Category: Pipe Section

Care, Cleaning and Storage of the Practice Chanter

Practice chanters are sensitive to extreme temperatures.

• Don’t leave them in your vehicle during the hottest days of the summer or coldest days of the winter.
  • Heat will melt the plastic chanters and reeds.
  • Cold will make both plastic and wood chanters brittle allowing them to break easily.

Materials Needed

• Practice Chanter
• Hemp
• Parafin Wax
• Scissors or knife (cutting hemp)
• Cloth/pull through

Disassembling the practice chanter

Make sure you always separate joints by grabbing onto the top and bottom of the joint immediately beside the joint before you twist. DO NOT leave a great space between your hands. The stress of the twisting motion can cause the chanter (or other part like a drone) to break, especially if it is wood.

Hemping the joint

On the newer practice chanters that are plastic, they usually have rubber o-rings for sealing the joint so hemping isn’t normally required. However, on wooden chanters it is required. Due to the air pressure required for the reed to sound, we need to ensure that the joint between the top section and the bottom section is as airtight as possible. This is accomplished by wrapping the pin with hemp. The hemp is coated with paraffin or bees wax to help make the hemp water resistent so that it doesn’t rot. The hemp also helps prevent the hemp from spinning on the pin.

To hemp the joint:

Form a loop with the hemp. The top of the loop is at one end of the pin and the free end of the loop is at the other. At the free end, start wrapping the pin with hemp by filling in the grooves (practice chanters that need to be hemped will have grooves). Once you have wrapped to the loop end, you insert the running end of the hemp through the loop, and then pull it under the wrappings by pulling on the free end of the hemp.

Continue adding layers of hemp as required such that the top section will fit snugly on the bottom section.

NOTE: If you haven’t used pre-waxed hemp, you will need to wax each layer of hemp as you have finished the layer.

Removing Moisture from the practice chanter

Wipe down the outside of the chanter.

Wipe down the seat and around the pin (inner part of joint).

Insert your cloth up into the upper section of the chanter to absorb moisture that may be in the chanter.

You may also need to hold the bottom section upside down so that moisture drains from the chanter.

Removing Moisture from the reed

Wipe down the reed.

If there is moisture in the reed (it makes a gurgling sound when played) you can blow from the staple end of the reed and this will blow most of the moisture out of the reed.

Cleaning the practice chanter

Don’t use harsh chemicals on your chanter. Usually wiping the chanter down swill suffice, but if that isn’t sufficient, use luke warm water with a very mild soap.

Assembling the practice chanter

Carefully line up the base section and the top section. Ensuring that you don’t scrape the reed on the inside of the top section, insert the base into the top so that the pin on the base is snugly in the top.

Storing the practice chanter

Store your practice chanter in a cool dry location. I usually store my chanter in my pipe case.