ChrisHall -

You ought to contact Rocky Mountain Highland Supply. You may not need to wait a year or whatever for custom built pipes, unless or until you're perhaps a Grade II piper. Rocky Mountain Highland Supply carries Hardies, Shepards, Kintails, and Dunbars. Frank and Penny Alderson are great to work with - good folks. Contact them at:

4421 Serra Place, Lincoln, Nebraska 68516 Toll-Free 800-282-9351 or (402) 421-3505

www.rmhs.com

If they don't have what you seek, they have an extensive network of pipers throughout the US and Canada they can contact.

Second contact:

Western US Pipe Band Association (WUSPBA). Their homepage is (was last)at http://www.sonic.net/~jcreager/WUSPBA/

This offers contacts with the pipe majors of dozens of bands, who may have knowledge of a set of pipes for sale.

Third contact:

The Balmoral School of Piping and Drumming 1414 Pennsylvania Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15233

Voice (412) 323-2707 Fax (412) 323-1817

htt;://users.aol.com/bagpiping

The staff members I'm familiar with include Jimmy McIntosh, Mike Cusak, and Maureen Connor, among others, and these are a great bunch to work with. Jimmy McIntosh sells a wide variety of older pipes, primarily to collectors and experts. He knows of other dealers as well. They also have extensive contacts through which to seek your own set of pipes.

Good luck.