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Introduction to the 2023 web edition update
During the Covid Pandemic 2020-2022(I hope) I have kept busy making some sets (hopefully 12 sets) of traditional smallpipes and have taken the opportunity to revisit the design and the drawings. I have done some simplification and also taken some new pictures of my methods.
Since I last revisited the web version of this making information in 2016 there have been significant changes in the pipemaking world. The number of active makers is now the smallest I can remember. We have lost Colin Ross who was such an important part of the Northumbrian pipemaking world. A number of prominent pipemakers have retired (or semi retired) and a few new makers have joined the fray. The opportunities to access a lathe and other machine tools at evening classes across the country have mainly dried up probably due to the health and safety considerations and the reductions in the funding of adult education. Balancing this is the explosion of information available on the web and the increasing number of machine tools coming onto the market as engineering companies invest in Computer Numerical Control machine tools. There are even pipemakers utilising these modern CNC tools.
I have taken the opportunity to make some improvements to the design to make the pipes more reliable and to simplify the machining. A few errors that have crept in have been corrected and some of the supplier information has been checked and updated.
Where I have updated the text, added more information and photos of the manufacturing process, I will update the what's new page with the latest changes.
The introductions to the previous editions, can be found here
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