I try my hand at creating a simple wind instrument in the form of pan pipes. Normally this instrument is made of bamboo, reeds, or some other woody material.
I made mine out of solid steel.
I occasionally do handyman work along with other physical products. If you'd like to commission a custom build, I can help you with that.
These panpipes were made from Schedule 40 316L Stainless Steel (in contrast to my first try, which were plain, thinwall galvanized steel). The construction was more complicated for these, requiring a welding jig to get the proper curvature, and a lot of buffing to get the mirror-like shine. I'm very pleased with how they turned out, as well as how easy they are to play. The two issues are that the smallest pipes are hard to sound, which led me to down-tune them by a fourth (reducing the range from the original 2 octaves to a respectable 1.5), and they are heavy, weighing about 6 pounds.
Panpipes Mounted on the wall. Finally got around to making a display mount for the panpipes.
Panpipe Wall Mount, a minimalist design. The top two hook into the outer small pipes, and the bottom two support the outer small pipes. That way the mounting is nearly invisible.
Panpipe Engraving Detail. Going for a suggestion of waves and wind with an open celtic knot on the boundary between them.
New Stainless panpipes Pan Pipes
The new Stainless panpipes are quite shiny. They are also quite heavy.
The old panpipes which I welded together from EMT (Galvanized electrical conduit). They weren't very pretty, even less so before I painted them. The tone was ajusted by screws in the bottom of the tubes, but the threads were loose, and thus had to be sealed in place with wax to get a consistant tone. I think the welding created flakes of galvanization on the inside of the pipes, and although I cleaned them out pretty well, I would still start to cough after playing them for a few minutes, and there was always a matelic taste after playing them. After I finished making the new panpipes, I threw this set away.
Pan Pipes V1a
Panpipes V1b
I may not have used them for very long, or liked them very well, but it was a good first attempt to work through what was involved.