Rolling B chanter reeds

Uilleann Pipes
1

I got a Richard Patkos B chanter for Christmas. I like it. Nice mellow tone. There are a few characteristics of the reed that i want to adjust and i am going about this carefully. Its a brass tubing staple. Richard provided the reed and staple dimensions. So I am going to make some of my own with brass tubing.

For some strange reason I like making my own reeds. And rolling them is fun too. So… I would like to make my own rolled staple B reeds. And i thought I might ask for some help here. Anyone have answers to these questions:

  1. What thickness or gauge copper or brass is best?
  2. What is a good set of staple blank dimensions?
  3. What dimensions for a staple mandrel?
  4. Anybody sell B staple mandrels?
  5. NPU sells a C mandrel…would that work for a B?

If left to my own devices, I think I would just ratio the dimensions of my D staple to the diameter of the B tubing and then back into the blank dimensions and then mandrel… Or something like that.

Any help would be appreciated.

2

A C mandrel should work for B.

0.020" copper sheet is the best thickness to use.

Seth Gallagher offers reed dimentions on his website. http://uilleann.com/reeds.html

Otherwise get a copy of David Quinn’s Piper’s Dispair book. That book gives both staple dimentions and mandrel dimentions.

3

There is some good tips and advice in the Dave Hegarty book.
For those who haven’t read it here it is.
http://source.pipers.ie/data/pdf/pdf_009753.pdf

RORY

4

OOh! That could help me too!

5

You should be fine with hobby tubing, especially if he’s using it. It’s the size just below 3/16 (can’t remember).

6

5/32 hobby tubing works fine but if you want to roll your own you should get measurements from Richard.

The C mandrel might well work for B but I don’t know what size it is so I couldn’t say for sure

I just put a D tenor regulator reed into a Kynch’s old B chanter and after 5 seconds of scraping it worked a treat!

Tommy