Jack

I'm no expert on kaval (I play gajda) but I know a few things about
elder wood which is used for reeds in various bagpipes. First off, you
want the blue berried elders not the red. The wood is much harder and
drys with less warping. Traditionally they recommend wood from the south
side of a valley (i.e. shaded from the south) probably because it is
slower growing. For reeds and panpipes (as in Romanian, not Inca) they
cut it roughly to length and let it dry at least 2 years (YMMV - dunno
if this is tradition or real). Then ream and turn (look up cone centers,
they're great for getting things concentric).

All that said, it's pretty marginal stuff. Even the Macedonian Kavals,
that are made from willow, are more stable. It's no accident that
Bulgarian kavals and Turkish Neys are made from Dren (Cornellian Cherry
- a member of the Dogwood family), Boxwood or Pear. They are all more
stable than elder. But you use what you have, and in Moldavia, elder is
the most stable wood that is commonly available. In Sweden they used Ash
to make Sacpipas - talk about an inappropriate wood, but it's better
than pine, fir, or alder, which were the other choices. That's why
sacpipas are so clunky. You needed those 1 cm walls to keep them from
warping and splitting.

Don't take tradition to be correct. As soon as Ebony and Blackwood
became available in Scotland, they dropped bog oak and laburnum. It
wasn't the color, it was the stability that pipe makers went for. In
fact, contemporary comments were quite negative about the blackness of
the new pipes vs the warm brown of the old instruments. These days you
see the exact same comments about Delrin or plexi vs Blackwood. Long
term, what's stable wins.

Jim