And here they are. This is how you want to do it if you’re ever shipping bagpipes. You want every piece to be individually bubble-wrapped. The reason is so they don’t bang against each other and get damaged.

The case has some stiffness and padding. That’s great. Then it’s in a cardboard box with more bubble wrap. But really, on the inside, you want to make sure that any jostling doesn’t cause chips. They’ve done a nice job here.

Very cool. So there is the blowpipe. That’s our first glimpse of the engraving. Really nice. I want my camera to not focus on my face… there you go. You can see that really nice thistle-style engraving. It’s a classic engraving pattern. I’ve never had a set of bagpipes with thistle engraving, but I really like it.

My first teacher, Colin McKenzie, had a beautiful set of silver and ivory bagpipes with that thistle pattern. I’ve always really liked that.

We got our flapper valve. This is Blackwood, so it maintains that traditional look to match the rest of the pipes.

But the moisture in your breath when you play one of these R.G. Hardie blowpipes never touches the wood. I actually saw this at the factory—how they make it. They call this the blowpipe; this is the mouthpiece.

The mouthpiece unscrews. This is replaceable. For example, if you needed a different length—longer or shorter—you could do that. This is plastic. And then down below, the part that’s hemped up that goes into the stock—that’s plastic as well. So it’s a plastic piece that goes inside the wood. That is really cool, because without that, this blowpipe would crack. And that happens a lot. It’s the most common part of bagpipes to crack—the blowpipe—because there’s just so much moisture going through there.

Alright, cool. Put that back in. Got a lot of bubble wrap here. Let’s start trimming this off carefully… Oh, there we go. That looks nice. Very nice.

While I’m doing this, I’ll just say that this is a really, really cool time to be a piper. Here we are in July of 2025.  When I was starting out piping over 30 years ago, all the good sets of bagpipes were old pipes. And when I got to that point where I was looking for a really nice set—rising up through the amateur ranks and getting close to playing in the professional grade—I needed a really nice set.

We were looking for old pipes—pre–World War II, the golden age at that time. Pre–World War I Hendersons or Lawries or something like that. These days, you can get fantastic bagpipes that are brand new…

Wow, that looks really great. So this is a tenor drone. Got the thistle pattern here. I’ll give you a better close-up in a second once I get this thing totally unwrapped. That was the outside tenor.

You want to be careful when you’re cutting this bubble wrap—you do not cut the pipes, of course. There we go. So these days, you can get a fantastic set that’s brand new, and they’re going to be perfectly made.

Like I saw at the factory, these things are made by machine. Each piece is made individually. It’s not like they come off a big assembly line. Each piece is made individually by hand, but the boring is done by these computer-controlled machines, which is really amazing.

So you know it’s going to be perfect. And you also know that the design is going to be great because what these computer-controlled machines allow the pipe maker to do is test out different designs.

They can tweak a bore dimension here, make a bore wider or narrower, try different combinations of things. It allows them to do a lot more trial and error, and they can optimize and perfect their designs.

So you know you’re getting a really good design that’s going to be manufactured to perfection.

Alright, there we go. Oh, little label fell off. It says, “We recommend using Blackwood oil once a year and bagpipe metal polish and sealant every six months to protect your bagpipes.”

Alright, groovy. It was sort of held on there with a little rubber band. Okay, get rid of that.  Getting close here, folks. This is the bass drone top, and finally, bottom section of the bass drone.

Okay, there we go. Beautiful. Nicely hemped up. The drone reed box is in here. Great. I think we are empty. Let me just put this aside.

Cool. So here we go. Very nice. From a distance, you can see this is the new Heritage-style bag cover. Very cool. It’s like a microfiber material. I play an older version of their bag cover that does have this material. It’s really nice. A little bit stretchy, synthetic, breathable microfiber.

On the inside—also very cool—it’s got the zipper, and then it has a little bit of fleece. You know, it’s a little bit fleecy, which is nice. So it’s breathable.

We have our Bannatyne small bag with the bottom zipper. Great. And here are the Dri-Flo cartridges. You can see what the Dri-Flo looks like. There are three of those—one for each drone. Little air holes here and on this end. Small enough to let the air pass through but the silica gel doesn’t fall out.

This goes with a little rubber cup and a tube that goes to the bottom of each drone stock. This is sealed to the bottom of the drone stock, so there’s no way for any air to get to that drone reed and out that drone unless it passes through one of these.

So you fill up the bag, increase the air pressure, and the air travels through the tube. As it travels through, these silica gels remove the moisture from the air. So it’s warm and moist air in the bag, and as it travels through, the moisture is removed. By the time it gets to the drone reed, it’s warm and dry—which is great.

So there’s three of these. Love my Dri-Flo.

