Made my own Irish Uilleann bagpipes

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I took up the Great Highland Bagpipes (GHB) back in the 1960's and in the 1980's was able to take up the Irish pipes (UP). Now I did not have bucks then, I was on disability, so if I wanted my own set of UP, I was going to have to make it myself.

I got a cheap, funky consumer wood-turning lathe and the only book ever published on the subject and had at it. I stuck to the basic "half-set" as one is called which has just 3 drones and a chanter , the melody pipe, which I had made by a fellow piper's club member as at the time there was no simple method for making a chanter and difficult to make tools were required (A clever Australian maker has actually found an effective method of making one with just 4 pyramid shaped pieces of wood, and the job can be done with nothing but a pen knife; talk about thinking outside the box!).

Here it is:



There are more pix on the subject in my album at:

ncwoodworker.net

OMG THAT IS FREAKING SWEET!! ! Hope you can play 'em.

Thanks! I play the Scots pipes best as yet, but am not too bad on the UP. I do need to do some physical rework on them after all these years. Someday, if I can overcome natural laziness and actually practice on the UP, I'll make some mp3 recordings and put them up.

That's some complicated stuff there.
On of my best friends makes bagpipes of the Swedish and east European kind mostly (along with other works of craft) and I really love the folk music and the sound of bagpipes.
Awesome stuff! I'd love to hear it!

My friend Oliver Seeler is a bagpipe maker (when he isn't busy being fire chief of the little town where he lives).

He has a site on pipes (also makes and sells some there), but also has a few bagpipe sound files posted for listening here:

Universe of Bagpipes

I played the Great Highland Bagpipes in the 90s. I wish I had taken up the Uillean pipes instead. The sound is beautiful and takes less muscle to produce. I still have my highland pipes, but I don't have time to practice enough to keep all those random muscles in peak condition.

I know what you mean; when I arrived in Marseille in September, I was having trouble with my birl, as I only play GHB nowadays mostly at family parties and memorials.

If you have a 1/4" electric or manual drill, and would like to have some fun, you can cut four pieces of 1/4" thick wood into narrow pyramids and stick them together with crazy glue, and make your own Uilleann pipe chanter!

I've seen one fully functional UP half-set made entirely from PVC pipe and vinyl tubing; and, here's directions for How to make a set of highland pipes from PVC piping.

You can make a bag from the hide of the mythical Nauga, and there's plans on the web for making those and simple, functional bellows. Hardware store items completes a practice set you can assemble yourself for probably about $50 or less (which is a hell of a lot less than the $500-plus cost of a good professionally made one), and that chanter can be made by any aspie with the ability to follow clearly written, detailed instructions, and your chanter can be made to sound like one made by the finest maker, and it's all your own work!

Well, I wish I could see the pics... probably because of Opera (my browser).

My daugther recently took up the Gaita which are Spanish bagpipes.
We go to a music camp every year for world folk music and there are many sorts of pipes there.

Thanks for sharing... hope my other browser will show the pics...

That is a beautiful set of pipes. I will look into making the Uillean chanter. I've always had the most success with chanters. The music comes naturally to me. But on the GHB, it can be hard to generate enough air power and keep your lips tight enough. That was the hardest part for me. And I chose to start with a traditional elk hide bag. Later, I switched to a synthetic bag, but then I ran into a problem with the drone reeds and I didn't know any other pipers who could help me with it. The town I was living in at the time had a wonderful folk instrument store (all kinds of pipes, dulcimers, etc.), but there was no pipe band.

got a chanter once. Could not make a sound with it (unless you call hissing a sound.. good on ya.

Did you forget to install the reed?

Cool. You got skills. Are those the same as parlor pipes?

This is really cool. Too bad the thread is 4 years old.

BEAUTIFUL!

How cool! The UP is one of my fave instruments (to enjoy that is, not to play).