Are Plastic Bagpipes Actually Good? Check Out R.G. Hardie’s Poly Pipes—Quality, Durable & Affordable
by Jori Chisholm, Founder of BagpipeLessons.com
Last Updated: June 10, 2025
These pipes will change how you think about plastic bagpipes. Whether you’re hunting for your very first set—and want a high‑quality instrument at a great price—or a second set that thrives in tough conditions, the R.G. Hardie P01 acetal Highland pipes are made for you.
In this video I unbox and play this crack‑proof, humidity‑proof masterpiece that’s built on the same classic sound as Hardie’s blackwood line but costs far less.
Watch the video and scroll down to read the full video transcript.
Topics Covered
Premium Design, Zero maintenance: acetal never cracks, warps, or needs oiling
Consistent Tone Anywhere: rain‑drenched parades, scorching games, freezing winter gigs
Budget‑Friendly & High Quality: serious sound without breaking the bank
Ideal Travel or Backup Set: keep your heirloom blackwood set safe at home
Close‑up Look: combing, beading & ferrules
Video Transcript: Hey guys, Jori Chisholm here from BagpipeLessons.com. I got a new package—something from R.G. Hardie. I thought it’d be really fun to open it up and show you guys.
These are the R.G. Hardie P01. They call them acetyl. They’re the poly bagpipes—the plastic pipes. I have a set of these. My son plays a set of these. I’ve sold a lot of these, but just got a new shipment in and thought I would show you.
So when you get a set, this is what it looks like. R.G. Hardie & Company, makers of the world’s finest bagpipes. R.G. Hardie and Peter Henderson—they’re the same company. It’s the two different brands.
Alright, so let’s see what we got here. Some foam, some informational material, lots of bubble wrap.
So these bagpipes are plastic. Now, you might be thinking, “Why the heck would I want plastic bagpipes?” And by the end of this short video, you’re going to understand why.
So this is a tenor drone. Wow, that looks amazing. You have to get up really close to even tell that it’s not blackwood. It’s very beautifully done. Imitation ivory, the black mounts. So this is what we call a ferrule. These are imitation ivory ferrules. These are the ring caps, and then the mounts are also in the black plastic. The pin is also plain.
Traditionally, bagpipes would have been made out of hardwood like African blackwood, and they still are. Most pipes are made out of blackwood these days. There are some other hardwoods that they sometimes use. And then the ferrules would have been either elephant ivory or some kind of metal like nickel or silver. You can still get nickel and silver ferrules and caps and mounts.
But what is so cool about these pipes is a couple of things. They sound amazing—I’ll post a link below of some recordings of me playing these. They sound amazing. They’re basically perfectly made because you remove any variability that you might get from wood. Not all blackwood is the same. Wood is a natural material—it’s got grain, it’s got knots, it’s got little swirls. So this material is perfect.
And if you could look in there—I don’t know if you can see that—but it is like a mirror in there. It is so perfect. If you look at it through the light, it just looks like a mirror. It’s totally smooth. These pipes will never crack. They will never warp. They will never have any kind of change to this “wood” unless you physically smash them. I haven’t tried it, but I think you could easily put these through your dishwasher. I think you could bury them in your backyard in the dirt and then dig them up after the winter. And as long as some animal didn’t chew on them, you’re going to wash them off and they’re going to be perfect.
So that’s what the stock looks like. Yeah, you can get a sense for that. So that’s a tenor drone.
When you order a set of bagpipes—I do sell these in my shop, by the way—if you order them, you can order them fully set up, which means bag and drone reeds, pipe chanter, bag cover, cords, and all that stuff. Or you can order them as sticks only. And that’s what we’re looking at here.
“Sticks only” means three drones—two tenors and a bass—all five stocks, and a blowpipe. That’s it. So what you don’t have when you get sticks only is you don’t have a pipe chanter or a pipe chanter reed. You don’t have the cords to hold the drones together. You don’t have a bag cover. You don’t have any drone reeds. So with “sticks only”—there’s still a lot that you need to get set up to get your pipes working.
