Recommendations for reeding the J.Dunn set

[johnpipe108]

I have built the J. Dunn for J. Peacock (1797) open-chanter set from Cocks & Bryan, 1975, and am looking for advice on reeding this pipe and getting it working. I've been quoted a price of 26 pounds for a modern chanter reed that could probably be adjusted to play properly, though I'm on our Social Security retirement income only, and currently have my health status upgraded to Stage 4 terminal, so I don't have 26 pounds to spend on the pipes.

I might be able to cobble up some artificial reeds for the drones, probably from square tubing and plastic or cane tongues, though I'm not completely confident of my abilities here.

The chanter reed is of course the big challenge here. Has anyone else made up, and got working, this old chanter?

I'm currently living in Northern California, USA, but unfortunately our pipers club has no nearby Northumbrian pipers.

I'm also going to try dropping a line to both Sean Folsom and Oliver Seeler and ask their suggestions.

Regards, John

[Julia Say]

John

there's a group of nspipers meets regularly in the SF Bay area - I don't know how far north of there you are, but the person you need to contact is Mike Sharp in San Carlos.
I'll PM you his email add.

Julia

[johnpipe108]

Thanks, Julia,
I hadn't heard of an NS group in the bay area; I used to be active in the SF Irish Pipers, but health problems and distance have prevented me attending. I'll drop Mike a line from your pm.

Regards, John

[pipemakermike]

Hi John
I made my first set from the Cocks & Bryant Dunn drawings. and found that it was not too hard to reed. I had to learn to make reeds whilst also learning to play and then tune the chanter (hence the rather large holes) at a time when there was little help available (1980) but I rescued it from the loft last year, fitted a standard reed and it now plays well and in tune (just a bit flat of real F). I haven't made any effort to tweak the pitch as I never play it with other people.