Willy Clancy & Pipemaking

[kosuke]

Does anybody knows about pipemaking of Willy Clancy?
I don`t know he made a set of pipes, but I have looked at a tenor drone which was made by him(may be...).

[Cayden]

The story is he was set up to havea go but died before he really got into it. I have seen repairwork and parts he made, very rough. My house had a frontdoor he was supposed to have made, he was more of a carpenter

[kosuke]

Thanks Peter!

[patsky]

As far as I can tell Willy never made a set nor even a chanter. He simply did not have the tools. A year or so before he died I was at his house and he produced an 18" long french bayonet and asked if a reamer could be made for that. I told him yes and we went up the street to an auto garage where the owner gave us the use of a grinder. I spent the next 6 hours grinding by hand a reamer for a D chanter. Willie was thrilled.

After Willie died I was at Sean Reid's house and he had inherited Willies pipes and tools and there among the bits and pieces was the reamer that I had made.

Willie never got a chance to make the reamer. He was probably too busy making Stair cases. Actually was a Joiner not a carpenter.

All the best,
Pat Sky

[No E]

I always wondered about reamers made from French bayonets.
Would the bayonet in question be the épée-type used with the Lebel rifle?


I've seen a fair number of these avaiable in flea markets in France (they're considered collector's item in the US).

Any pipemakers out there using bayonet-based reamers now?

(Sorry if this is veering OT)

No E

[giggleswicksam]

we use a similar reamer for setting the throat of some of our chanters. It also comes in handy for "running through" difficult customers . . . .

[Steampacket]

Dave Williams told me (this was in the 1980's) that he used reamers made from old bayonets