dubpiper
06-01-2010, 05:38 PM
I recently bought a set of bagpipes from Kilberry known as the celtic knot set and had to return them due to the top section of the bass drone and the mouth piece cracking within 2 months of buying them. The pipes should have cost £895 but for some reason they knocked me £95 off. I had originially enquired about a second hand set that they had advertised on their website and they told me that they had a brand new set ready to go which they'd do me a deal on. I drove from Sheffield to Edinburgh to pick up the pipes up, they looked absolutly stunning and sounded great and I was over the moon with them. I also bought a blackwood chanter for a student I'm teaching which cost £50.
For some reason I had it in my head that Kilberry were a reputable manufacturer, I tried researching them on the internet before I bought the pipes and couldn't find any other information or reviews (hence the reason I'm writing this one!). I just wanted a beautiful set of pipes with celtic engravings on the slides, ferrules and drone caps and thought they were offering a good deal and I wouldn't have to wait for them to be made up. Anyway after I found the crack in the bass drone 2 weeks later I emailed Kilberry and explained the problem, 2 days passed by and no reply so I contacted them and was told that bagpipe drones often crack when they're brand new because the wood isn't used to moisture. They advised me to return the damaged drone and they'd send me a new one. I then posted my experience on my blog that I share with a number of pipers and asked their opinion. The replies were overwhelming and all saying I should never have bought from Kilberry, they are not known for making good pipes and drones very rarely crack when new. Also in the same week I had a lesson with one of my students and noticed his Kilberry chanter that I picked up for him had a chip on the sole of it. His parent put it down to the fact that he's a child and probably dropped it several times, however I've had my Macmurchie chanter for 10 years, it has fallen off tables and been dropped countless times and it's barely got a scratch on it.
I emailed Neil Manderson at Kilberry and told him that I wasn't happy about the parts being replaced, that I didn't want to have to keep going through that when other drones crack or new parts crack, that I'd lost confidence in the bagpipes and wanted a refund. I paid a lot of money for them, I'm a working piper and need a set of pipes I can rely on.( I'd also noticed that the combing on the drones was beginning to chip away which seriously rung alarm bells. Kilberry blamed that on the fact that I played the pipes wearing the number 1 uniform! So basically I took this as them saying that they're bagpipes aren't fit to be played with the no.1 military outfit!!! Great, confidence won back!!!! Not!!!! Anyway they wasn't willing to offer a refund at first arguing:-
'We all buy wood from the same suppliers – McCallum, Wallace, everyone, and everyone also gets the odd problem with splits. Wallace is now supplying a poly blowstick and stock with all blackwood sets as they were getting a lot of blowsticks back with splits. This is because the blowstick is the most exposed to moisture as it is nearest the mouth. Again, we can replace this no problem – I have to stress, this in no way is a bad reflection on the quality of the pipes. I remember playing your set and they are a lovely set – unfortunately, with the property of wood, this can happen. It doesn’t happen often, but it can happen.
We have a set of McCallums that has a warped bass drone out in Canada – McCallum are replacing the part today. We also stand by our instruments and replace any part that has a problem – I think in fairness, you have to give us that chance to do that? We cannot control the properties of the wood but if a problem does arise, – we bend over backwards to fix it.
I have to know that people are saying positive things about our pipes out there – NOT negative things, and that is why I ask you to let us replace these parts for you – free of charge of course. We will also re-imburse for postage costs.
I posted Neil's reply on my blog and no end of pipers replied saying the drones sounded like they were made from premature wood.
"African blackwood (if that’s what it is!) should have been ‘matured’ in their workshop for at least TWO years prior to manufacture. There should be no ‘risk’ in purchasing a new set even if you’re going to play them in the harshest of environments (like dry, humid areas such as Australia). It’s obvious the batch they’ve been using has had some problem either at their end or in the original wood supplied – hence the brittleness of the practice chanter also."
"i had a blow pipe split after 12 mths so i know it can happen because of moisture but the top of the bass section is the driest bit, not a good lookout for the rest of the set, crap wood."
"I'd ask for a complete refund as it sounds like the blackwood of the pipes has not been left to rest ( as its an oily wood) prior to being "lathed" up into a set of bagpipes. If this is happening afyer such a short period it is my best estimation that the remainder of the pipes will do the same. They sound like a Friday afternoon built set of pipes."
"African blackwood (if that’s what it is!) should have been ‘matured’ in their workshop for at least TWO years prior to manufacture. There should be no ‘risk’ in purchasing a new set even if you’re going to play them in the harshest of environments (like dry, humid areas such as Australia). It’s obvious the batch they’ve been using has had some problem either at their end or in the original wood supplied – hence the brittleness of the practice chanter also.
