Gascon Bagpipes (Boha): 19 Historic Instruments

About the boha

The boha is the bagpipe of the Landes of Gascony in south-west France. Its chanter and drone are bored side by side in a single rectangular block, called the pihet. Patrick Burbaud of the Bohaires de Gasconha association, who is behind the Musée virtuel de la Boha, studied the surviving historic instruments and made bohas the traditional way before turning to 3D printing.

During the 2020 lockdowns he modelled all 19 known historic bohas in FreeCAD and printed them, so they could be studied and compared side by side. The museum now offers a free STL file for each one, named after the original (from BdG-2011-1-Benquet to BdG-2015-5-Baris). He didn't copy the decoration, wear or damage of the originals. The prints show the instruments as they might have looked when new, but he followed the measured dimensions closely, especially the bores and playing holes.

In an English article for the Bagpipe Society's magazine Chanter (spring 2022), he describes printing a complete playable boha on a Creality Ender 3 Pro: the pihet, the reed bodies, the brunider (drone) extension and the chain that links it to the pihet, the pihet stock, the blowpipe stock, and the blowpipe with an interchangeable mouthpiece. The stocks screw together and clamp the bag between screw and nut, which works because plastic doesn't swell or split with moisture the way wood does.

He found the printed boha very light and tough, and says it sounds very much like the boxwood ones, which makes it a cheap study instrument. You still need parts that can't be printed: the tongues for the reeds, the blowpipe's non-return valve and the bag. He uses PLA and removes the burrs after printing.

What you'll need

Build overview

Our own outline of the designer's Chanter article and the museum's download page.

1. Choose an instrument. Pick one of the 19 historic bohas on the download page and click its picture to get the STL file.
2. Print the parts. PLA, 0.2 mm layers, 40% infill, 200 °C. Expect more than 30 hours for everything, about 10 of them for the pihet.
3. Clean up. Remove the burrs from the printed parts.
4. Add the parts you can't print. Fit reed tongues to the printed reed bodies, put a non-return valve in the blowpipe and get a bag.
5. Assemble. Screw the pihet and blowpipe stocks together so the bag is clamped airtight between screw and nut.