These are the two tenor drones. Absolutely perfect, identical. I’m so impressed by what they look like on the inside—just like mirrors. It’s just fantastic.
Okay, and then we got a bass drone. The bass drone has three sections—this is the top and middle section and the bottom section here. Alright, so there is the bass bottom section, and you can see: R.G. Hardie & Company, 2024. Cool. And you put that together—there you go, there’s your bass drone. Bass drone, two tenor drones—beautifully made.
This imitation ivory looks pretty close to real elephant ivory, but no elephants had to die for it. Nice color. Some of the imitation ivory on pipes from decades ago—there were some Hardie pipes and some Naill pipes and other manufacturers that had this imitation ivory—it’s mostly from the 1970s and 1980s. It’s aged horribly—it’s like an orange color. So if you’ve seen bagpipes that had that orange color on the mounts, that is imitation ivory from a specific era, and it’s kind of gross. Nobody really wants orange bagpipes.
This stuff is not going to do that. This is a totally different material, and this is going to age extremely well.
Alright, so there we have the pipe tenor stock. And here we have the blowpipe. This is another cool thing that R.G. Hardie includes with this set—the Adjustistick adjustable blowpipe. It comes with a little Adjustistick tube here. Take a look at what that looks like. Yeah, there it is—Adjustistick.
So “stick” as in blow stick. I call it the blowpipe, but some people call it the blow stick. What it allows you to do is adjust the length of it. In a traditional, non-adjustable blowpipe, this would be the mouthpiece, this would be the blowpipe, and this would be a removable part. You could get ones that are in different sizes or lengths. But instead, you can see this cool little knurled feature here—it just allows you to unscrew it, and when you unscrew it, it loosens this part, and this part just slides out. Then you tighten it back down.
If you’re a tall fellow or a tall lady, you would extend that out to get the right length. Then you can shorten it down and adjust it to the perfect length.
If you’ve watched my videos on ergonomics, one of the most important things in getting your pipes working for you—and to be as comfortable as they can be—is to get that blowpipe the right length, so that the distance from your mouth to the top of the bag is the exact right height. You want your forearms to be horizontal—meaning level with the ground—or very slightly angled down. If you find you’re reaching way down, it means your blowpipe is too long. So you can adjust the length of that.
Two other cool features here: this mouthpiece tip is replaceable. The tip actually comes off. That is a round tip. Some people like the traditional round. There’s also oval—a little bit flatter. That just screws right on here. There we go. Perfect. I actually like the oval. It comes with this plastic—I’m not sure if it’s kind of vinyl—tubing to cushion the teeth. I prefer the black rubber, and I sell the black rubber mouthpiece protectors in my shop. Just slip that little black rubber on there and it’s nice and soft on your teeth.
So that’s the Adjustistick blowpipe. One more cool feature—the valve inside. Inside there—so this hemped part that goes into the stock—this actually unscrews. There you go. See, look at that! This is so cool.
And the valve is inside. Look at that! So actually take it out—you can see—it is a very nice and thick, really strong rubber flapper. And it just sits in there. There we go. So when you blow, it opens up. And then when you stop blowing, it slams shut. That’s what allows you to inflate the bag by blowing into the blowpipe. But then when you take a breath—all the air doesn’t come shooting out.
My first bagpipe teacher, he played without a valve. So he’d blow and then he would cork the stopper—the end of the blowpipe—with his tongue. I just think that’s crazy. I mean, maybe they got used to it and the old-timers would do that, but it’s so much easier now.
Really good, super tight seal. And what I love about having the valve inside is that when you’re done playing—this gets a lot of spit on it or water or condensation—you can just take this out, toss it in your pipe case, and things will air out better. The valve is not in danger of getting damaged. That is a really cool thing.
Just take a close-up look here—I mean, this is just amazing. There we go—focus on that. It’s just really amazing quality work. Beautiful, beautiful work.
