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This instruction is for hobby panpipe maker, it is not professional
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You can find bamboo in garden centres or in DIY centres in their gardening departments. Be careful not to buy Tonkin bamboo. The bamboo cane should be as long as possible as this will give you many different pipe thicknesses which you will need to make the panpipe. The distances between the knots should be as big as possible. The interior should be round or very slightly oval in shape all the way through. It is important to look at both ends of the bamboo cane to ascertain the thickness of the walls. You can see the various diameters in the table at the bottom of this page. |
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Now you need a stencil which you will need later to lay the prepared pipes on to glue them together and to give the panpipe the form of a wing. To make the correct shape for the stencil you need to draw a large circle on a piece of paper (a diameter of between 40cm and 50cm) and then you halve it to make a semi-circle. The size of the circle determines the degree of the curve. I recommend you use a stencil which has a series of semi-circles and not only one surface. This will make it easier to lie any pipes which are not totally straight on the stencil. |
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What you still need:
Wood glue (quick drying glue), various grades of sandpaper, beeswax and for the shoe approximately 2 mm thick veneer or simple plywood. |
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Panpipe manual
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Saw the pipes into the necessary lengths (see table). Place the prepared pipes with the deep tones first from right to left onto the stencil. If there is too much unevenness between the pipes change them for other ones. Make sure that you are glueing the flat sides of the bamboo cane together. |
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Now you can scrape the outer skin off the pipes if you wish. Simply peel off the outer skin of the pipes with a knife. Remember to number the pipes with a pencil or label them with the correct tone to avoid mixing them up. |
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Firing means to heat the individual pipes - in the oven, for example. The amount of time spent in the heat determines the degree of the colouration. I always fire my pipes to dry out any damp. This makes the bamboo harder. If they are subjected to too much heat, however, the bamboo becomes spongy and cracks. Therefore, less is more. |
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Remove all the pipes from the stencil except the first three. With a pencil, mark on the front edge of the first two pipes (looking into the pipe) the area to be sanded and later glued. Be careful, before you glue together the first two pipes, you must mark and sand the third pipe, etc. Make sure that the bridges between two glued pipes are not thicker than the thickness of the wall of the neighbouring pipes [ see general ]. When you are glueing the pipes make sure any corrections are made in time. |
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Place a sheet of sandpaper on a flat surface. Take the bamboo pipe in one hand with the part to be sanded face down on the paper. Rub the pipe backwards and forwards across the sandpaper. Continue sanding until the mark you made previously on the pipe has disappeared. Make sure when you are sanding that the pipe does not turn at all as you need a flat surface to glue it together. With all the remaining pipes you do the same. From time to time check that the pipes fit together. You can either sand all the pipes first and then glue them together or you can sand the first two or three and then glue them together one by one. |
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Bamboo canes have a natural conical gradient. So when you are glueing the pipes together, you should make sure that the pipes are not separating apart from each other at the bottom (the shoe). Should this happen, you can correct this by sanding more off the bottom than the top. |
 
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Once the panpipe is glued and dried, turn the pipe over onto a piece of sandpaper and sand the pipes unti they are even. Now mark the necessary lengths. First measure and mark the correct lengths for the right tones for every pipe (see table below). Now take a piece of flexible wire and fix it to both ends of the panpipe, positioning it just below where you have made the marks so that it lies in a nice curve. The wire should be far enough beneath the marks you have made for the tone lengths to enable you to put beeswax and cork into the pipes later on. A tip: At G4 fix the wire 6cm from the top, this will guarantee you to get a nice curve. Draw the shape of the curve along the wire with a pencil and cut it to shape with a little saw. |
 
 
 
