to wooden chanter top or not to wooden chanter top

Uilleann Pipes
1

hello fellow pipers,

Can anyone tell me what’s the advantage of a wooden chanter top? Is it of any influence to the sound of the chanter? I suppose that a wooden chanter top is heavier than a brass one; can you feel that difference while playing?

hope to hear from you…

2

I really don’t think the material the wind cap is made from matters in the least. I had a brass cap originally, and swapped over to a Cillian O’Briain
wooden cap. It made no perceptable difference (to me).

3

Aside from the aesthetic and slight weight differences, the best we can agree on is the wood offers better insulation around the reed when moving the pipes into different temperature settings or in and out of the pipe case. This may reduce need for reed adjustments.

4

This has come up several times. For every suggested benefit that has come up there have been those who disagree. It might be safest to say that no-one has come up with proof that one is significantly better than the other.

djm

5

a couple more points regarding specific makers:

preshaw stated emphatically that it has no functional significance, its just that the wood looks really cool.

regarding seth; if you want a “chanter shutoff key”(i think that is how you say it) he will do that only with a wood top.

bottom line in general- if money is short, i think the money is better spent on keys; in order of priority; C nat, F nat, than others you may want. you can always order a wooden top later, including from seth. for that matter you can always order keys later, but for that you will have to surrender your chanter for a while. for a new wooden top you should not have to surrender anything.

hope that helps

meir

6

I prefer brass shutoff caps. Wood ends up being bigger, longer, and heavier than the entire rest of the chanter, and I inherently distrust those feeble little leather flappers with the lame little piece of cord sneaking out to the lever. That’s not a shutoff mechanism so much as an accident waiting to happen.

Royce

7

Does anyone have a picture of Seth Gallaghers chan :confused: ter with the shut off key (wooden chanter top) ?