Reamers (escariador) for gaita

[earthjig]

Hello to everyone,

I've been now building gaitas for about a year and a half now : until now 1 asturian gaita and 2 galician gaitas (Yes I know it's not much, but I don't have the time to work on it full-time)
All these gaitas are in C (do), but the chanters sounded realy bad.

To make them sound good, I had to buy chanters from builders in Spain.

Nevertheless, I'd like to make my own asturian and galician chanters (in different keys).
Therefor, I'm looking for people with the knowledge and the tools for this subject.

I know it is very delicate to ask such information, but help would be appreciated.


Many thanks

[anima]

Hey Jig, did you see the post where Chus uploaded schematics for his asturian sets?

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=130

[earthjig]

Yes I've seen them.

I was actually looking for more details regarding the subject.
Reamers in different keys for different gaitas, that's what I'm actually looking for

[Yuri]

I would think myself that one reamer, made a bit longer than the lowest pitch you aim at, will also work for all higher pitches' chanters of the same type. At least it works perfectly for my not-so-smallpipes, which are slightly conical. I make them from A to D, using the same reamer.

[earthjig]

Great,

Thank you so much.
I'll try to get my hands on different chanters (to at least take the measurements on the hole-locations).

Also, I still need to find someone to make the reamer, as I'm no good at all with metal.

Cheers

[Art]

I wonder if Earthjig could use a bayonet as a reamer?

I've heard that some bayonets make good reamers. Does that mean that the bayonet doesn't need to be shaped, that the original taper works well as a reamer?

[dan chaffee]

A bayonet could easily be shaped to the correct taper, but that isn't the problem.
I've watched chanters being made and it is clear to me that the effective aspect of
a proper reamer is that the wood is shaved off as the hole increases its dimensions, as opposed to scraping the wood as a bayonet would do. Reamers have a slight positive
angle on the cutting edges and it acts like a plainer. This makes the bore very smooth
and doesn't stress the wood as much during the process.

[Yuri]

You can actually scrape, too. I have.
I have made some reamers, all from very thick and large files. It's quite tricky, as they have to be made to rather close tolerances, but not impossible. The tools I use are an angle grinder with a cutting wheel, as well as a grinding wheel, a stationary belt sander and a grindstone. What you need to aim at is recreating a curvature as close as you can to the innner conical shape of the bore. That is the shape of the reamer will be something like this: /_____\ rather than \_____\ or |______\ . (Add a connecting line on th top as well.) The reamer will have a straight grind on the cutting side, but a curved one on the other, so it sort of rides on the inner curvature of the bore. Of course drilling a progressively telescoping bore will ease the reaming. All these reamers work scraping, and if they are kept sharp and smooth, produce smooth bores.