Following
our final move of house and shop from Puget Sound to Ohio, I first got
Concert Style C and C# flat Penny-Chanters tuned up to accept the identical
standard Concert D Penny-Chanter reed. Recently my collection of taper-bore
Concert D chanter prototypes re-appeared, so I picked the widest bore prototype
to suit the same reed Concert D Penny-Chanter because this reed can power
a strong stage-oriented performing chanter.
(For those waiting on orders, new pipe development is always strictly off-hours.)
Click Here for 100KB new sound sample of the September 2009 Concert D Taper-Chanter prototype playing with my Budget Concert D drones. There are some experiments yet to come on weak points in this chanter before I commit the labor to making the wood-reaming tools for the production pipes.
I'm
prototyping using the brass tube method I published in The Pipers' Review
last year for exactly replicating tapered bores, rather than approximating
them as the Penny-Chanter construction does. The current model is shown
at right with the pure-tapered brass interior bore and a black Delrin plastic
traditionally tapered exterior.
The bore is a wide taper of roughly Rowsome proportions of length, taper and size and is being matched to the Penny-Chanter reed, which chanter derived from a strongly Rowesome style source chanter. But I'm developing the new taper chanter from uilleann pipe "absolute zero." I started from a pure straight cone and have gradually worked-in various of the well-established perturbations used over the centuries for improving intonation, easing the 2nd octave pressure, balancing a willing hard D with a stable back D, and generally increasing the range of reed tolerance. Ultimately there's nothing new under the sun; however this chanter rather interestingly is showing an appetite for elements found in both Concert D and historic narrow bore flat chanters, so it may be a new combination.
Once in production, the wood will be cocobolo like the prototype shown here, intended for woodwinds, well-seasoned, oiled & polished, a hardwood that is popular for traditionally made uilleann pipes and other woodwind musical instruments such as clarinets. It is a reddish-brown striped wood with strong musical tone and climate stability at a modest price. We're also testing African mopane, which is becoming popular with Highland bagpipes, and the black Delrin plastic so popular for many woodwinds to see if we can produce it with the traditional tools we use for working the cocobolo. Hard maple is also being tested for budget wood pipes.
At first, taper chanters will be a budget offering, higher priced than Penny-Chanter of course but plain one-piece construction without traditional integral wood keyblocks. Where keyed, they'll be fit with the same simple all-brass key and mounting construction of Penny-Chanter. We do expect chromatic keys to be available.
The
wood is naturally air-dried timber purchased from special-purpose musical
instrument wood vendors, hand-selected to be most appropriate for woodwinds.
Next, the wood Penny-Chanter is given its preliminary bore and rough exterior, followed by an extended period of settling. As with our reeds, this involves climate forcing in both humid and dry air. Testing has shown that this triggers a significant amount of the natural irreversible settling that otherwise requires years to achieve in unworked solid timber. The black & white photo shows the bottom of a partly bored wood chanter blank after several seasoning cycles, ready to be finished. Notice the slightly irregular shape shown by the varying gap between the bore and the piece of round brass tubing placed inside for reference. This is caused by wood permanently settling different amounts along grain layers vs. through them.
After this, the finger holes can be drilled, the inside is reamed out the last slight amounts to its final dimensions, and the exterior is finished. The chanter is then given a natural oil treatment inside and out to minimize its normal cyclical response to changes in weather or climate, then polished and fine-tuned comparing to the reference chanter made of artificial materials.
The chanters are constructed using multiple short reamer tool sets, so that they can be readjusted any time in the future if needed.
To E-mail David Daye click here
Telephone Cuyahoga Falls Ohio USA (New York City time zone) 330-923-DAYE
(3293)
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