It’s a little hard to make progress on this item when my lathe is mothballed in somebody’s basement (which it is). I am currently working on setting up my workbench to accommodate my router so that I can try a method of whistle-making traditionally associated with Native American Indian whistles. For this I need to be able to affix my router to the underside of the bench so that I can set up a sturdy fence on top and feed my workpieces along the router instead of trying to run the router manually along the workpiece. My first attempts at freehand routing failed pretty miserably – in one case the router actually tossed the workpiece off the bench.

In May I will be moving my lathe to my parents’ chalet where I hope to take over some of my mother’s workspace. Then I’ll be able to move my stock there as well and start turning again. It’ll be a long drive (3.5 hours) on the weekends but well worth it to have the space to work properly.

In the meantime I have tested out a couple of the pipes I turned last summer with some plastic reeds and they actually sound and can play (incredibly badly tuned) scales. I’ll be trying over the next couple of months to put together a bag and bellows set to replace the ones I am currently using for my Scottish smallpipes; I already have the bag cut and sewed, I just need to add a welt and it should be good to go. The router setup will help with the bellows as well since it will be far easier to route the paddles than to try cutting them from straight stock.