I have never really liked the key blocks on my chanter - too large and stick out like big ears, so today, after 14 years, I took to it with a bastard file, then a finer file and gave my chanter a block reduction. Then I went down to Malcolm McLaren’s house and sanded it down some more and finished with the steel wool and then applied the final make up and gave it a good buffing. Now it’s like a brand new chanter again.
That’s all from the Antipodes. Jes thought I’d mention it.
Cheers,
David.
I had to do something similar with a Robbie Hughes chanter I once had. The blocks were flat to the fingering surface, and interfered with my ability to cover the holes. My experience is that the pipemaker makes the chanter to fit his own hand size/chanter grip, which may or may not be suitable for you. Just don’t take off so much that it weakens the block. If you don’t have keys mounted yet, don’t take off so much that keys can’t be added later.
djm
If you want to go a step further than steel wool in polishing your chanter, you might try a smooth polished stone from a new age/crystal shop, You can burnish the wood to a very good shine with a piece of agate, jade, amethyst or garnet. Anything glassy with a mohs hardness of 6 or better will do. I even use them as a final step while the piece is on the lathe.
Marc
Hi ausdag,
This is your Egan chanter your talking about right?
Patrick.
I think David has an Adrian Jeffries D chanter Patrick. I can’t imagine Mr. Goldsworthy chopping up an Egan stick… at least… I would hope not. 
Sorry Patrick, no Egan chanter over this way. It’s a Jefferies chanter - one of his early models which had big chunky blocks.
Even after reducing them, there is still plenty of chunk to them to accomodate keys with no chance of them breaking off. Newer Jefferies chanters have much smaller blocks.
Hi Marc, thanks for the advice. I’ll give it a try sometime on some other projects I do. As long as none of those New Age ‘good vibrations’ rub off on to me though - otherwise I might get the urge to put on some of that highly depressing synthesiser music with waterfalls in the background. 
Cheers,
DavidG
After the makeover - (sorry, no ‘Before’ shots)
Cheers,
DavidG
Grand job… I suppose I should have lashed on a few smiley faces in my last post
Patrick.
Well done David, looks nice.
Thanks Joseph and Patrick…no worries. I’m just practicing on this one first for when I get hold of the original Beehive set I reckon it’d look better as an Egg Cup set don’t you think? Bit of a grind and filing here and there should do the trick?
Cheers,
DavidG