The Bagpipe Society

Forum for Bagpipe Enthusiasts and Makers

Thomas Ganter is a pipe making enthusiast from Germany. He has assembled and manages a forum for all areas of piping, including library of plans and drawings freely available to all. These include some for 3D printing. The site is in German but I have found that, if using Google, then the pages are easily translated into English (other systems are no doubt available!). It appears to be a good resource and an active forum to engage with.

Dear Members of the Bagpipe Society,

I’m a pipemaking enthusiast from Germany and writing under the nickname 'Schelmenkopf' in the German bagpipe forum https://marktsack.de/community/.

On the site, there are some of experimental plans drawn by myself, for example a Musette de Cour in D/G and Säckpipas in unusual tunings. I have tried to collect bagpipe plans from all over the world and categorized them by reed and bore type.

I am happy for all members to have access and use the resources on the site. In the pages there are are not only the plans for bagpipes but information for pipemaking and plans for other instruments, sheet music and free tune books

(Neo-Medieval pipe tunes, German traditional dances, folk tunes from all over Europe. There are also plans for Zampogna and lot of Italian folk tunes).

In the last few months I have done some experiments with the Swedish bagpipes to further develop the concept of the 'Northern Uilleann Pipes" such as thos made by Alban Faust. I used the physic principles that Linsey Pollak uses on his Cylisac, too. (https://bit.ly/Chanter142) By adding a register key and the branch pipe, it is possible to make a single reed bagpipe chanter that overblows in the octave with range of 1.5 octaves.

I have also reworked the plans for Swedish bagpipes, reworked the plans for Bulgarian bagpipes and added some in new tunings suitable for similar instruments from Macedonia, Greece, Albania, etc. There new plans: Slovak Gajdy in F, Estonian Torupill in G, Shuttle Drones in different keys, a new written plan based on a historic musette in G, carbon fibre reeds for the German Hümmelchen that should fit for Scottish Smallpipes, too - and I also have a plan for the Sordellina reconstruction like the one from Marco Tomassi.

There are now several complete instruments and spare parts - like single reed bodies for carbonfiber tongues - uploaded for 3D-Printing.

I have listed below a number of direct links to various pages in the forum which may be of interest.

Best wishes, Thomas Ganter

Below are various links to pages in the forum which contain within them, plans, drawings and information for pipes and reeds.

https://bit.ly/Chanter143

https://bit.ly/Chanter144

https://bit.ly/Chanter145

https://bit.ly/Chanter146

https://bit.ly/Chanter147

https://bit.ly/Chanter148

https://bit.ly/Chanter149

https://bit.ly/Chanter150

https://bit.ly/Chanter151

https://bit.ly/Chanter152