 
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Seal the bottom of the pipes with cork (from wine bottles). Take care not to push the cork too far into the pipes because you must allow space for beeswax to tune the pipes. Seal the bottom of the pipes now with veneer or plywood. Glue it and bind it with string to hold it together. After this, you can sand the overlap. Next you need to make the sides. You can make the sides with veneer. For this you take two pipes, the last and first which have the exact same diameter. Wrap the veneer around these and glue them and bind them with string. Let them dry. Then you can saw and sand them. Now you can glue them onto the panpipe. Finally, cover the shoe with veneer. Once the glue is dry, you can sand the shoe to make it as you wish. |
 
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Now you can sand the top of the panpipe. For the outer curve, take a piece of sandpaper and wrap it around a piece of wood and use this to sand it. For the inner curve, fold the sandpaper several times and sand the inner side with this (where you blow). Now come the fine details. Remove all the sharp edges and smooth the inner edges of the pipes with fine sandpaper. As you move your mouth over the panpipe, the surface should be totally smooth. |
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Warm up some beeswax in a small bowl and roll it into little balls. Drop them into the pipes and test as you go for the right tone. Once you have the right tone, press the warm wax into the pipe with a round stick. To get any unwanted wax out, make a round stick with a pointed end to dig it out. |
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What´s left is just fine detail work to decorate your panpipe or make some carvings and varnishing. Finally, brush out the pipes with a narrow bottle brush or something similar. After this, you can coat the inside of the pipes with almond oil and let the oil soak into the wood. Clean your instrument regularly with almond oil. |
Try to keep to the measurements represented in this table as closely as possible. Send me an e-mail or call me if there is something you don´t understand. |
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Ta b l e |
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Ton |
First-length
to clue the
pipes in cm |
Ton-length till the wax
in cm |
End-length after sawing in cm |
wall-thickness in
millimeter in
mm |
Inner-diameter
in millimeter
in mm |
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F |
57,00 |
44,50 |
51,00 |
3,50 |
21,50 |
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A |
48,00 |
37,00 |
43,00 |
3,00 |
20,50 |
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H |
43,00 |
32,50 |
38,50 |
3,00 |
19,50 |
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c-1 |
39,00 |
31,00 |
35,00 |
3,00 |
18,50 |
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e-1 |
32,00 |
24,50 |
28,50 |
3,00 |
17,50 |
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f-1 |
29,00 |
22,00 |
26,00 |
3,00 |
17,00 |
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a-1 |
24,00 |
18,50 |
21,00 |
2,80 |
16,00 |
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h-1 |
22,00 |
16,00 |
19,50 |
2,80 |
15,50 |
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c-2 |
20,00 |
15,50 |
18,00 |
2,80 |
15,00 |
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d-2 |
18,00 |
13,50 |
16,00 |
2,80 |
14,50 |
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e-2 |
16,00 |
12,00 |
14,50 |
2,80 |
14,00 |
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f-2 |
15,00 |
11,00 |
13,00 |
2,80 |
13,50 |
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g-2 |
14,00 |
10,00 |
12,00 |
2,50 |
13,00 |
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a-2 |
12,00 |
08,50 |
11,00 |
2,50 |
12,50 |
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h-2 |
11,50 |
07,50 |
10,00 |
2,50 |
12,00 |
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c-3 |
11,00 |
07,00 |
09,50 |
2,50 |
11,50 |
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d-3 |
10,00 |
06,50 |
09,00 |
2,50 |
11,00 |
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e-3 |
09,50 |
05,50 |
08,50 |
2,50 |
10,50 |
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f-3 |
09,00 |
05,00 |
08,00 |
2,50 |
10,00 |
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a-3 |
08,00 |
04,00 |
07,20 |
2,20 |
09,80 |
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h-3 |
08,00 |
03,50 |
07,00 |
2,20 |
09,70 |
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c-4 |
08,00 |
03,20 |
06,80 |
2,20 |
09,50 |
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d-4 |
08,00 |
02,90 |
06,80 |
2,20 |
09,20 |
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e-4 |
08,00 |
02,50 |
06,80 |
2,20 |
09,00 |
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f-4 |
08,00 |
02,20 |
06,80 |
2,20 |
08,80 |
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