Okay...I actually bought a set of those made-in-the-Far-East "parlour pipes in D" from an ebay seller.

Now...first...before all of the real genuine pipers start to dump on me, I got these for WELL below the asking price...and I do mean WELL...and I knew that they were going to be at the least problematical and at the worst totally unplayable. I got them basically to look at them and see what the deal was in terms of how the things work. I intend to try to get them up and running and then begin to make improved replacement parts for each component until I have essentially built a set of smallpipes one bit at a time.

For the rest of you guys who are toying with buying some of those instruments from out there....I'm doing this so that you won't have to. Knowing this bunch, however, I'm sure that somebody else will probably do something this dumb so I'll have company.

So...what did I get? The wooden parts are made of some dark brown wood that I can't identify just now...the cosmetic work is sort of acceptable but the actual working aspects of it (how the joints fit, how centered the bores are, how well finished the interiors of the bores are) are moderately shabby. The bag looks like goatskin...the goat probably regrets his involvement...and it could be neater though the spots where the chanter, blowpipe and drone parts are tied in are quite solid. Came with the genuine reed drone reeds so I'm fiddling around trying to get them started. The chanter reeds are one plastic, two genuine reed reeds. And the popular opinion that these things smells funny is true...can't tell if it's the wood or the leather or both but it's getting a good airing...fortunately, it doesn't smell like anything went biologically bad or got moldy so I'm not considering it a biohazard.

So the adjusting begins. I can already see that I'm going to have to find some other drone reeds and will probably take a shot at building some plastic ones early on in this project.

Let's see how it goes...I have a reasonably good background in playing and maintaining woodwinds and the internet is, as usual, a great source of resources and ideas. Should be fun...if occaisionally frustrating.

Best

AA