?”, but I’m of the thinking that there are always going to be reed problems with the reeds I make if I leave the hole as it is and so I should go for a more long-term remedy that can easily be undone later if I happen to have a good reason for it.
I’d suggest wax for this rather than wood putty. In my experience wood putty crumbles over time and isn’t very resistant to sweat and oils unless it’s finished or painted.
You might need to formulate your own wax blend - perhaps a blend of black sealing wax and beeswax, to get the right consistency.
Goldy, go with the wax for the time being, because I firmly believe the back D problem is a reed design problem, perhaps combined with the very dry Canberra climate, and not a chanter problem. I have two McLaren chanters and until lately, my reeds have been spot on with the overall intonation.
However, just of late, Malcolm and I have been messing about with different reed designs, ‘just for kicks’. I was over at Malcolm’s place last night playing another one of his chanters, and several of his reeds he had recently made with an experimental recipe.
I take it you are having trouble with a sharp Back D and trying to scrape it down.
All of Malcolm’s were dead in tune on the back D (in his chanter and in my two ‘McLarens’) and every other note to boot (Often, on previous recipes, the back D can be a tad flat, but that is remedied by lifting the top hand index finger - something which was standard fingering in the old days anyway) . All of mine, however, have lately been extra SHARP in the back D. After much frustration, wondering why the chanter maker can get it spot on each time, yet I, following the exact same recipe can’t get my back D down flat enough, I try and try, seven reeds in seven days, all with a ridiculously sharp back D, with every other note doing just fine.
Just this afternoon however, after another phone call to Malcolm, I tried again, and whacko!! two reeds doing the right thing and the Back Ds are in tune. It was all in the ‘fine tuning’, ie, the fine sanding-down; a jeweller’s eye glass being very useful in seeing just where the scrape needed the fine tuning.
Well how about checking with the maker regarding reeds and tuning ?
And for those are considering the wax solution heres one that comes with the added advantage that no one will want to try your pipes - good old self manufactured ear wax
I kid you not folks as this was used by a member of the Bagpipe society
Of course a beeswax derived mixture is better and you can always tell people it is self generated if you do not want them to play your pipes
I certainly don’t want to permanently modify the chanter; just do something a little neater than some sticky tape over a hole that can later be removed easily. I know that Malcolm Mclaren makes good pipes (I switched to one of his chanters for that reason) and I would never criticise the chanter as having a design flaw (though I see from my original post that it looks like I’m saying there’s something wrong with the D hole - I will edit it to express what I meant to say, in that the hole isn’t right for my reeds).
As I’ve really honed a particular reed design that I can reproduce consistently if I use my prized staple, I’d rather stick with that than go back to the dark side of reed obsession that I was in for many years and make reed after reed to experiment. Given that I only have the one staple I can count on and I do gigs with my band about every couple of weeks, I have to make things work right now and then experiment later. I love the way my own reeds play, and hence I want to accomodate them in this chanter by making the D hole smaller just for the time being.
