Heres a fantastic example of what can be done with metal ferrules on bagpipes,.
Is this common with other type,s of bagpipes as I,m only familiar with uilleann pipes?
Do you think something like that would look good on UP,s.
RORY
Did you ever see this? Kirk Lynch set hand engraved by Gil Hocker. It had very mixed reviews.
Althrough I can appreciate the workmanship that went into that set its not really my cup of tea.
The example on the smallpipes is much more elegant and I think would look very nice on uilleann pipes.
All I,ve ever seen on UP,s is the straight lines that run around the ferrule.(apart from the Gil Hocker set)is any UP maker doing anything different
RORY
How much more would you be willing to pay for all that hand-engraving?
e.g. if the pipemaker spent an extra two hundred hours engraving a set, how much extra would you be willing to pay him?
djm
If I were those pipes, I’d have to quote Esqueleto in Nacho Libre.
“Look at me, I’m hideous.”
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. I’ll go into the no-adornment camp for UPs. Other than scroll lines in the ferrules.
That said, this is a picture of my smallpipes:
I think it looks good on smallpipes and bad on UPs.
Stuart
Here are pics of the McPhee set. As far as I know there is only the one depicted and this one (UPs)? Not my cup of tea (coffie) either.
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Decoration is as a spice, not the filling. That make pipes characteristic and unique, sometimes less is more.
wow. cool.
i wud like pay extra for sum cool leprucorn engravings.
but cletic nots? that’s just like so lindisferne gospels and stuff.
muakde
I like what Hamish & Fin do with the decoration on some of their sets of pipes (actually, it’s some dude named Malcolm Appleby that does the engraving), but I don’t think I’d want it on my smallpipes.
You see a lot of this sort of thing on Highland pipes. Occasionally, it looks very tasteful and elegant. More often than not, it looks hideously gaudy to the extent that you can almost see the Michael Bolton or Toby Keith CDs sitting next to the “Pipers of Distinction” CDs on the owner’s meticulously arranged shelf…You haven’t seen ugly until you’ve seen a set of GHBs festooned with eagles, stars, and stripes. (Apologies to any Toby Keith-loving pipers with eagle engravings all over their pipes who might happen to be reading this…_
I don’t think I’ve ever seen any kind of engraving on uilleann pipes that I’ve particularly thought added to their overall aesthetic beauty. Because you’ve already got so much going on with the keys, u-bends, various ferrules and wood/ivory/plastic mounts, adding a bunch of anachronistic Celticky-shmelticky decorations to the thing just seems to make things look way too busy.
That’s not to say that there can’t be exceptions to the rule, though. Just that in my opinion, less is usually more.
While not metal ornamentation, this 1928 Crowley set has interesting decor on the ivories.
Photo from Davy Stephenson’s website, under archives.
I’ve played many a pretty looking set of pipes that have been a complete bag of shight to play 
bits of wire up the chanter bores,tape on the tone holes, drone bores far to big, regulaters tones in the wrong place & bloody nightmare to reed up, and probably been better off put in the bin, but oh no! they get sold on to some other poor piper, the seller wants to recover much of there cost, before makers start making pretty sets of pipes, they want to learn how to make sets that play first and without “AIDS”, 
the furrules are only there to pretected the wood from splitting and knocks, a well made and good looking set of pipes with brass,nickel or sterling silver fittings look grand with basic or normal turned decoration,should’nt need pretty patterns added, “looks abit tarty really like look at me”. and also if your not a talented piper you’ll look a complete tit, with a over the top set of pipes.
all the best.
Hey, I played that over 15 years ago…
I believe CJ Dixon offers 10 coices of engraving for his pipes. There are some nice pics on his web site.
Nicely done and not too much over the top! 
I agree, solid sterling silver fitting is enough to give some genuine value to your set. When you place an order for a new chanter, there is no guarantee that it is going to excel in sound. Therefore, you should first order the chanter with plain brass and no keys. Later when you realize that your chanter deserves some decoration, change the ferrules to silver. Would this be a reasonable scenario in the spirit of the concepts presented above by reedman?
Well said nemethmik, at last, that is my exact point, don’t waist any money on fancy decoration till you have had time to learn or play the chanter you have bought for a period of time, only a good sounding playable chanter with as good as sounding set, deserves any fancy decoration, if any is needed at all, the chanter sound it self will show its perfection when heard by other pipers. 
Ray Sloan does it too. He doesn’t have pics for uilleann pipes on his website, but he did allow for the option before I ordered from him.
Let me also suggest if you’re going to do the silver thing you go ahead with fine silver instead of sterling. I feel it has a better “color” to it. More akin to platinum. Not that big a difference in price, either.
fine silver not so good when making metalparts for pipes …sterling (925) and “workingsilver” (830) works better becouse the amount of copper made these alloys abit harder.
Both can be electroplated with fine silver…or with rhodium(platinium metal)…
if u want some special colour…even ebonyblack.
Brittania Silver (not to be confused with “Brittania Metal” which is a type of pewter) is a nice compromise - over 95% pure silver but not as soft as 0.999 fine silver.
That said, fine silver can be hard enough if it’s forged, rather than cast or cut, into keys, and if ferrules are spun and not re-annealed. You can even make springs out of silver if you harden it just right (though I don’t know if I’d recommend going that far).
uilleannfinlander, don’t you agree (about work hardening?)
Bill
yep yep, so many ways to harden things after solderings etc… but everybody do what they find theirs best way to reach most best results with different alloys…
but this thread was originally dealing with decoration on metal 