Corona safety with new Daye pipes, reeds and supplies.

Beth and I are well so far and we hope all our pipers and families are keeping safe and well. We two are both already practicing safe, minimalpublic interaction for this period. The shop remains open and active.

Obviously I'm unqualified to offer medical advice or guarantees but here are some general observations:

Current opinion I'm finding seems to be that virus doesn't remain a threat on surfaces past about 3 days' time, and that surface transmission is not the source of most cases. Since almost every Daye shipment takes 3 days or more to arrive, there would seem to be minimal risk from contact with new purchases.

Also, Daye pipes use mostly artificial construction, so they don't offer many places for stubborn contamination. Most parts are safely cleaned with many sanitizing products, for example alcohol. Chanters, drones and drone artificial reeds can be wiped down with strong alcohol. The wood paddles of the bellows are finished with spar varnish and should tolerate alcohol well. So can vinyl pipe bags.

Update for Shiny Brass on Pipes

The lacquer coating on the brass used in chanters, windcaps and drone parts might be removed with alcohol, so if any cleaning is done to shiny brass, ordinary household cleaners might be better.

Fabric covers for bag and hose can be gently washed and dried using cool water and mild detergent, and medium heat or open air drying.

However, the cane chanter reed blades and the leather of bellows and bags can be damaged by alcohol or other cleaning/sanitizing agents. The leather dye can sometimes be smeared with alcohol or other agents, and chanter reed cane can be warped which ruins a reed. An extra day or two of resting after delivery would seem to offer a reasonable safety margin. Sunlight exposure might help. Just be careful with reeds, artificial or natural cane, not to allow temperatures to rise much above body temperature, and be sure to protect cane reeds against large or fast changes in humidity.

Of course if either of us become ill we will stop work and handling of equipment until we're recovering enough for me to be doing the heavier shop work needed for these instruments. I'll post a notice of suspended operations if this becomes necessary.