but i giant leap for me!!
This week i have reached a milestone in learning to make pipes - i’ve made a stick which i think does everything i want from a concert chanter. At least til i think of something else for it to do…
So i made a wee recording. The mics i used are on the brighter side but there’s no processing at all. The clicks are cause my soundcard is shot.
http://www.box.net/shared/t3kd7ia3io
but i’ve for a long time wanted a chanter which basically looks and sounds like a rowsome but with good e’s and i feel this isn’t too far off.
What d’you reckon?
Comments welcome but please don’t be too harsh - i’ve waited a long time for this!!!
Cheers
A
I’m always impressed when someone gets to this point, given how much research, really hard work and tool investment went into acheiving a good working chanter.
Nice tone, balanced e’s, nice hard d, top notes sound fair in tune. Good job! 
Do you have some pictures?
I listened to your clip and am really impressed. It’s not only getting a straight hole in some wood and other holes perpendicular to it. there’s all that and then making a reed that works and everything else. It really sounds lovely. and I’ve love to see it. post a photo so we can admire it in all its glory. You should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished.
Dr. Eric
Lovely crunchy, gritty sound. Nice hard E, sweet top A, whole thing smack in tune.
Would like to hear you linger on the C natural, the dance tunes are a bit too fleeting to hear its qualities.
A very nice (un-Northumbrian) style you’re developing there Andy!
Congrats on both.
Well done, Andy! I’d buy one. 
Andy,
How long have you been working on this project? Who did you learn from, etc? I’m certain we’d all be very interested to hear the Johnny McGory behind your find work!
OK here’s some photos. I’m no photographer. Anyway, it’s made of honduras rosewood with box and brass.
Thanks for positive comments so far. At least i’m not barking up a tree that no-one else wants to bark at!!!
http://www.box.net/shared/5ji4xjuipu
http://www.box.net/shared/akd8g8jgbg
http://www.box.net/shared/u36nvqqi1h
crunchy, gritty sound
“nice crunchable chanters..”
For my part I enjoyed the tone very much!
OOH wow Andy. Absolutely beautiful. I really like the scallops and everything. simply impressive. once again you should be very excited.
Well done, andmay! Nice and bright sounding, classic tone, proper intonation, clarity, looks great too!
[quote=“Brazenkane”]
Andy,
How long have you been working on this project? Who did you learn from, etc? I’m certain we’d all be very interested to hear the Johnny McGory behind your find work!
[/quote]
Hi,
Ok i started messing around on the uilleann pipes in the mid 90s on a set my father made from the Garvin plans. I made my first chanter maybe 97 or so. It was awful and i’d reamed it out with a load of files and screwdrivers. Still it got me through playing sessions for a few years til i decided i wanted something better. Still being too lazy to make reamers i turned to Craig Fischer’s excellent method of making square chanters and tried a few of these. I can’t recommend it enough if you’re curious about pipemaking - you can easily make a working chanter in a day/weekend without any specialist tools. I used ebony fingerboard blanks. But anyway it’s a great way to experiment and learn about holes, chimneys, throat size etc.
At that time i was convinced i wanted a narrowbore D chanter and ended up with something which again lasted a frew years. However i then met Newcastle-based piper Neil Chambers whose pipes really blew me away in terms of tone. A month later i met Benedict Koehler and was once-and-for-all convinced that the narrowbore idea was a waste of time and that Rowsome-style is where it’s at. Both of these guys have helped me hugely with reedmaking and i can’t thank them enough. I guess around this time i made my own drones and 2 regulators.
Next half-baked scheme was to make some (rowsomey) chanters by pouring casting resin over a turned brass bar of the bore dimensions i wanted. I based these on dimensions from Dave Daye’s site of a David Quinn chanter. . These sounded pretty good but proved brittle when you drop them!! Around this time i met David Quinn and we began to correspond, a few years ago i spent an invaluable week with him watching everything in his shop on my way to North Hero.
Anycase, these resin chanters were fun but my number one chanter kept breaking and wasn’t really benefitting from that so last year i decided it was time to do things properly so set to and made some reamers based on a good Rowsome bore. I’ve done maybe 4 chanters off those reamers and messed around on and off for a year with holes, throat, chimneys, chanter length and reeds until finally i have the chanter you see and hear here which has no glue, tape or rushes anywhere in sight!!!
To respond to a couple of the PMs i’ve had -
-
A couple of people have asked if i’d share the dimensions. I’m not really in a rush to do that just yet for various reasons, but i’d certainly attempt to offer some useful advice to people trying to make their own chanter.
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A few people have asked if i’d make them one!!! Again i’d say not yet. I wouldn’t buy a chanter from someone who’d not made the rest of the set so i’d want to be happy with my pattern for the whole set before i sold anything. Although as i say this, i’m working on a new set to go with the new chanter in what spare time i have. I’ll post on here if/when i’m happy with it!!!
Cheers
Andy