Tone Hole Drilling Jigs
This stage couldn't be more easy, the jig is placed and secured upon the chanter and the holes are drilled into the finished polished piece, some may think this a risky business, as long as you are careful everything will be fine, and all the holes will be in a straight line and the same on every chanter you make, again making it much easier to reed up afterwards.
I never turn a ready drilled blank because the tone holes tend to finish up slightly scalloped, and the chanter is much harder to buff/polish with the tone holes already drilled, it also gives a nice crisp clean edged tone hole, which feels much better under your fingers.
To make the Jig
Take a length of metal, brass, steel etc 1" wide X 1/8" thick, work out where your tone holes need to be and drill your tone holes into it, then glue a strip of soft leather onto the bottom side, this prevents the chanter from being marked and also prevents the tone holes edges from splintering or chipping, use normal drill twist bits at a fairly high speed for the best results, now measure from the bottom edge of the bottom tone hole, to the very bottom of the chanter and fix in place and drill, see photo/s below.
Place the chanter with ready fitted jig into a simple wooden V block and drill the tone holes carefully, be very careful not to drill into the bottom of the bore/cone, you should be left with a nice crisp edged hole, which I leave in situ, this helps the new owner find their way around the spacings, and once they have learned the pattern, the holes will wear away to a smooth finish.
On some well played chanters I have seen many that have tone holes with a slight scalloped appearance, this is why I believe that it is a misconception that chanters were meant to be like this from new, myself and other believe that the holes have simply been worn away with constant use.
During drilling, keep a firm downwards pressure upon the timber, because the drill will tend to lift the chanter upwards as the drill passes through the wall thickness, if this happens you can be left with a small indentation on the bottom side of the cone.