It also has the Bannatyne bottle trap. So this is a tube that’s connected to the blowpipe. I blow into this, and it’s the first line of defense. Any spit or drool and some condensation gets caught in the tube. Anything that gets to the end of the tube sprays out into this bottle. This bottle has holes in it. It’s not designed to seal anything, but it’s a physical way to catch any spit or condensation that gets to the end of the tube.

And then this chamois in here—just an absorbent chamois cloth—it absorbs some of the condensed water. After I play for, you know, half an hour or whatever, this tube’s going to be filled with all kinds of droplets of water, and this little chamois cloth in there will be wet as well.

So what that does is filter out some of the moisture, but still, the bag is going to be very hot and steamy. And we want it that way. We want the air inside the bag to be warm and moist, because that chanter reed in our Infinity pipe chanter is a cane reed—so it wants moisture.

Whereas the drone reeds—they’re synthetic—so they want to be totally dry. That’s why we have two levels of moisture control. The tube with the bottle and chamois—that’s attached to the blowpipe I blow through—that takes out some water.

But then we have the Dri-Flo with the silica gel—that filters out any remaining moisture before it gets to the drone reeds.

Just got to get that back in there. Very cool.

And the little tube of zipper lubricant—you don’t need this to keep the zipper airtight. The zipper is air- and water-tight on its own. But what the lubricant does is—you just put a little tiny dollop, maybe the size of a pea—and it lets you open and close the zipper more easily. So it’s less wear and tear on the zipper. You don’t have to pull so hard.

So it’s not about sealing—it’s just about keeping that zipper nice and easy to open and close.

Alright, now we get our bag cover zipped up. Got the velcro on the back—nice seal there. Cool.

You see different types of bag covers in terms of material. I used to see tartan or velvet, velveteen, or corduroy. But I like this smooth synthetic material. It holds its color really well.

If you use a standard fabric that’s not designed for outdoors or for intense UV, it will tend to fade. I’ve had bag covers fade. Sometimes you see pipe bands playing and they have various versions of the same color of bag cover—because some are older.

This type of fabric does a really good job with sweat, moisture, and dealing with UV from being out in the sun.

Cool. So there we have it. African Blackwood bagpipes with imitation ivory mounts.

A hundred years ago, these would be real elephant ivory, but we don’t do that anymore. We don’t want to be involved in killing elephants to make bagpipes, because it’s just decorative. And the imitation ivory looks really, really great.

And then we have the engraved nickel. Now that’s really cool—check that out. So neat. See that thistle pattern? Also on the ferrules. It’s a beaded and capped ferrule. So you can see that little bump here—they call that a bead.

Capped means that the metal goes on the underside. Sometimes you’ll see ferrules that are just a tube of metal—they don’t have the bead or underside—but this is beaded and capped.

You can see on the drone cap—it’s also beaded. Engraved on the top, but also engraved on the side. Really nice.

This is the bushing, which is also imitation ivory. Then you can see the slides. Really, really nice.

Somewhere on here it says Peter Henderson… There it is—on the top drone slide on the bass drone. You can see there: Peter Henderson. Really, really cool.

So you know as a piper, you mostly care, number one, about how your pipes sound. But you also care how they look.

And it’s really interesting to learn how these pipes are made. These new pipes that they’ve just released—these three styles of engraving—are all done by laser, and it’s really, really cool. I think they still have their very, very top-of-the-line bagpipes with silver.

You can get them with silver if you want to spend many, many more thousands of dollars having silver on your bagpipes. It doesn’t affect the sound at all. Some people really want the fanciest, most expensive thing.

So you can get silver, and you can get silver that’s been hand-engraved. But what you have here is this laser-engraved pattern, and it’s just so cool.

We were actually at the factory with my family, watching them use this machine. Each piece is loaded into the engraver one at a time.

This set of bagpipes has—let me count—one, two, three… seventeen pieces of nickel that were all engraved one at a time by the machine.

Alistair Dunn was telling me that this new machine has a more powerful laser and is able to really etch it quite deep, so you can really feel the depth of the engraving.

What’s cool about this is it has a vintage look. The way the engraving works is you’ve got the shiny parts of the silver or nickel, and the etched parts already have this cool kind of patina to them.

They also have a new mount shape. People who are really into bagpipes and vintage bagpipes can spot a set based on what the mounts look like.

Very cool.

Let’s see what we got for drone reeds in here… nope, no drone reeds yet. Let’s pop a tenor in. Beautiful. Love that double tone—first tone, and then it kicks into a second tone. Beautiful.

That joint is a little bit loose, even though I’m sure these were perfect at the factory. What happens with a new set of pipes—any time you re-hemp a joint—the hemp will pack down with time. Just a little bit of dental floss on here. As it packs down, it’ll get loose, and you just have to add a couple more layers, and then you’re good to go.

And here’s the bass reed… hopefully? No bass reed. Alright, maybe it didn’t fall into the bag. But I do have other bass reeds over here, so let’s grab one. Here’s an Ezeedrone bass I can pop in there.

