Chiff and Fipple Forums

Still available, Micheld54? I'm interested.

Yes, Seth can make one for you. He made one for me. He just put a practice chanter cap over one of his molded plastic sackpipa chanters. http://i931.photobucket.com/albums/ad157/ckrusor/SAM_0744_zpsaf57ffff.jpg?t=1401239244 The design and materials are similar to a standard GHB practice chanter, so ...

I'm fond of a big, buzzy, complex drone sound, and I recently found two mulitanky videos that caused me to wonder about drone proliferation. The first is a demonstration of five drones played simultaneously, and the second video shows six: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA4-ZH5xMjQ http://www.youtub...

Thanks for those examples. I also found that Seth Hamon's smallpipes have the same kind of removable common stock. This image is from his site: http://www.swedishbagpipes.com/images/902b5653c6ea6ab77a2f3d3f9cba04dd.jpg I'm gradually making my first set of smallpipes and the idea of a removable commo...

Has anyone seen an example of a removable common stock on a set of smallpipes? I'm imagining something similar to a split chanter stock.

Thanks for the compliments. I'm pleased with the new bellows. I've been playing my pipes a lot more in the last few days than I have in the recent past. My old bellows were from an old set of Naill border pipes, and they were inadequate. The old bellows are 5" wide and about 9" in total le...

This is my first woodworking project since middle school (25 years), and my first leatherworking project. I needed to replace the inadequate bellows on my SSPs, so I acquired a board and a block of black walnut wood, a 5 sq foot black goatskin, an old black leather belt, brass hinges, a brass knob f...

I considered angled drilling. I guess I'm just not fond of it aesthetically. I think I'd prefer a large mainstock with widely spaced parallel drones. A 4" diameter mainstock will be just large enough, and I plan to make it hollow both to reduce the weight and for the purported acoustic benefits...

I'm just starting to consider making a few pieces that might eventually become a full set of SSPs, and I'd like to have room in the mainstock for up to five drones, including a Taylor-style barrel bass and maybe a barrel contrabass. I'm also interested in experimenting a bit with capped bells on dro...

I like that tune and your new set sounds great. What is the drone configuration on this set? Contrabass, bass, baritone, tenor, alto? What wood did you use? How complex is the keying of the chanter? High B, High C, Fnat, Cnat...? I'm not a pipemaker or a border pipe player, so I might not completely...

The bellows I have are from an old Naill border set. They're surprisingly small (about 5" x 9"). Quietpiper, what thickness of leather do you use for your bellows?

I'm familiar with the basics of good bellows technique. I mentioned half-pumps just to describe the behavior of my current bellows. What I meant is that from fully closed to half open, my current bellows draws in almost no air. That phase of the pumping cycle just pulls the gusset from the ballooned...

CHasR, thanks for that information. As usual, your expertise is much appreciated. I think you're right that part of the problem with my current bellows is a small outlet pipe. The brass fitting that joins the bellows to the pipe is small, and I'm sure that drag in that bottleneck contributes to the ...

I'm considering making a bellows for my SSPs, and I'd be interested in any thoughts about incorporating some of the features of musette-style bellows. My current bellows is small and suffers from a fair amount of ballooning during compression (delivering air to the bag), and collapse of the leather ...

ChasR, thanks very much for that. That's just the information I was looking for. I'll post updates if I make any progress on my zampogna chanter project.