The joys and dangers of Ebay pipes

[OC Richard]

Oh no!!

I didn't know Kintail was using that stuff.

I know Hardie was, during that time. I was working at a Highland Outfitter in the 1980s who carried Hardie pipes, and Hardie was switching their imitation ivory every few years.

Seems that in the late 70s/early 80s Hardie was using a strange plastic that had a slightly greenish tinge.

Then they switched to that stuff your Kintails has, kind of a marbleized stuff.

We would get shipments of practice chanters and bagpipes from Hardie with broken mounts fairly often. What it was, what the marble effect used two different sorts of plastic, one was brittle, the other was soft, and the mounts tended to crack along the border between the two kinds of stuff. A contributing factor was the Hardie didn't wrap their products very well: they would just toss dozens of loose Blackwood practice chanters in a box and ship them off.

Despite that stuff being brittle, I know of 1980s pipes mounted in it that have been in regular use for over 30 years that haven't had anything crack.

I'm really sorry about those pipes! I thought I saw Schreger lines. Had I known Kintail had used that stuff I would have been on the lookout, but I've seen dozens and dozens of Kintail pipes over the years and I've never seen one with that stuff before.

Sadly Ebay sellers often don't know how to wrap bagpipes. The worst thing is when bagpipes are shipped in a pipe case, because the various parts rattle around inside.

The Kintails I bought on Ebay had a case, but I told the seller I didn't want it. I asked him to bubble-wrap each part separately and put them in an ordinary cardboard box.

BTW for drone reeds my Pipe Major is using Balance Tones in the tenors and an inverted EzeeDrone bass.

So far, I'm using original Kinnairds in the tenors and an inverted EzeeDrone bass.