Occasionally I get tasked with making antler mounts, so I wanted to share some of that process. First, the antler needs to be of suitable size and well seasoned (dried a few years). I’ll then cut pieces into oversized sections and then face and bore 1 side. Antler comes in all shapes and presents a challenge when trying to hold it on a lathe. I made an expanding collet to hold the piece after boring to the rough size. It’s then turned round, the bored to final size and attached to the drone. Once it is secure on the drone, the whole section and mount are finish turned and polished to a nice shine. Quite a bit of work and challenging for such a small part of an instrument!

I've been wanting to talk about some of the different tunings that can be done with my drone sets. In this video I give examples of tuning the drones to match with A, D, and C chanters. 

Hello and welcome to the new site for Quietpiper smallpipes. A lot has happened in the past few years since my first web presence, so I figured an update is in order. This winter, in spite of having some extreme cold weather, has been a very productive time. I've spent a lot of time designing, making, and upgrading tooling and fixtures in the shop. This has been done with the aim of improving consistent quality for critical parts, most especially for making reeds.  
I have also been working with some new construction methods and ideas for smallpipe drones. Some initial work is also being done on developing a new type of hybrid smallpipe that will blend some features of Continental pipes and Scottish/Northumbrian pipes that. All I can say right now is that it is a very exciting project for me personally and that I hope to have working prototypes by the summer. 

My goal with this blog is to keep everyone informed with what is going on in the shop and to share info on pipe/reedmaking. So, keep checking back for updates. Cheers, Rob