I have been on their website. At least you have the owner’s ‘personal guarantee’ as he states in the opening blurb. The mp3 soundbites they have on their website should have given you some idea of the ‘quality’ of sound from their pipes – the tuning is very poor and the overall sound is muffled and ‘dull’ (in my humble opinion!) – just listen to soundbites from other manufacturers, Inveran; Dunfion, etc and you’ll see what I mean.
Unfortunately, like anything you don’t ‘try before you buy’, you are very much at the mercy of the manufacturer. Just like buying a pipe chanter reed you just wouldn’t take what they’ve given you ‘off the shelf’ – you’ve got to get to blow it first-hand to get a feel for strength, sound, quality of cane, how well it’s been made, etc.
Full refund for both pipes and chanter and use your hard-earned cash to buy another set from a decent manufacturer!!!"
I also contacted other bagpipe manufacturers for advice and they all told me the same thing and told me to demand a refund. So I continued to email Kilberry demanding a refund and they eventually gave in after I threatened court action and told me to return the pipes. I sent them back recorded delivery with a note in asking for my postage to be refunded too. On the day they arrived I got an email from Neil saying he'd look at them that day or first thing the following morning. 3 days later and I heard nothing so phoned the shop and was told by Neil that he couldn't refund me in full because they didn't have the money in their Visa system and he would have to wait until enough purchases had been made to make up the cost of the refund. At this point I was absolutly fuming. I asked if he could give a specific date when the refund would be complete and he couldn't give me one. So I asked why he couldn't just send me a cheque and he said that he'd loose his Visa comission and his accountant wouldn't accept him refunding a customer via a different method to what was used to buy the item. I then started to get angry asking why he couldn't use his own bank card to put money in the system and refund me that way, to which he replied that he didn't own a bank card. A business man without a bank card!!!!!?????? I had originally arranged with Neil to return the pipes in person but I cancelled due to some work coming in that I couldn't turn down. I asked Neil if he'd have told me the same thing had I travelled all the way to Edinburgh to return them and he said 'yes' and couldn't give me a reason why he didn't tell me that before. I personally think I'd have knocked him out had I actually had that experience. I threatened him again with court action stating that I'd claim every single expense he'd cost me if I wasn't fully refunded by the end of the following week and put the phone down. 10 minutes later I got an email giving me his word he'd refund me, that he'd send me a £300 cheque and 2 payments of £250 refunded within a week. He kept his word and I've now been refunded(2 weeks afer the pipes arrived back to their shop) the full amount of the pipes but no postage refund and even more shocking not a single apology, just an email saying he'd now fully refunded me, and hoped there would be no hard feelings on either side.
So my advice to anyone wanting to buy from Kilberry is stay well clear, their pipes in my opinion and experience are bad quality and their customer service is shocking. Also my lesson learnt is never to buy any pipes without plenty of advice from other pipers first.
For some reason I had it in my head that Kilberry were a reputable manufacturer, I tried researching them on the internet before I bought the pipes and couldn't find any other information or reviews (hence the reason I'm writing this one!). I just wanted a beautiful set of pipes with celtic engravings on the slides, ferrules and drone caps and thought they were offering a good deal and I wouldn't have to wait for them to be made up. Anyway after I found the crack in the bass drone 2 weeks later I emailed Kilberry and explained the problem, 2 days passed by and no reply so I contacted them and was told that bagpipe drones often crack when they're brand new because the wood isn't used to moisture. They advised me to return the damaged drone and they'd send me a new one. I then posted my experience on my blog that I share with a number of pipers and asked their opinion. The replies were overwhelming and all saying I should never have bought from Kilberry, they are not known for making good pipes and drones very rarely crack when new. Also in the same week I had a lesson with one of my students and noticed his Kilberry chanter that I picked up for him had a chip on the sole of it. His parent put it down to the fact that he's a child and probably dropped it several times, however I've had my Macmurchie chanter for 10 years, it has fallen off tables and been dropped countless times and it's barely got a scratch on it.
I emailed Neil Manderson at Kilberry and told him that I wasn't happy about the parts being replaced, that I didn't want to have to keep going through that when other drones crack or new parts crack, that I'd lost confidence in the bagpipes and wanted a refund. I paid a lot of money for them, I'm a working piper and need a set of pipes I can rely on.( I'd also noticed that the combing on the drones was beginning to chip away which seriously rung alarm bells. Kilberry blamed that on the fact that I played the pipes wearing the number 1 uniform! So basically I took this as them saying that they're bagpipes aren't fit to be played with the no.1 military outfit!!! Great, confidence won back!!!! Not!!!! Anyway they wasn't willing to offer a refund at first arguing:-
'We all buy wood from the same suppliers – McCallum, Wallace, everyone, and everyone also gets the odd problem with splits. Wallace is now supplying a poly blowstick and stock with all blackwood sets as they were getting a lot of blowsticks back with splits. This is because the blowstick is the most exposed to moisture as it is nearest the mouth. Again, we can replace this no problem – I have to stress, this in no way is a bad reflection on the quality of the pipes. I remember playing your set and they are a lovely set – unfortunately, with the property of wood, this can happen. It doesn’t happen often, but it can happen.
