Nice stuff from pipemakers workshop even not UP making

Uilleann Pipes
1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxUm4_NECK8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-z9Zwg-b8k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3JtywLYPAs&feature=related

2

links not working for me… : (

3

tried again and now they work - go figure…

4

Wow. Fun to watch! I’ve never seen pipemaking for real like this.

I’d like to hear how UP chanter making diverges from what is shown here.

Thanks,
T

5

I was absolutely enthralled watching these videos. Would love to see similar videos of an Uilleann chanter being made.

6

You can see a video of an uilleann chanter being made by Caoimhin O Raghallaigh on you tube at


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NdkpbnlsTg&feature=related

7

(Tommy, check out source.pipers.ie… see below. You’re a member, aren’t you? :slight_smile:

One thing that really jumped out at me is the very short time spent forming the bore of the Northumbrian chanter, compared to the uilleann pipe chanter. No wonder, considering that it’s a 4.3 mm straight cylindrical bore… the creation of the uilleann/union chanter bore tends to be a much longer, more complex process, as the bore is considerably more complex and strongly tapered besides. Similarly, due to the difficulties in tuning the UP’s two octaves and multiple alternate fingerings, tonehole treatment is generally a much more involved process as well. On the other hand, our keywork tends to be a bit simpler (if you ignore the regulators!).

One thing that Gabriel (wasn’t that his name?) did that was noteworthy was use the rotary tool for a lot of block milling, including milling off the key blocks and milling the block corners. While I wouldn’t generally use such a squarish block shape on a uilleann pipe chanter, the method could be adapted with good effect, depending on the wood. He was using plumwood, which reacts rather differently to tools from harder rosewoods and ebony, for example - ebony might require a more cautious approach to avoid overheating or tear-outs. I would caution viewers against emulating his “floating end” method of initial boring - it’s far safer to use some sort of steady rest at the end of the piece when pilot drilling and boring. The use of the rotary tool with an instrumented cross-slide made it possible to do ‘machining’ operations on what would otherwise just be called a wood lathe, which was also very interesting.

There are a number of videos relating to uilleann pipemaking (available to members, that is) on http://source.pipers.ie - and more are being rolled out all the time. Eventually there will be 100 hours or more online there. Most of the videos in the “Recently Added” section are still under review, thus not publicly available yet, but all the “Featured Galleries” in the Pipemaking section are available and a number of pipemaking operations are covered. Jo, check them out - source.pipers.ie is well worth the price of admission for this and lots of other reasons.

Thanks for posting, Mikko!

  • Bill
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Yes indeed! Got the membership, the t-shirt, the bumpersticker, key to the washroom…the lot!

As usual, billh, you’ve read my mind for the cheap, dime-store novel that it is. Yes, it’s this pilot-hole boring that jumped out at me. I didn’t expect it to look so…casual.

I have only just scratched the surface of “source”. Can’t keep up with all the npu shop is putting out these days!

tommykleen