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Eskimo's are fun, but VERY difficult. Some people also say you should call them inuit... err.. I mean Ukelele...

This is the closest I ever got to a decent one:

As a new pipe maker I'm game for whatever the group wants to do. But, there could be certain limitations for new carvers who do not have a lathe. For instance the two engraved rings on the bowl of a bulldog. I'm not sure how to do that without a lathe. But maybe that will just make us explore alter...

Undershade is right, this is not a bulldog. I would call it a diamond shanked pot, as it's far too short to be a billiard. General execution seems reasonably good, but there's a very clear rounding of the shank face (especially on top), so I suspect you sanded the shank without the stem attached? Do...

I've got mine made by buckeye engraving as well. Been pretty happy with it so far

I'll opt in for now. Can't fully commit yet but had fun last year

The expensive part of a sandblaster is the compressor. If you make a habit of it, talk about buying a small cabinet and using your BIL's compressor with it, then you can keep a clean cabinet with your own media on hand. I'd agree with Chris here. A cheap cabinet setup can be had for <$150, while th...

Old n stinky wrote: ↑Fri Dec 20, 2019 12:18 am The link to the photo essay is bad. No pictures

well this topic is TWELVE years old But Kurt probably has them somewhere...

Briar is easy: you get what you pay for. A 15$ plateaux will always be worse than a $45 one from a reputable vendor at least. So the grain on an ungraded Makis will probably be a lot more random (vs nicely oriented in Mimmo's), it might contain sandpits, small cracks or other defects. But other than...

UnderShade wrote: ↑Mon Oct 07, 2019 9:52 am One reason I do it is to keep the dust outta my nose, also keeps me from running through so much paper. Could be more of a ritual than I realize...

It is, I love building slush with wet sandpaper and then wiping it off to see smooth ebonite appear!

haven't really looked for it anymore, and I have even less of a clue now where I put it...

Yup, I concur with Kurt. I've bought ebouchons from 5$ to 15$, and the price reflects the difference pretty well. From small blocks with sandpits and corners cut off, to massive chunks I could nearly make 2 pipes of with wonderful birdseye grain and no defects. If you want decent quality, buy from k...

bowl coating is ment to help form cake and to protect the bowl from possible burn in. But there's just as many pipes out there without any coating that do just fine. The old way used to be to smoke a pipe filled for only 1/4 the first 5 times, then half full , then 3/4 before finally filling it comp...

Can someone explain to me about coating the bowl? What do you use for this? I see some high end pipes in which the bowl looks a grayish color. There's tons of different recipes out there, using all sorts of stuff like honey, sour cream, ... But the basic gist of it is you want to mix pure carbon po...

some people refer to premolded stems as vulcanite and rods as ebonite, but it's the same material.

You shouldn't need paper above 1000grit imho. Rough prepolishing compound is coarser than that anyway.

I see the exact same thing in my line of work: IT / programming. Try posting a random question on StackOverflow, you won't get any (useable) response unless you can post what you tried, what didn't work and part of your code that isn't doing what you want it to. The same goes for pipemaking or any o...

@danilo: no idea yet, ask jasonpatrick once he gets it

@JMG: the resin sands and polishes like regular acrylic, so no issues really

I finally got round to making decent pictures of my PITH entry for this year, so I'd like to hear what the pros think. I already know many people feel the blue dome is too much on this pipe, but personally I'm in love with it. Even more, I think this first picture is one of the best pipe pictures I'...

Ooh that's pretty!

Buy a couple practice blocks from Vermont Freehand. If all you're doing is testing finishing techniques, you could probably cut each block into 1/4" thick slabs and get more bang for your buck. or simply finish and if you don't like the result, sand it down and try again, until you find someth...

Ocelot55 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2019 9:33 am Ha! Can't say I've ever seen that before! Good job!

Thanks!
Credits go to Chris Kelly (Eldritch pipes) for his groundbreaking work with resin casting on pipes. That's what gave me the idea.