Mainstock cup design

[Jumper]

Cow horn - wow! That's cool. How thick? Did they put grooves in it or just fit it all together?

Look at page two of this PDF:

http://www.seanreidsociety.org/SRSJ2/a% ... %20set.pdf

[Cathy Wilde]

Wow. That's just lovely -- I'm amazed it hadn't gotten so brittle it just split into shards, especially since it was "recycled" for at least one bag. It must have been fairly fresh horn to withstand having the threads grooved into it like that and being shaved so thin? Or I wonder if he used heat?

The whole article is fascinating. I have ever so much to learn. Thank you so much!

[andymay]

Cathy - thanks for the picture of Keenan's bag.

There's a few insteresting things there.

1. The nut in the cup isn't in the middle but off centre toward the back of the bag.

2. The stocks are really close together.

3 The bag looks almost the size of a cow!!

I'm presuming Dave Williams made the stocks for that set as i've seen another of his with the same fitting for the blowpipe but i never looked inside the cup. It looks solid enough and neater than the Crowley in that there's only one hole through the bag - the Crowley had one big air hole and then maybe 8 small bolt holes around the edge.

As an aside, it's hardly an advert for vinyl though.....

A

[Cathy Wilde]

If anyone would have/could wrangle a bag the size of a cow, I think it'd be Paddy!

I wish I'd recorded his comments about all this, b/c he listed various reasons for setting things up the way he did (including the giant bag, and maybe even the off-center inlet arrangement) -- but I definitely remember him saying vinyl is vastly superior in his book. As for the stocks, could be -- the mainstock and drones and regs are all Dave Williams's so that would make sense.

I'm hoping someone else who was there can chime in .... anyone?

[Ted]

When young, Paddy hurt his left shoulder over practicing. He like the vinyl bag as he can overly inflate it and uses the balloon effect to his advantage which lessens the use of his shoulder to play the set. Contrary to what the instruction books say, he uses the bellows for the extra pressure needed for some of the second octave.
The Leo Rowsome set John Pedersen sold reciently had a cow horn cup with a silver band shrunk onto the opening for reinforcement. Boiling horn makes it quite flexible and moldable. Let the horn cool over a cylinder of the desired size to form it round on the inside. I have seen a few other cow horn cups. Cow horn is used for stocks on a number of European bagpipes.

[PJ]

The Leo Rowsome set John Pedersen sold reciently had a cow horn cup with a silver band shrunk onto the opening for reinforcement.

There's a photos here.