Making a pipe

Re: Making a pipe *LINK*

David Barnett

>I'd start out with Pimo's "GUIDE TO PIPE CRAFTING AT HOME", which will tell you how to fit stems to stummels, bore tapered smoke holes, and carve freehands. Although the book covers turned bowls in the classic shapes, it doesn't do so in any real detail. Pimo will sell you briar, stems, and a few inexpensive tools to help cut tenons, and so on.

If you want a kit with better than average briar, Mark Tinsky's the guy you want to contact:

http://www.amsmoke.com/Services/PipeKit.html.

These come with bored holes and a fitted stems, either military or flush, vulcanite or acrylic. Again, these will be finished stems.

If you want to make your own stems from scratch, you'll need to get acrylic or vulcanite from suppliers who generally have minimum orders.

Tinsky also sells briar; Grecian plateaux and ebauchon, by the piece or bag:

http://www.amsmoke.com/Services/sellbriar.html

Your best bet would likely be to carve a freehand from a Tinsky kit, as he'll make sure your briar block will be sound (at least where the smoke hole and stem are drilled). Carving pipes can be both exhilarating and discouraging. It can break your heart. What may seem to be a straight grain masterpiece can quickly drop a few grades when that final pass with files, rasps*, sandpaper uncovers a nasty sand pit. So you try going a little deeper to get beneath it to find that it's deeper and wider... oh well.

This is partly why finished, handmade pipes cost what they do. You may get only a few perfect pipes from a bag, although you'll still get many satisfactory, lovely and thoroughly smokeable pipes. So it's worth a shot. I know several pipe carvers who do pretty well for themselves, traveling to pipe shows around the U.S., Japan, and so on. It's fun, and if you have an artist's eye for form, might even pay for itself. I've got a bunch of briar lying around to play with but I'm not getting rid of my Ashtons or Dunhills anytime soon.

*Don't even bother using any other rasps than Aurious, by the way, but don't run right out and buy them to carve your first pipe. You'll need experience to know which sizes, shapes, and cuts.


Pimo Pipe Craft

I should add... *LINK*

David Barnett

>That while crafting a briar pipe can be done with handtools, this has never really been the norm. Most 'hand' carvers use machine power for nearly all operations: bandsaws for stummels, horizontal and vertical borers, machine lathes for many shaping, tenoning, boring operations, as well as stem fitting. Ganged wheels do most of the 'hand' shaping and polishing, of course. Texturing can use some hand powered edge tools, but even this is usually done with carving lathe or flexshaft with rotary bits.

Sorry to de-romanticize this craft, but that's how it's been done for just about as long as briar has been popular, and indeed, is a major cause of the widespread preference for briar.

That said, let me add another link I should've included in my prior response:


Tinsky pricelist

Re: I should add...

John Kissel

>That is good information David. Thanks! Any thoughts on meerschaum (Sources for good blocks, amber for stems, technique, etc.)?

JK

Vautrin Tampers

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>Since we are talking pipes...

Is Vautrin still in business making tampers? (and is that evil looking fellow on the home page you?)

Yes to both, however... (OT)

David Barnett

>...that site is as obsolete as are the prices on it (we don't do two and three digit prices anymore, heh). I no longer use base metals or wood, and I've pretty much curtailed any minimalist tendencies I once had. Forms are no longer turned but fabricated and carved: basse taille and champlev� enamel on pure silver or high karat golds, p�te de verre, faceted and carved gems, wire inlay, granulation and other ancient techniques... you get the idea.

As most of my goldsmithing and gemcutting ends up as jewelry nowadays, I don't often make tampers, picks, bands or other tobacco objets de vertue, but they're still actively sought by collectors, so now and then if the planetary alignments are just so and the muses incessantly inspiring, I'll acquiesce.

Yours truly,

Monsieur Vautrin

(twelve years ago, though)

You might try... *LINK*

David Barnett

>P.E. Hermann, for stem material, although the amber is likely to be synthetic (http://www.hermanns.dk/). As for meerschaum, unless you go to Eskishir, Turkey, and convince someone to let you have a few blocks, you're probably out of luck. Turkish block meerschaum is really the only viable meerschaum for smoking pipes, and the Turks are rather unwilling to part with it in uncarved form. If you're Austrian, you might have a chance. You can buy meerschaum mined in Utah, South Carolina, Nairobi, and lots of other places, but it's simply not going to produce a pipe with minimally acceptable characteristics.

(Maybe this is a good time to make it clear that I'm not a pipe carver/maker.)

On this subject of pipe carving with hand tools or otherwise (I consider pipe carving a 'hand work'/Pye's "workmanship of risk" topic more than a 'hand tools' topic, per se), I'd steer you and anyone else interested to the following link. Look up the web pages of various pipe carvers to see how they do things, online tours of workshops, tutorials, and so on. Many (but not all) are willing to answer questions. Especially, though, go to a big pipe show and meet several carvers and see their work firsthand.

Hope this helps. If you're still stumped, you may email me, but I'm pretty sporadic about answering any but business queries (I'm fairly busy these days), so please be patient.


pipes.org

Re: Yes to both, however... (OT)

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>I must say, that is a great portrait.

I was fascinated by your use of palm in one of the tampers. If it is not a proprietary secret, would you be so kind as to reveal what kind of palm you used, and with what you sealed/filled it?

Stabilized red palm *LINK*

David Barnett

>You know, I thought that a flattering portrait, too, but as nice as it looked on the Vautrin's Kiddy-Kare Center brochures, we never quite got the enrollment we'd hoped for.

The acrylic stabilized palm (crosscut) I used came from either a batch of wood for knife handles or a box of pen blank experiments. it was twisty, bent, all over the place from the process, so was pretty much unsuitable for whatever was its intended purpose. I later found some in the "Hut" catalog. They had both crosscut and straight grained acrylic stabilized red palm wood. I tried a few pieces but seem to recall it wasn't as consistently hard as the stuff I'd been given, but it was straighter. I'd find a clear pocket now and then, and I wasn't as happy with the finish I got, so never used it. This was years ago, though, and if they still offer it, it's probably worth trying.

Knife handles and scales, pen blanks, duck call blanks, etc., are a good and cheap source for small things like awl or graver handles, knobs, and even bench dogs - I have a few desert ironwood dogs with spring-loaded 'bullets'.


Hut Products

Re: You might try...

John Kissel

>Thanks David,

That's pretty much what I thought the situation was with regards to meerschaum. I was hoping that you might have an inside line on some of the Turkish material.

JK

Ha! Don't I wish?

David Barnett

>