So the progression for pipers is: when you first start out, you get your set of bagpipes and all your gear fits in your pipe case. Then you have old things and new things and extra things and backup things. Then maybe you have a little bag, or maybe you have a drawer. Then you have a whole bunch of drawers. Then you have a whole room. That’s where I am. I’m in the more than a whole-room-full-of-bagpipe-stuff phase of life.

Okay, let’s add a little bit on here. Beautiful. You can hear that really nice double tone—beautiful—and it goes thunk when it goes into that second tone. That means that drone and that reed are happy together. Everything is operating as it should be.

If you have a tenor drone or a bass drone that makes a single tone—not a good sign.  Okay, let’s check this out.

Beautiful. So easy. They’re hardly taking any air. Smooth. They lock in tone. This is—I’m not surprised—but this is exactly what you want.  Fantastic.

Last thing to try is the Infinity Chanter. Now… there it is. Beautiful. Leather case. Infinity Chanter. This is the world’s best Blackwood chanter, in my opinion. Amazing sound. Amazing feel. The holes are smoothed out.

You can see that there. But I’ve done a whole bunch of other videos about the Infinity Chanter on this channel. Not only are the holes smaller than a lot of other chanters and closer together, but the edges are sanded. It gives it a really, really nice feel.

Now, this is not a Tone Protector. This reed is going to be really dry. Yeah, it’s dry. So what I’m going to need to do is get a Tone Protector on it.

And what that’s going to do is that’s going to acclimatize the reed. I’m not going to do anything to that reed right now until it’s had a chance to get acclimatized to the right humidity.

This is my chanter that I’m playing currently. Wow—and it fits. Amazing. Perfect. Let’s see how this sounds.

Wow, amazing. So this is my chanter—never been played with these pipes before. Really, really amazing out of the box.

A couple of things I’m going to need to do to get these just right for me: I’m going to put a rubber mouthpiece protector here, because I don’t like to bite on that hard plastic.

And the other thing—I’m going to get my Perfect Angle Blowpipe Positioner, which I always play with. Without it, the blowpipe wants to pop out, so it’s not so comfortable on the teeth for me. So I want to get the rubber, and then get the Perfect Angle.

What that does—it’s a system that attaches to your blowpipe and your two drone stocks, goes underneath the pipe bag so no one sees it, and it just holds your blowpipe in the right position so it doesn’t want to pop out.

So I’m going to need to adjust those and probably add a little bit of hemp, just to make sure everything is exactly as tight as I want it to be.

But holy cow—these pipes sound great. They look great. They feel great to play. They’re really efficient and steady. And they’re just going to get better as these drone reeds get played in a little bit and as I get used to them.

So really, really cool. This is what I expect from R.G. Hardie. R.G. Hardie, Peter Henderson—they’re the same company.

What we’re looking at here—let me get the number right—this is the new PH01.  So this new line was just released in July 2025. And here we are, just a couple weeks later. Amazing beading and combing. High-quality Blackwood.

I also love—every time I get a new set of bagpipes or a Blackwood chanter—I take photos of it. So I’m going to go outside with some sunlight and get some nice up-close pictures of these pipes. Because this beautiful wood grain will disappear.

The grain and the striping in the grain that you can see now will all fade to black with time. With oxidation, with oils from my hands, just from aging—it will go jet black. And it’s always fun to look back and go, “Wow, my pipes used to be a lot lighter, different color.” But it’s also really cool when they turn that jet black color.

So there they are. Got the new Heritage cords with blue and white. If you know me, I love blue. Half my YouTube videos, I’m wearing a blue polo shirt. So blue and white—Scotland colors.

The Heritage bag cover with the Celtic knot design ribbon. The amazing plastic-lined blowpipe. Also, the blowpipe stock—you can’t see—that’s also plastic-lined. Wood on the outside, plastic on the inside. So that will never crack.

Then tomorrow or the day after, I’ll check on my Blackwood Infinity Chanter with the new reed—see how that’s going.

If you are interested in these, check them out in my shop. I’m going to get these up on the shop as soon as I can. Go to BagpipeLessons.com/hardiepipes — H-A-R-D-I-E pipes. That will take you to the plastic Hardie pipes that I have, and also the Peter Henderson pipes that I’m going to get on the shop very soon.

But these are beautiful. They sound good. They look good. Gosh, they’re fun to play. I want to play some more.

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It’s all bagpipe-related—and also hundreds of other lessons, PDFs, exercises, tunes, product guides, and reviews. And you also get feedback from me. Every month or so, we do a member video session where you can submit videos of your playing and I’ll watch it and give you some individualized feedback.

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Thank you so much for watching, thanks for listening, and for enjoying this new set of bagpipes with me. And thanks to Alistair Dunn at R.G. Hardie for these beautiful new pipes.

I’m going to play some more now. Thanks for watching!