Why Pakistan?

[briansbarkery]

Does anyone have knowledge of the companies out of Pakistan that are a cut above the rest?

[OC Richard]

It's odd, at least some of the firms in Sialkot make fairly decent bagpipes, African Blackwood and Ebony, but nearly all the ones you see for sale are the very cheapest ones they make, out of Sheesham Wood. There was actually a bit of a controversy a couple years ago with a Canadian guy who claimed to be a pipemaker, but whose pipes were identical in every way to a certain Pakistani maker, and when given a surprise visit was found to have no workshop whatsoever. These pipes sounded pretty good, were Ebony, and mounted in Silver. The Pakistani maker is Hakam Din http://hakamdin.com/?odcms=81543055a..._by=0&pSort=11

About other stuff, many of the sporrans, belts, hose, and jackets one sees at Games and sees being sold on Ebay and even in Scotland are made in Pakistan or India, and the quality of this stuff seems to be improving. What I've not seen is decent kilting fabric, or a decently made kilt, from India or Pakistan.

One company I have experience with, Replicaters (note the misspelt name), is interesting because they're capable of making very good Scottish doublets, and also capable of making very strange ones. Many of the pipe band doublets you see, being sold by various firms around the world, are made by Replicaters in India. http://www.replicaters.com/pipeband.html

[Ron Abbott]

I've had customised cap badges made by a company in Sialkot previously. The quality was actually quite good, much better than I had expected but a lot of time and effort had to be spent actually getting the items. Claims of them having posted the items but them going missing in the mail etc. In the end however, I think it was worth it.

I've certainly had an even worse experience with companies elsewhere and without any doubt, my worst experience was with a company based in Thunder Bay, Canada. The service and quality of the goods (almost certainly originating in Pakistan) was shocking.....but it was the service that really appalled me. After the event, I found that others have had similar experiences and posted details on piping related forums.

As OC Richard says, there have been some fairly decent bagpipes made in Pakistan in the past; so what went wrong?
In these days were they just trying to make and sell a quality product? Has that now been taken over by volume sales of poor quality goods?

About nine years ago, I ordered and received samples of a glengarry, a waistbelt and buckle and a sporran from a company in Pakistan. They were all inferior to the Scottish products that I had and which they were clearly copied from. Heaven help you if you wore a white shirt whilst wearing the glengarry in the rain......you'd end up with a zebra striped shirt!

The belt and buckle were made of heavy material and acceptable but the sporran wouldn't have lasted long. Cheap materials and not put together well. The sporran was almost definitely copied from one originally made from Wm. Scott & Sons.....and the quality wasn't even close.

[OC Richard]

The ebony and ABW pipes currently made by Hakam Din (linked to in a post above) aren't too bad. The drones play fairly well and have a decent tone. There was a guy in a band I used to play in who played a set, mounted in hand-engraved sterling silver. What was odd was that some pieces were ebony, some blackwood, and the bass midsection joint was pieced together from one piece of each wood! You had to look very closely, and know the difference between ebony and ABW, to see it.