These are at the newly expanded Dayton C. Miller flute collection website. Just search for “bagpipe.” Can’t get 'em to post here, but maybe one of you could swipe 'em and put 'em on your own site.
Wow! How do you set up a chuck to bore that way?
Marc
I’ve seen similar double pipes,made by Robert Reid of North Shields (Tyneside) in the Morpeth Bagpipe museum(Northumberland).
I’ve just dug out a postcard of a very fine looking Reid set,and the double chanter has a key over the bottom holes-very interesting from my point of view as a newby-I sometimes have trouble changing from ‘E’ to D or F without leaks and 'farts’and have wondered if keys would help? No doubt PRACTICE is the REAL answer!!
You have to make a deal’em wijjer that fits the bottom of the bores and has a cone on its end, to turn between centers. A Taylor double chanter I took a look at had marks at the reed seat end where you could see where the metal gizmo had gripped the wood. They perhaps could have filed the marks off but maybe wanted to leave a clue for the intrepid.
For the pilot boring I guess you’d need a three jaw chuck, to line up the bores. Some makers simply glued a couple of pieces together, but not the Taylors! The Robert Reid set at the Smithsonian has a double chanter by M Dunn that was glued up; there’s a website detailing this set.
The Taylor chanter wasn’t that hard to play, but the notes that weren’t lined up perfectly were utterly diabolical to hear. The complete effect is kind of otherwordly, ancient. Like the launeddas. It’s quite a sound.
I bought an album last week,called ‘Live recordings from the William Kennedy Piping Festival’ which among others,features Luigi Lai on the Luanneddas.It’s an extraordinary instrument!
I came close to posting this link yesterday in a different thread, but thought better of it because I had some other things to say that were just as well left unsaid.
In any case, the third article in the series on making drones deals in tiresome detail with at least one method of making two or more parallel or splayed bores in one piece of wood.
I don’t understand how the chanter (pictured above) has tone holes sized and spaced so equal.
Maybe he drilled the holes next to one other?
Duh…
No Kevin, the holes are all pretty much the same size along the stick. Other chanters aren’t this way.
Aye, but hole spacing is a function of bore shape and reed design (or vice versa). Two identical bores and reeds will require identical holes. Like Kevin sez, drill 'em next to each other. My question is, why is the entire right hand side slightly higher than the left? Is it something to do with seating the reed?
Cheers,
Calum
I have a sheet of very good measurements of a Taylor double chanter and the bores and holes aren’t identical. They’re not strictly uniform on this Egan chanter either, as will become more apparent if you use the original website’s magnifier (which is quite amazing, by the way - very good resolution). With such a small bore a slight change in the size of a hole makes a large difference.
Larger bores amplify this difference, it is most evident in the F and A toneholes.
So, only one reed is used, then? If so, is that the norm for double chanters?
Thanks much for the info! The pipers gathering page went into bookmarks
real quick.
Marc
Two bores + two reeds.
Thanks. Looking at the photo, I couldn’t tell.
Hey Tony, maybe you could make one double chanter out of a couple of those Bbs, just flatten off the sides and glue’em together! 
Oh, that’s right, you got rid of them. 
Putting two (or more) bores through one piece of wood is no more difficult than just one bore using a hollow centre and a four jaw independent chuck. Reaming the taper is slightly more interesting as the piece has to be supported without using a hollow centre and a work piece that is badly off centre. It is reeding the thing where it gets interesting !
For making I resort to 17th/18th Century technology for this - idea taken from Bergeron’s “La art du Tournier” a book on ornamental turning
Will try and post some pictures showing how it is done. As is often the way it is easier than most people think but does require a large capacity steady.
Tony, whether unintentionally or jokily, your question seems to have been misunderstood. I imagine that it is the narrowness of the bores that leads to the holes for the different notes for each bore being so similar in size.
Yes Roger… you caught on. The hole spacing and hole sizes seem to be too uniform for Uilleanns.