Our story 10 years on; Part 1, The beginning
First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has bought our instruments in the past 10 years. To all the fantastic people we have met who supported us and encouraged us. Thank you.
It was 10 years ago in June 2015 that we first sat down and decided to make bagpipes, professionally. We pulled our skills, experience, knowledge and resources to start making pipes full time. Our aim was to create a traditional family bagpipe making business. At that time, we were the first new professional bagpipe maker to enter the market in 15 years.
We wanted to make all three kinds of Scottish bagpipes, which are Scottish Smallpipes, Border or Reel Pipes and Highland Bagpipes. It was important to me that we designed each of our instruments from scratch. Not copying any features of other makers, but to use our knowledge and experience to produce the best possible instruments.
We looked for equipment and suppliers for the materials required. A lot of the specialist equipment to make pipes is not available on the market. So, I designed and made that equipment myself.
Sadly, within a few months of starting the trials and pre-production models. John McDougall died. John was a massive part of what we were trying to do. He was Dad, Grampa, inspiration, motivation and a fountain of experience and knowledge. We are glad that he managed to see and hear some of the first what we call sounding sets and he was amazed at the depth and range of sound across the instruments. But we had a long way to go to get that perfect Highland Bagpipe Chanter that John had looked for all his life. We will return to John’s incredible story in further blogs.
We continued designing and refining our instruments ready to be released. All the instruments started off with a list of criteria that we wanted from each set of our pipes. This would focus our attention and drive the work to make the best possible instruments.
Next time I will discuss; the design process.
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