Monday, February 09, 2009

elegant solution


I had just gone into the garage to begin my practice session when once again my base drone reed found its way out of the drone and into the bag ( a non-zippered hide bag). My son who was working on another project asked for a quick definition of some of the explicatives that followed and what was the cause. Now he is a rather fine mechanic and when I explained the situation he came up with a most elegant solution. He went over to his tool box and took out a set of taps. He then “threaded” all my reed seats, in both the drones and the chanter. I doubt I will ever drop another reed! Thanks son!

4 comments:

LG said...

Threaded reed seats are a great thing, especially in chanters. Chanters with threaded seats allow for much finer tuning to balance the octave.

Another thing you might try for your drone reeds is wrapping a "life line" around them. By that I mean instead of tying off the hemp, leave the excess and when you place your lower section into the stock and have the free end of the hemp sit between the drone's bottom hemp joint and the stock, and this will prevent your reed from falling into the bag should it work loose.

Stewvan said...

THAT IS CHEATING!!! YOU MUST BE A FAKE, LOL just kidding, great idea actually. Of course now that means you can't blame the sound on the reeds!

Dave said...

Pops,
Great fix on the read... but you don't know how good piping can be until you get the Bannatyne Synthetic bag with the zipper. It's awesome!

Mike (AKA Pops) said...

Dave,

I would love to say I am a hardcore traditionalist and that only an Elk Hide bag will do. However... The delrin Dunbar sticks would quickly prove that a lie. :-)))

You are right of course a zipper bag makes for a quick fix, but even with that the tapping prevents the reeds dropping in the first place.

Slainte Mhath,
Pops