Pipemaking apprentice wanted ! No experience nessasary as a full training will be given A one time payment to start required .Highest offer secures position .
If mister Froment was to place this ad tomorrow what do you think the response would be ?
RORY
I think if any major pipemaker were to post such a request, they’d get a lot of interest but perhaps not as many serious offers as one would think. Take into consideration that people may not want to move close to the pipemaker or may not be able to for various reasons (duty to family, custody issues, &c). If Brad Angus was looking for an apprentice, I’d take him up on it in a heartbeat, but that’s partly because he lives very close to where I am so I wouldn’t have to move, &c.
If there are any pipemakers who need or want apprentices, they should certainly put the word out somehow.
Dionys
Most of the people who ask Brad about apprenticing don’t realize what pipemaking involves, which is dust, metal shavings, blowtorches, hot lead, chisels, grinding and sharpening reamers, sewing bags and bellows…
A lot of people romanticize pipemaking - ooohhh, I’ll make a living doing something musical! Music doesn’t enter into it until late in the game, first you have to actually build the things, and then voice the pipes, then maybe you can test them out playing them.
That’s very true, Kevin. There’s nothing romantic about pipemaking excepting the final product. The actual work is exactly that. Work, and unpleasant work at that. If you haven’t worked with hot metal shavings before, you’re likely going to be surprised at how unpleasant it is. The rest of the work isn’t that much more pleasant.
Dionys
Interesting thread. I actually had a conversation with Mr Fromment about this very sort of topic several years ago. Not that I had any interest in learning to craft UPs, as I am quite satisfied with my present career and as a hobby venting my energy in playing them consumes more than an adequate amout of my spare time. Also, not that I am old, but still at my age and stage of life, my wife and four children would have me committed. Anyway, I inquired regarding how many sets Alain crafts per year and contrasted this output against say Seth Gallagher’s shop since he has three apprentices (the two I am familiar with are quite good chaps by the way). He left me with the impression that he has tried hiring people several times but none of the so called apprentices were willing to put in the educational investment (engineering degree) that he felt is neccessary to properly appreciate and impliment the craft. So he just assume not bother training someone to think that they can learn the trade in a few years and then run out and make some sticks that aren’t up to his highly engineered standards.
“If you can’t do it, teach it.” That old saying has an opposite: “Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you can teach it”. While all the pipemakers I have met seem to be pleasant, personable people, I don’t know what it would be like to actually work for one of them. They may not have the communications skills to adequately convey what they require of the apprentice, or they may be the type who tells their students nothing, and leaves it up to chance that the apprentice will pick stuff up or not. If you are paying the pipemaker for your apprenticeship, this could cause a bit of acrimony.
There’s an awful lot of skills to learn, whether you have an iron ring or not. I would be tempted to seek out a qualified educational institute to get a basis in musical instrument making before apprenticing with a pipemaker. By that point, you should have decided whether musical instrument manufacture was for you or not. That way, you would have the basic skills, know the tools, understand design principles, and be able to learn just the portion of the job directly related to UP manufacture. I am not aware of such an educational institute near me, unfortunately. 
djm
In our French association, We were told that Alain gave up taking apprentices after a bad experience; the guy wanted to build pipes, and Alain answered: “Ok, but let’s learn how to build our specific tools first. if you don’t know how to make your tools, you won’t be able to make pipes.” And the guy left.
DJM is right: less musical activity than expected by young people.
Best
Hello Inis Fa…
I have a query…
When you say ‘engineering degree’ do you mean the full four year university degree for those wishing to be highly paid mechanical/civil/electrical etc engineers, the sort of degrees you require high levels of physics/mathematics etc for , or, do you mean the engineering training acquired from tech college in order to become a toolmaker or fitter and turner for which, in Australia at least, you only require a junior secondary level of schooling in oder to enrol?
Just wondering is all.
Cheers,
DavidG
I totally agree with Alain Froment. I used to do blacksmithing and machine work. I have always had to make my own tools. You may make them from scratch or reshape an existing tool. It takes a huge amount of patience to make things by hand.
I also know that if I were a known craftsman that people wanted to learn from, that I would be a bad teacher. I am poor at delegating tasks. I do a lot of work with my hands and people have offered to help, but I have a habit of trying to do everything myself.
