http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=16226&item=3726085456&rd=1
I wouldn’t be surprised to see these sell for a lot of $$$$$$$. How often you going to see something like this on ebay? If they were mine I’d order the tenor and baritone regs for a nice mellow ¾ set.
Re-reeded, re-furbished? Greenwood Pipes Workshop? Anyone ask exactly what was done, and has anyone heard of the greenwood pipes workshop?
Dionys
Is this Tony’s set? I thought that he had a same kind of set.
Greenwood Pipes is the brand name of Mr.David Boisvert.
Your man has his bass drone turned the wrong way, it was designed to have the bend sit under the small drone and support the pipes sitting on your lap. Looks odd in the picture. Not an indication of having a clue.
it is also one of the very first narrow bore Ds, as far as I remember Geoff was tinkering with the first designs around spring 86, making the very first two sets that year. A piece of history indeed.
Peter, the reversed placement of the drones is an oddity. Simack (Ian Mackenzie from Ausrtralia) does the same thing.
I know which drone goes in which hole in Wooff sets. If you turn the bend towards you you get a neat little package with the bend sitting under the small drone, supporting the pipes neatly, with the upper twist of the drone pointing outward between small and middle drone. Harrington designed them that way and Geoff followed that because it’s a good idea. In this pic they are turned out the wrong way and it looks very odd, making the small drone look very lonesome. The second shot looks slightly diferent yet the end piece of the shouldn’t be at the bottom of the pile but stick out between the two other drones. It’'s just not laid out the way it was meant to.
edited to add I don’t think they are in the wrong holes.
The set is in ‘fumed boxwood’.
From the Net:
“Also used on boxwood and other light woods, usually by fuming, which is to put the item to be stained in an airtight box with a container of nitric
acid and add some iron (old nails usually) to the acid and close the lid
(quickly). The nitric acid plus iron produces NO2, that orangish cloud you
see in polluted sunsets, which surrounds the wood and reacts with it,
coloring it permanently. The advantage to fuming is that it is much more
controllable and even than wiping the nitric acid directly on the wood with
a rag (and easier on the hands!!!).”
Serialnumber is 74, my set and Rolf Knusel’s B flat are 68 and 69. I have seen and played the first two narrow bore Ds so this must be the third or fourth he ever made. Buyers could check with Geoff to get details from the book on no 74.
For the drones, it looks like all the drones are in the right holes. The drone stop key looks like it is 90 degrees off. Shift that 90 degrees counter-clockwise and twist the bass drone and it looks like it would work.
The drone switch is free to rotate 360° and the placement of the drones can’t be plugged incorrectly as they are drilled small, medium, large. The bass drone loop cannot be flipped. It is as the maker intended.
Tony, I did look under my regs before posting to make sure I had my story right. This is not how Geoff normally sets up the bass drone.
Look at the pic of Maire, you can clearly see the bend of the bass facing towards her, each and every Wooff set I ever played, and they are several dozen, had this arrangement.
There’s also several pictures on [u]Patrick D’Arcy’s[/u] web site of Wooff’s pipes and the way the bass drone is inbetween the tenor and baritone with the loop under the tenor for a neat little package, as Peter says.
http://www.uilleannobsession.com/photos/stuart_hall/wooffset.jpg
http://www.uilleannobsession.com/photos/stuart_hall/regs.jpg
Looking at the picture, the drones are where they should be, but the bass drone just needs to be rotated so that the bend fits under the tenor drone. In addition to that, if you look closely at the photo of the valve stock, the holes are sized differently, each for it’s specific drone with the bass drone being between the baritone and the tenor.
Hello folks, I thought I’d post this to let people know what has been done and resolve questions regarding drone placement.
The Baritone drone goes on the outside most hole of the mainstock, the bass in the center and the tenor in the closest hole (to the body as the stock rests upon the lap)
Dionys, I have been making pipes for some time now, if you have any questions, feel free to do a search on C&F etc. looking for reviews.
Mr. Laban, with all due respect, I do indeed “have a clue”. There are 2 ways to install the bass bends on a set like this, and I am familiar with both. HOWEVER, the set was not sent to me in the correct wooff/harrington configuration. Many pipers and pipemakers are quite sensitive to other’s work being altered or mis-represented in some way. As I was aware of this, and quite sensitive to the feelings of others, I returned it to the configuration in which I received it. I did however, allow for the fact that it’s future owner would prefer to alter the drone configuration and the bends are certainly not glued in in any way. So the set can be configured as was intended…as shown below.
For the sake of arguement I took another picture for folks showing the correct configuration:
The baritone drone is not being BENT or warped in any way, the stock hole simply projects the baritone drone in that direction.
When I received the set the bass drone was setup incorrectly as wooff/harrington intended and the bass bends were EPOXIED in place. The bass drone was installed in the outermost hole and the baritone drone was installed in the center hole with a great deal of additional hemp.
I have not modified or altered this set in any way structurally from when I received it. It has been thoroughly inspected, cleaned, re-hemped, re-reeded, bag replaced etc.. One bass strap ferrule was replaced as the original solder seam had split. The leather gusset on the bellows was replaced.
Any other questions I can attempt to answer?
How is the set playing?
I’ve really got to handle to Wooff, when I first reeded the drones and played them, they struck me as the sweetest sounding drones I’d ever heard. Balanced perfectly against the chanter.
Davey,
I recognised your name after someone attached it to your business name(and have heard only good things about your work), but not your business’s name. So sorry 
Dionys
So Dave, how did this particular set of pipes find their way into your hands? Have you given some thought toward keeping/buying them for yourself? 
The auction mentions that the Seller may cancel and withdraw the auction at any time. From the listing “I reserve the right to cancel this auction at any time as these pipes were shown privately prior to my eBay listing.” Someone apparently had/has the Wooff half set under examination.
That policy is not really kosher under eBAY guidelines, especially if the reserve is met for this auction.
From eBAY: “Sellers are not permitted to cancel bids and end listings early in order to avoid selling an item that did not meet the desired sale price. This is considered to be reserve fee circumvention. Although there are legitimate reasons for ending a listing early, abuse of this option will be investigated.”