We have a set of McCallums that has a warped bass drone out in Canada – McCallum are replacing the part today. We also stand by our instruments and replace any part that has a problem – I think in fairness, you have to give us that chance to do that? We cannot control the properties of the wood but if a problem does arise, – we bend over backwards to fix it.
I have to know that people are saying positive things about our pipes out there – NOT negative things, and that is why I ask you to let us replace these parts for you – free of charge of course. We will also re-imburse for postage costs.
I posted Neil's reply on my blog and no end of pipers replied saying the drones sounded like they were made from premature wood.
"African blackwood (if that’s what it is!) should have been ‘matured’ in their workshop for at least TWO years prior to manufacture. There should be no ‘risk’ in purchasing a new set even if you’re going to play them in the harshest of environments (like dry, humid areas such as Australia). It’s obvious the batch they’ve been using has had some problem either at their end or in the original wood supplied – hence the brittleness of the practice chanter also."
"i had a blow pipe split after 12 mths so i know it can happen because of moisture but the top of the bass section is the driest bit, not a good lookout for the rest of the set, crap wood."
"I'd ask for a complete refund as it sounds like the blackwood of the pipes has not been left to rest ( as its an oily wood) prior to being "lathed" up into a set of bagpipes. If this is happening afyer such a short period it is my best estimation that the remainder of the pipes will do the same. They sound like a Friday afternoon built set of pipes."
"African blackwood (if that’s what it is!) should have been ‘matured’ in their workshop for at least TWO years prior to manufacture. There should be no ‘risk’ in purchasing a new set even if you’re going to play them in the harshest of environments (like dry, humid areas such as Australia). It’s obvious the batch they’ve been using has had some problem either at their end or in the original wood supplied – hence the brittleness of the practice chanter also.
I have been on their website. At least you have the owner’s ‘personal guarantee’ as he states in the opening blurb. The mp3 soundbites they have on their website should have given you some idea of the ‘quality’ of sound from their pipes – the tuning is very poor and the overall sound is muffled and ‘dull’ (in my humble opinion!) – just listen to soundbites from other manufacturers, Inveran; Dunfion, etc and you’ll see what I mean.
Unfortunately, like anything you don’t ‘try before you buy’, you are very much at the mercy of the manufacturer. Just like buying a pipe chanter reed you just wouldn’t take what they’ve given you ‘off the shelf’ – you’ve got to get to blow it first-hand to get a feel for strength, sound, quality of cane, how well it’s been made, etc.
Full refund for both pipes and chanter and use your hard-earned cash to buy another set from a decent manufacturer!!!"
I also contacted other bagpipe manufacturers for advice and they all told me the same thing and told me to demand a refund. So I continued to email Kilberry demanding a refund and they eventually gave in after I threatened court action and told me to return the pipes. I sent them back recorded delivery with a note in asking for my postage to be refunded too. On the day they arrived I got an email from Neil saying he'd look at them that day or first thing the following morning. 3 days later and I heard nothing so phoned the shop and was told by Neil that he couldn't refund me in full because they didn't have the money in their Visa system and he would have to wait until enough purchases had been made to make up the cost of the refund. At this point I was absolutly fuming. I asked if he could give a specific date when the refund would be complete and he couldn't give me one. So I asked why he couldn't just send me a cheque and he said that he'd loose his Visa comission and his accountant wouldn't accept him refunding a customer via a different method to what was used to buy the item. I then started to get angry asking why he couldn't use his own bank card to put money in the system and refund me that way, to which he replied that he didn't own a bank card. A business man without a bank card!!!!!?????? I had originally arranged with Neil to return the pipes in person but I cancelled due to some work coming in that I couldn't turn down. I asked Neil if he'd have told me the same thing had I travelled all the way to Edinburgh to return them and he said 'yes' and couldn't give me a reason why he didn't tell me that before. I personally think I'd have knocked him out had I actually had that experience. I threatened him again with court action stating that I'd claim every single expense he'd cost me if I wasn't fully refunded by the end of the following week and put the phone down. 10 minutes later I got an email giving me his word he'd refund me, that he'd send me a £300 cheque and 2 payments of £250 refunded within a week. He kept his word and I've now been refunded(2 weeks afer the pipes arrived back to their shop) the full amount of the pipes but no postage refund and even more shocking not a single apology, just an email saying he'd now fully refunded me, and hoped there would be no hard feelings on either side.
So my advice to anyone wanting to buy from Kilberry is stay well clear, their pipes in my opinion and experience are bad quality and their customer service is shocking. Also my lesson learnt is never to buy any pipes without plenty of advice from other pipers first.