From: "John Liestman" <liestman@wt.net>
Subject: use caution when swabbing out a bore
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998

A word of caution: I have just completed repairing a chanter for an embarrassed piper. The chanter was split in three places, with the splits travelling from hole to hole in the center of the chanter (i.e. between the E and the A finger holes).
What had happened: the piper used a rod wrapped in hemp to swab out and oil the bore (as well one should). The problem is that the piper left the end of the hemp loose, rather than tying it off. The loose tail was on the end away from the business end of the rod. The whole thing went in easily, but in trying to pull it back out, the loose tail got wrapped around the thickest part of the wrapping and the whole thing got wedged in place. Deciding that it would surely give, the piper pulled really hard. The wedged hemp did not give, the wood did, and the split happened.
Well, anyway, the moral is to tie off the loose end neatly and also, if it goes in nicely on the push but snags on the pull, push it through. If the rod has a handle on it, push it through far enough to remove the hemp and pull the naked rod back through.
The aforementioned piper will remain anonymous and, so far as I know, the maker of the chanter is no one on this list. Happy swabbing!

From:Bob <RTE395@aol.com >
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1998
Subject: bore swabs
I use an old mandolin string (.041" wound steel) and wind on a pipe cleaner at the appropriate distance from the loop-end--a ball-end guitar string of the proper size could be used as well. No chance of getting stuck, and it coils up to go in a pipe case. Mine are clipped off just long enough to not enter the reed. I haven't had a reed out of a chanter, or drone, for that matter, for several years--I leave them alone and they play.

From: "John Liestman" <liestman@wt.net>
Subject: Re: use caution when swabbing out a bore
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998
Since Simon asked how I repaired a cracked bore in the center of a chanter, caused by swabbing with a rod with a loose hemp wrapping, here goes.
Knowing that the crack was caused by pulling a wedge shaped object through the bore (swabbing rod with too much hemp piling up), I recreated the pressure by making a wooden rod that fit the bore fairly well. I split the rod into half longways and sanded the inside surface a little, so that the two pieces would slide along each other easily. I wrapped a bit of teflon tape on one end of one of these "half rods". I slid the two pieces so that the teflon tape end was "out on its own" and inserted the whole thing into the chanter. I manipulated the rods so that they were in the center of the cracks and then slid the two pieces so that the teflon end began to ramp up the other half. This made a controlled wedge which re-opened the cracks just a tiny bit. I put in some water thin Super Glue and immediately released the wedge pressure. (Never use the Super Glue in the tiny tubes from the local store. It is no match for the good stuff sold in large bottles at hobby or wood shops).
I then touched up the finish on the outside of the chanter (it was shellac) and there you go. I probably could have skipped the wedging part, but I wanted to be sure that the surfaces got some glue. The trick is to not wedge it too much, so that you create a worse crack.
If anybody else has a related experience, I would love to learn. Anyone else ever give a chanter a wedgie? (Does that translate into Brit-speak?) How would The Grand Poobah have done it?

Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998
From: Dave Singleton <DaveSingleton_Lux@compuserve.com>
Subject: re: swabbing

Texte du message ecrit par Dr John Gibbons >
I find that a cotton bud end, superglued to a bamboo skewer, has the right length, bore etc, and there's no fear of it jamming. Or does almond oil rot superglue??? John Gibbons <

I don't think so John, but doesn't the bamboo burn when it's turning on the spit ?

From: rjs@MBR.centra.ca (Richard Shuttleworth)
Subject: Re: use caution when swabbing out a bore
John, Another option is to use a "Q" tip. Dip the leading end of the Q tip in the oil and push it through the chanter. The trailing end will wipe off excess oil and the whole thing can be pushed out of the end of the chanter - no problem.

From: Helen Cook <hcook@taranaki.ac.nz>
Subject: Cleaning the bore
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998
Sue Wilkins has been to stay with me for a week and we have both indulged in much piping. She keeps her Burleigh pipes in excellent order but has no bore cleaner. I have one that I think was made by Barry Say.
We set to and cleaned the bore of all the chanters in the house!
Mine have had the treatment before so no great difference was made, just a bit of routine care. Sue's though were remarkable. Before cleaning we looked down the bore and could see nothing, just dull black with a hole at the far end. After the polishing, the bore reflected light down its length beautifully, and took on a real shine. We put the set back together and the sound was much brighter, which was what we expected. What we didn't expect though, was that the tuning had also improved, some notes near the top are now much more accurate. We didn't believe our ears so we checked it with an electronic tuner and it really is so. The notes at the bottom are unchanged. As far as we can tell the reed is exactly where it was and at much the same setting. We can spot nothing else that could have caused the improvement.
Can anyone explain why?