So you have the amazing design expertise from R.G. Hardie—the great history with that company. And Alistair Dunn, who’s the director there—I’ve known him and worked with him for a long time. Alistair’s a perfectionist. And so you just know that anything that comes out of their factory is going to be really, really perfect—not only in terms of the materials and the manufacturing and the craftsmanship, but the design as well.
He is one of the world’s top bagpipers and won all the awards in solo and band and gold medals and everything. So you know it’s going to be great.
So what do I love about these bagpipes? Beautiful manufacturing—they really look perfect. They have that traditional look even though they’re this plastic material. I’ve always called it poly. I think they call it acetyl—it’s the same basic idea. Different names for it. You might have heard of the words Delrin, Delrin, Polypenco, Poly, Acetyl, Acetyl Resin. They’re all very slight differences—different words for basically the same thing, which is this extremely hard, beautiful, shiny plastic that we make practice chanters out of, and mouthpieces, and pipe chanters. If you have a plastic pipe chanter, that’s what it’s made out of. And now we’ve been making drones out of these for a while as well.
So—great manufacturing, great design, really resilient and tough. You’re not going to have any issues with the elements with these bagpipes.
I have some very fancy, very expensive blackwood sets with silver and engraving and all kinds of fancy stuff on them. And I love playing those. But I love playing my R.G. Hardie plastic bagpipes.
When do I use them? Well, anytime I’m going to be in extreme weather conditions, or in a place where I think my pipes might take a little bit of a beating. So if I’m playing in a parade and it’s going to get rainy and it’s cold, I’m definitely taking my plastic pipes. If I’m playing in a pub and it might be crowded and a lot of people and a lot of excitement and fun—like St. Patrick’s Day—but I might be leaving my pipes somewhere on a table or get a beer spilled on them or something—I’m taking my plastic pipes.
I also take these when I’m traveling—not for competition—but if I’m traveling somewhere, when I go hiking or backpacking or camping or boating—I definitely take these because I don’t want to take my wood pipes. I would be very, very bummed if they got stolen. But I would be more bummed if my blackwood bagpipes with all the fancy silver engraving got stolen. So I’m a little bit less paranoid when I take my plastic pipes, because I know I can just call up R.G. Hardie and order a new set.
Prices are changing, just because—with the exchange rate and also various things going on with tariffs and various duties and all that stuff—check the website for the latest pricing. But it’s a great, great deal.
If you want to put your pipes together yourself, you can get the “sticks only,” and then you can pick your own pipe bag and cords and drone reeds and pipe chanter and do that whole thing yourself. Or I can put it together for you. So you can order just the sticks, you can order set up with the basics, or you can get the whole set up with everything—with all my Tone Protectors and reed case and all my other accessories and gadgets too.
So these are an amazing set of pipes.
If you’re looking for a beginner set and you’re just getting started out and you want something that’s really quality at a price that’s going to be friendly to your wallet—this is the way to go.
If you have a set and you’re looking for a second set—again, these are not a cheap set of pipes—these are a really, really quality, quality set of pipes. I would have no problem performing with these or competing with these bagpipes. These are amazing and they’re at a great price.
It has never been a better time in history to be a bagpiper, right now, for a lot of reasons. But one of them is really high-quality instruments that are available at a great, great price.
One of the problems for people trying to sell a used set—maybe you’ve got a set you’ve been trying to sell—it’s hard to sell a used set these days because you can get a new set that is so great for a really good price. But that’s the benefit to anybody who’s looking to buy a set of pipes.
So check them out—the R.G. Hardie P01 Acetyl Bagpipes. You’re going to love them. Check them out—BagpipeLessons.com.
Thanks, everybody. If you have an idea for a video—whether it’s a product video or a tune or something you’re working on, a piece of gadgetry or equipment—shoot me a note, put it in the comments below, send me an email, go to BagpipeLessons.com, join my email list, and I’ll send you some really cool, helpful stuff that will help you with your piping.
Thanks, everybody. See you next time. Mahalo.
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