I'm curious to see other people's pipemaking experiments. SHow us your first pipe, failed attempts, interesting experiments, odd wood choices or stems. If you made a pipe or even part of a pipe, feel free to show us pictures here.
I tend to like pipes (and cars and motorcycles) that are slightly out of the norm. I find myself modifying estate pipes to experiment with variations on designs, and when I started making pipes from scratch, I found myself making designs that were close to classic styles, but just different enough to make people look again to figure out what's odd.
This is not my first pipe or my latest, but it does stand out as the one I'm most proud of so far. The bowl is made from a Russian Olive burl that I hand in "growing". My grandfather cut down the tree in his yard in Wyoming in the mid seventies, but the stump refused to die. It kept sending up shoots, and I mowed over those shoots for years as I mowed the lawn around the stump. The constant irritation to the tree slowly formed a burl, roughly six inches thick and two feet in diameter. When it finally died and dried out, I harvested the burl.
I made this pipe as a variation of the classic bulldog/Rhodesian shapes. I added a chunk of deer antler as a shank extension. I lined the shank with a brass tube that both reinforces the shank and acts as the mortise to accommodate the stem. The stem is pearlescent acrylic, cut from a pen blank, with a Peterson style P-lip bit. The metal discs on the shank are sterling silver.
I also made him a pipe tamper from the same wood. It's hollow and has a three inch stem cleaning tool hidden inside. The tamping "foot" is sterling silver, and the knurled nut at the top is brass. The nut threads into a hidden threaded fitting in the wooden shaft, to fasten the hidden stem cleaning tool inside. The tool inside is made from a stainless bicycle spoke.
I give my buddy TJ credit for these great photos that make the pipe look even better.
I tend to like pipes (and cars and motorcycles) that are slightly out of the norm. I find myself modifying estate pipes to experiment with variations on designs, and when I started making pipes from scratch, I found myself making designs that were close to classic styles, but just different enough to make people look again to figure out what's odd.
This is not my first pipe or my latest, but it does stand out as the one I'm most proud of so far. The bowl is made from a Russian Olive burl that I hand in "growing". My grandfather cut down the tree in his yard in Wyoming in the mid seventies, but the stump refused to die. It kept sending up shoots, and I mowed over those shoots for years as I mowed the lawn around the stump. The constant irritation to the tree slowly formed a burl, roughly six inches thick and two feet in diameter. When it finally died and dried out, I harvested the burl.
I made this pipe as a variation of the classic bulldog/Rhodesian shapes. I added a chunk of deer antler as a shank extension. I lined the shank with a brass tube that both reinforces the shank and acts as the mortise to accommodate the stem. The stem is pearlescent acrylic, cut from a pen blank, with a Peterson style P-lip bit. The metal discs on the shank are sterling silver.
I also made him a pipe tamper from the same wood. It's hollow and has a three inch stem cleaning tool hidden inside. The tamping "foot" is sterling silver, and the knurled nut at the top is brass. The nut threads into a hidden threaded fitting in the wooden shaft, to fasten the hidden stem cleaning tool inside. The tool inside is made from a stainless bicycle spoke.
I give my buddy TJ credit for these great photos that make the pipe look even better.