From: Colin Ross <Rosspipes@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998
Subject: Re: Cleaning the bore
I forget how I got on to cleaning the chanter bore . Maybe I was put onto it by Forster Charlton or it was a spillover from my National Service days when cleaning ones rifle bore was something you had to do and was checked by the sergeant major who looked down the bore to see that it was shining from the light reflected from your thumb nail in the breach.
Any way I make my bore cleaners from 1/8" welding rod wrapped round with crotchet cotton and then coated with shellac( french polish) to stop any fibres getting into the finger or key holes.They should be a good fit to get a good polishing action and have a drop of oil put on to seal the wood grain and help the process. You should clean off any dust that collects on the wrapping with a piece of kitchen roll until it looks reasonably clean.
The usual effect as you say is to brighten up the tone but I am surprised that there was no effect on the pitch of the lower notes as these normally sharpen up quite a bit with no effect on the pitch of the top notes. Are you sure that the "tip to top" measurement was the same i.e. 36mm. approx. I found out a long time ago that the general tuning is improved by oiling and cleaning the bore so I am not surprised by that. Why this is I have no explanation unless it is due to a more consistent standing wave being set up because of less absorption of the frequencies reflected off the bore.
Of course you could find that a chanter goes out of tune after cleaning the bore so beware and be prepared to retune with a file or superglue and blackwood dust. Chanters often require retuning in the first year due to the effect of the oil saturating the wood from oiling the pads. In these cases send the chanters back to the makers if you don’t want to risk a "DIY" job.

Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998
From: Sue Wilkins <Sue.Wilkins@vuw.ac.nz>
Subject: Re: cleaning the bore
Never mind all this discussion about how it affects the pipes - what about the poor piper who is left with a set of pipes whose sound they hardly recognise as their own, and a realisation that they've must un-learn bad habits built up over several years of exerting extra pressure to get top notes in tune!
Oh woe.

From: "John Liestman" <liestman@wt.net>
Subject: Re: Cleaning the bore
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998
My theory grime in the bore makes the bore wall appear rough (compared to a polished bore). This roughness causes eddies in the bore which absorb some of the standing wave energy (hence dull tone) and these eddies leave a smaller functional bore in which the standing wave operates (hence lower pitch). Since the distribution of grime is not likely to be consistent, you get some notes more out of tune than others and the whole thing is lower pitch an duller toned.
My observations that have, for me, confirmed this are from when I have made chanters out of ziricote and other woods coarser grained than blackwood. I bored a ziricote chanter and the note at the bottom (I had not drilled tone holes yet) was flat from the B that I expected. By swabbing in some shellac and polishing furiously with a thread-wrapped rod, until the bore was polished, the pitch came up to the same as a blackwood chanter without the treatment. I had filled in the pores and smoothed the bore, making the effective bore diameter the full size that I had intended, instead of the smaller effective bore caused by the roughness and eddies.

From: Bob <RTE395@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998
The discussions on the benifits of cleaning the chanter bore are interesting. As to the effects of dirt in the bore, I suggest it is simple impedance. As reducing the bore volume with a thread or moving the tuning rush in the bore of the regulator of the Irish pipes. The accumulation rate of gunk in the chanter bore would depend on playing environment (dusty conditions, cigarette smoke, &c) and exacerbated by the presence of surface oil in the bore to collect it. More here, or there, in the bore, would cause different effects.
Other than the fact that both ought to be clean, I see no practical analogy with rifle bores. John Liestman points out the effects of pitch due to surface finish with different woods--again, impedance. Filling the open grain removes it. Both my chanters have very smooth bores--one is ivory, one is ebony. Good black ebony has no discernable grain and has an excellent finish direct from the tooling. Just wiping out dust now and then suffices, and no scrubbing (ie, burnishing) is necessary. Synthetic materials would have this advantage. Both my chanters are elderly (c.1830; 1932) and had they been vigorously scrubbed and polished frequently over all those years, would probably have been worn out years ago. There are also tight spots and loose spots here and there where finger hole, decorative turnings, and mounting blocks have caused the age related settling-in of the chanter dimensions to vary from the original reaming--this would happen with metal chanters on a micro scale, but has a macro effect with organic materials. This, of course affects tuning over the years requiring adjustments.
Someone mentioned running a cord through the throat of a highland chanter; this is another problem. The throat gets wet, and the grain raises. Eventually it tightens causing all sorts of problems on low notes and reaming, or replacement is necessary. Cleaning as described probably helps to put off the inevitable--replacement of the chanter.

Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998
From: Julia Say <Julia.Say@nspipes.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Cleaning the bore

Rosspipes@aol.com writes:
>I forget how I got on to cleaning the chanter bore . Maybe I was put onto it by Forster Charlton or it was a spillover from my National Service days

I thought I remembered you saying the Cloughs did it....and therefore would assume you got it from Forster!

Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998
From: Mike Crowley <therion@ccnet.com>
Subject: Re: Cleaning the bore
All this discussion of bore-cleaning has been about chanters. Do drones also benefit from squeaky-clean, polished bores?

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998
From: Julia Say <Julia.Say@nspipes.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Cleaning the bore
I am reliably informed that they do - in fact I was recently taken to task for the state of mine. Apparently the size and cleanliness of the sound hole in the drones is also a factor in their stability. I got my ear bent about that, too. "The sound hole should be the same diameter or 1 size (that’s a 1/64 inch) larger than the bore of the drone concerned".