My pipe

[gregorach]

OK, I've finally got around to taking some photos of my pipe, as mentioned in another pipe-smoking thread recently... I've been at this off and on for quite a while - I realised the other night that I first made the bowl and the stem about a year ago. Then it wasn't until a month or so back that I got around to making the mouthpiece (thanks to Tengu for the antler ), and I did the decorative binding in the last couple of days. Time flies, eh?



The bowl is birch burl, the stem is elder, and the mouthpiece is red deer antler. There is no glue involved - all the joints are held by friction. The bindings are turk's heads made from pure silver wire. The one at the join between the stem and the bowl is purely decorative, but the other does re-inforce and support the join with the mouthpiece. That joint wasn't quite as tight as I wanted.

The only use I made of power tools was to bore out the mouthpiece. The bowl was roughly shaped with a saw, then shaped and hollowed out with a little stockman pocket knife. The long, thin clip-point blade of the stockman was used to drill the stem fitting in the bowl. The mouthpiece was shaped with a small file.

All in all, there's quite a lot of work in it. I must've spent a good few hours just polishing the bowl... Leather and toothpaste does a suprisingly good job, although I'm not sure that it shows up that well in the photos.

Here's a couple of close-ups showing the grain of the burl, the shape of the moutpiece, and the silverwork...



First time I've done any decorative silverwork, and I'm quite chuffed all in all. You can tell which one I did first though... Might have to re-do it.

Comments and questions welcome.

 

[Graham_S]

nice work. does the toothpaste give you a minty fresh smoke?

 

[scottishwolf]

Very nice indeed. Is it gonna be used or is it purley a decorative piece?

 

[gregorach]

It's pretty well used already... And no, Graham, you can't taste the toothpaste - or the finishing wax, thank god.

 

[Seagull]

Very well done, Dunc. A cracker.
Nice bit of woodwork.
I have allus liked the idea of Turks Heads along my pipestems, but never thought of silver wire.

Looks like an addition to my "to do" list.

Ceeg

 

[singteck]

:notworthy

Beautiful mate!! I love it!

singteck

 

[Eric_Methven]

Very, very nice!

Eric

 

[gregorach]

Thanks for the kind words guys!

I have allus liked the idea of Turks Heads along my pipestems, but never thought of silver wire.

Looks like an addition to my "to do" list.

Well, here's a couple of tips for you... Learned the hard way.

Firstly, be very, very careful handling the wire. Do your best not to get any kinks in it. It seems pretty much impossible (to me, anyway) not to get any kinks in it, but if you're not very careful, you'll end up with a lot of really bad kinks, which are impossible to get out again. The one on the bowl end of the stem there shows this pretty badly, if you look closely.

Secondly, don't do it on the thing that it's intended for. Find something slightly smaller - I think the former I used for my second, better attempt was about 1mm smaller in diameter, but you'd need to allow more for a larger knot. Then, once you've made and secured the knot (I soldered the ends of mine, on the inside), force it over something slighly conical to flare it out to the desired diameter - this takes the inevitable slack out. You'll need a small blunt-ended wedge and a hammer to do this. If you run out of slack, hammering on the flat (side) of the knot can open it out a little more. You don't have a lot to play with here.

Finally, get the spacing of your crowns right on the first loop - wire won't re-arrange itself evenly the way rope does.

I'm sure with practice they could be done very neatly.

 

[Chopper]

Very nice

Are you taking orders??

 

[gregorach]

Lol - not without considerable up-tooling first...

 

[jon r]

Fantastic piece of work! job well done! I love the birch especially!

How fif you hollow out the elder? :You_Rock_

 

[Heathenpeddler]

How do you make one? What woods are good for stems and bowls? I've never smoked a pipe but I'd love to give this a go I'm a roll-me-own guy normally.

 

[gregorach]

[...] How fif you hollow out the elder? [...]

Well, elder's just got a big soft pith that you can push out with a bit of stiff wire. I used a bit of clotheshanger wire.

What woods are good for stems and bowls?

I believe the traditional wood to use is a root burl from a blackthorn. Not entirely sure why - I think it's partly down to density, and partly aesthetics. Still, the birch burl seems to be doing the job OK for me...

 

[Backyard Bushcraft]

POP THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT excellent piece of work there fella you should be band for advertising tobacco coz jus looking at that makes me wanna start smoking ha ha ha ha keep it up

 

[ol smokey]

You've made a lovely job of these pipes, I don't know if you are a regular pipe smoker,but
incase you aren't, for the first few smokes, you should half fill the bowl and smoke it slowly so as to season and seal the wood. this will stop you getting a burnt wood taste
initially and once a charring has taken place it will stop the wood burning any more.
This also stops the likelyhood of the wood splitting with the heat. I could say I learned to smoke the pipe the hard way, My Grandfather, caught me with cigarettes when I was 13
and decided that if I was going to smoke, it would be a pipe. He filled up an old pipe with black tobacco and lit it for me. I unfortunately was very determined and am still puffing away at 72 (much to my wifes disgust) Hence my User name. I was given a tip from an old smoker years ago. He said to keep a nice polish on the bowl of you pipe, rub it against the hollow on the side of your nose. My pipes all look like the day they were bought, trhanks to this tip. One other point, If you try to remove the stem from the bowl
while the pipe is still hot, you are much more likely to break the stem on the bowl end
of the pipe. Cheers Stuart.

 

[joejoe]

cannot rember what it is called ,but the oil at the side of the nose is the same as watchmakers oil

 

[gregorach]

Well, I kinda tried to get into the pipe smoking thing, but it's just not as compulsive as cigarettes... For charring the bowl, I used one of those jet flame cigar lighters. The only slight problem I've had with it is that the elder stem has cracked slightly at the mouthpiece end. I should really try and come up with something to bind it before it splits further...

After these photos were taken I also added a plain silver band inlaid round the bowl, 3 or 4 mm below the rim. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Earlyturtle]

With regards to hollowing/preparing the bowl, in the Mors Kochanski book he suggests making the bowl with a bow drill, or making it out of a previously used bow drill board. I haven't used a bow drill, but in theory I guess it makes a smooth and pre-charred bowl.

 

[h2o]

how do you make the hole in the stem of the pipe?

 

[gregorach]

It's elder - you just clean the pith out with a bit of stiff wire.