About the Bulgarian gajda
Scotland isn't the only home of bagpipes. This is the Bulgarian (Thracian or djura) gajda, still widely played in the Balkans. It has a mouth-blown blowpipe, a single chanter for the melody and one drone hanging down from the bag. Traditionally the bag is made from a goatskin. This project prints everything except the bag, including the reeds, giving a gajda with a low note of G and a drone in D.
The designer plays a traditional wooden gajda as well, and finds the printed one's sound very close to it. In the video he plays part of a kopanitsa, a dance in 11/16, with the Gore-Tex bag from his wooden instrument. Be warned, it's loud.
The write-up is long and precise, and the printed reeds are the critical part. Reed tongues must be plain PLA (not PLA+, silk or matte) at about 0.05 mm layers, with one perimeter and aligned infill. The reed bodies print upright with organic supports, and the corks and tuning bands are TPU. The supplied PrusaSlicer 3MF files hold all of this, so the designer strongly recommends them over the STLs. To start quickly, print just the chanter and its reed. Sand them, then seal with beeswax or gap-filling glue as described, and you can play it without a bag.
What you'll need
Printed parts
- Chanter body and flea hole (PLA, PETG, ABS or ASA)
- Drone and blowpipe parts
- Reed bodies and reed tongues (PLA)
- Reed corks and tuning bands (TPU/TPE)
Bought parts
- A bagpipe bag (for the full instrument)
- Beeswax or gap-filling glue
- Hemp for the joints ? (catalogue note)
Tools
- Sandpaper, 300 and 600 grit
- A 0.4 mm or smaller nozzle and a printer that can do 0.05 mm layers
Build overview
Print settings
- Use: The supplied PrusaSlicer 3MF files
- Reed tongues: Plain PLA, 0.05 mm layers, 1 perimeter, 100% aligned infill, no top or bottom layers
- Reed bodies: Upright, 0.2 mm or finer, organic supports, classic perimeter generator
- Corks and bands: TPU/TPE
Video
Play video: A fully 3D-printed Bulgarian gajda (loads YouTube)
Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Video thumbnails are © their creators.
Photos
All photos: animatorgeek, from the design page on Printables, licensed CC BY-NC-SA. We resized them and converted them to WebP. These adapted versions are shared under the same licence.