A good craftsman that is also a good teacher is a rare thing.
In the past the craft may have been passed from father to son ,Is there any pipemakers at the moment teaching the craft to their son,s or daughter (a female pipemaker would be different I dont think there ever has been one )
RORY
There seems to be many outlets to learn some of the tasks - wood turning, metalwork, for instance. There seems to be enough info and opportunity to tackle the critical art of reed making. Even making bellows can be an entry point into the business. Putting new bags on and/or refurbishing old sets seems to a niche. Being a player is necessary for success. Sourcing materials seems to be more possible than ever with the internet and ease of travel. Pipes, old and new, are plentiful and available for measurement. We even know where the ‘good’ sounding sets are. Lathes are relatively inexpensive, although DQ mentions that there are some VERY expensive German-made lathes and various parts for them out there. (eBAY seems to have a lot of lathes out there.) A few apprentice/worker opportunites out there. A web site allows one to hang out a shingle for the whole world to see.
Making tools seems to be a key challenge.
It seems more than possible for someone to jump in.
I am not an engineer, though my father in-law is, but I have learned from him that there is a wide spectrum of engineering degrees and specialties, just as there is in medicine and law. Perhaps you should phone Alain and ask him. He was very forthright with me. I beleive that he is not alone in this camp, as I think (correct me anyone if I am wrong) Benedict Koehler has a formal engineering education as well, and this is not at all unusual.
Neil
Being an engineer means, in France, 5 years after baccalaureat. It’s a special degree.
You can spend those 5 years in an engineer school, or have two years in special classes, (Superior Mathematics and Special Mathematics, about 35 hours of maths and physics per week), then you take a special national exam that allows you to enter one of the best national engineer schools. You spend then 3 years in those schools before becoming an engineer.
Alain is an engineer.
In our engineers schools, we don’t learn how to make pipes. So I don’t know how Alain has moved to pipe making and how he learnt all technical issues. I shall ask him next time, if he doesn’t answer by himself here.
Best
Here’s another engineer (tool maker) who is now in uilleann pipemaking business. I talked to Jens this summer and he has really some smart ideas about drone reed design and adjustments for non-cane reeds. Let’s see how he’s getting to the market.
His sets look nicer in reality than on the webpages … 
His webpages are also partly in English and French: http://www.dudelsackwerkstatt.de
Alian is an engineer,but he is a civil engineer not a mechanical engineer,that is the chap you might see along the road looking through a theodolite at a staff off in the distance.While working on a very large contract in Saudi arabia he had the good fortune to become friends with Sahib hajig who Alain still thinks is the best mechanical engineer he has ever meet. But more importantly he is a very good teacher. .During any breaks he had he would spend in the well equipped workshop that was on site,learning all about cutting angles,tool making,lathe work but he also learned how to think like an engineer.As a carpenter when I,m cutting a timber roof if I,m a quarter of an inch out its not a problem with an engineer if you are a quarter of a millimeter out it’s a disaster.and you can see this level of accuracy in all his work as you can with wooff and Dave Williams .But at the end of the day you can,t learn everything there is an element of talent that cant be learned and it,s this that puts the great makers above the ordinary one,s
RORY
Nice looking pipes, but I can’t quite work out what he means by
and
“Mechanics to put down the chanter 47,41 €”
Can you clarify what ‘3 flaps’ are?
I’ve a feeling he means ‘keys’ judging by the description for smallpipes immediately above the UP description.
Regards,
DavidG
With ‘set of flaps’ he means ‘keys’ (in German this is ‘Klappensatz’) and the “mechanics to put down the chanter” mean the chanter stop-key. Hope that clarifies! I will inform him about this missleading translations. :roll:
Cheers, Thies
The tolerances that engineering equipment manages are incredible. In the early 1970s, I was visiting a company that built parts for NASA. They had a yoke that took off 1,000th of an inch on every pass for metalwork, if needed.
Just an aside…the difference between civil engineers and mechanical engineers…
mechanical engineers build weapons
civil engineers build targets
okay…carry on…
Awww, what a tease.
I was all excited there for a sec.
Not that this is my last year for my dagree and I’m looking for something to do or anything