Importance of making pipes with the repairman in mind

[The Smoking Yeti]

Well fuck.... drilling two oom-paul-ish pipes today! Don't worry, I'm using delrin tenons and wider diameter tenons

[Tyler]

<snip>

dismiss the design altogether (or modify it) if the sum of those best options still yields an unacceptable result.

<snip>

As part of my Pursuit of Perfection, I suppose.

The issue though is what's acceptable? That's pretty much the foundation of the thread. Some pipes are more fragile others. What's the standard?

[LatakiaLover]

<snip>

dismiss the design altogether (or modify it) if the sum of those best options still yields an unacceptable result.

<snip>

As part of my Pursuit of Perfection, I suppose.

The issue though is what's acceptable? That's pretty much the foundation of the thread. Some pipes are more fragile others. What's the standard?

There are so many dimensional and material variables in play for a given design that it is impossible for a true beginner to even see them, never mind understand how they interact.

After a while things start to make sense, but small differences can be very important, so new(er) makers tend to still make a lot of mistakes.

It isn't until you've dealt with thousands of pipes (or were shown them by someone who's been there) that something like a "standard" emerges. It can't be quantified or or metricized. You simply know it when you see it. The feel is based on an accumulation of closely observed failures and successes. It's the "art" portion of the technical side. a.k.a. experience

[Sasquatch]

I don't think there's going to be a single standard. I've made pipes specifically for guys who have said "I need a pipe to beat the shit out of. I don't want a piece of crap, but I want something that I don't have to worry about." So they get a 5/8" shank, a metal band, and a 3/8" tenon, maybe military, and a short little pipe.

If someone else wants an extremely light, graceful swooping thing with a pencil shank, it's gonna have different parameters and physically it's not going to be the same as a chubby pipe.

So we can build pipes we think are good enough, smoke well enough, are comfortable enough etc, but trying to make a single set of correct pipe-building parameters seems silly to me.

[LatakiaLover]

Love the wall of text. Its good to hear from you again George.

Wall-O-Text, indeed. I like to think of it as "thoroughness."

Little chance I'll be doing much of it, however. As I said at the time, the tension/churn thing that's an unavoidable part of communication without facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. finally (and quite suddenly) crossed some sort of internal threshold with me, and dealing with it now holds little appeal.

I heard from Scottie that Tyler had posted something specific to repair, is all, and when I read what she'd said about the origin of her little clay-briars inside the thread, wanted to set the record straight. There was no "team effort" of any kind. I just said something that gave HER an idea, and she ran with it. (She's industrious and energetic, that one)

It's good to see y'all are still making sawdust and having a good time, though.

Take care, especially with those fukkin bandsaws.

[andrew]

Take care, especially with those fukkin bandsaws.

Just told my son last night that the most dangerous tool in my shop was that stupid bandsaw.

Good to hear from you George.

andrew

[ToddJohnson]

Tyler,

One of the questions I would ask is "how capable is your repair man?" I've done quite a few repairs over the past 15 years--many of them on $10K+ relics--and I think most of the discussion here is completely irrelevant.

When the back of the mortise is notched, you have a ring covering the notch, and you "need" to re-drill the airway, are you just SOL? No, not at all. You can use something similar to a plumber's "drain snake" to bring the airway back to its original diameter--if you know where and how to get/make one--or you can remove the ring without damaging the pipe, re-drill the airway, and reattach the ring--again, if you know how.

Right now I'm smoking a Petite Comoy from 1902 that has a 6.5mm shank and a screw-in tenon. It's ~113 years old, and has apparently only been owned by un-retarded people (excluding myself). Long story short is this: you can't make every pipe to suit every collector. Guys who are careful and don't use torch lighters can happily enjoy certain pipes for decades, while folks who call the mouthpiece a "bite-stick"--true story--can't be trusted with something delicate.

Most of us probably have kids, and I find this discussion similar to saying that an iPad is a careless and fragile instrument that never should have been produced. My two boys, 7 and 9, have had iPads for a couple years with no problems. My 5-year-old daughter, whom the boys call "Ellie the Destroyer" also has one. Hers has a 2-inch thick pink case surrounding it, but it also sports a cracked screen and various sorts of unidentifiable goo in most of the ports. Is it Apple's fault, or is my daughter Eleanor just a savage. Methinks it's the latter.

The whole concept of making something "bulletproof" is completely relative. For whom is it bulletproof? Yes there are design and engineering principles that should be followed--and some that should never be violated--but operating on the ragged edge of viable is the business of those who seek to advance the conversation vis-a-vis pipes as an art form. In my humble opinion, that's what makes you a "pipe maker," rather than a guy that just happens to be making pipes at the moment.

All the annoying rhetorical disclaimers apply.

TJ

[Tyler]

Tyler,

One of the questions I would ask is "how capable is your repair man?" I've done quite a few repairs over the past 15 years--many of them on $10K+ relics--and I think most of the discussion here is completely irrelevant.

When the back of the mortise is notched, you have a ring covering the notch, and you "need" to re-drill the airway, are you just SOL? No, not at all. You can use something similar to a plumber's "drain snake" to bring the airway back to its original diameter--if you know where and how to get/make one--or you can remove the ring without damaging the pipe, re-drill the airway, and reattach the ring--again, if you know how.

Right now I'm smoking a Petite Comoy from 1902 that has a 6.5mm shank and a screw-in tenon. It's ~113 years old, and has apparently only been owned by un-retarded people (excluding myself). Long story short is this: you can't make every pipe to suit every collector. Guys who are careful and don't use torch lighters can happily enjoy certain pipes for decades, while folks who call the mouthpiece a "bite-stick"--true story--can't be trusted with something delicate.

Most of us probably have kids, and I find this discussion similar to saying that an iPad is a careless and fragile instrument that never should have been produced. My two boys, 7 and 9, have had iPads for a couple years with no problems. My 5-year-old daughter, whom the boys call "Ellie the Destroyer" also has one. Hers has a 2-inch thick pink case surrounding it, but it also sports a cracked screen and various sorts of unidentifiable goo in most of the ports. Is it Apple's fault, or is my daughter Eleanor just a savage. Methinks it's the latter.

The whole concept of making something "bulletproof" is completely relative. For whom is it bulletproof? Yes there are design and engineering principles that should be followed--and some that should never be violated--but operating on the ragged edge of viable is the business of those who seek to advance the conversation vis-a-vis pipes as an art form. In my humble opinion, that's what makes you a "pipe maker," rather than a guy that just happens to be making pipes at the moment.

All the annoying rhetorical disclaimers apply.

TJ

Glad you joined in.

FWIW, I agree. For better or worse, I often ask questions with an agenda. (I probably shouldn't admit that.) In this case it was develop the view you outlined. I've found that such views play best when they get developed over three or pages of conversation. That, and it's been a little dull around here lately.

[LatakiaLover]

The question that makes up the title of this thread can unfortunately be interpreted in several ways, and that is the source of its vagueness, I think. Everyone knows that what happens to a pipe after it's sold is important, but everyone is equally unsure how to quantify that. Plus the whole implication-by-word-choice that a repairman's feelings must be considered, somehow. Or something.

Bruce said, "I never consider what a repairman will think of my stuff," for example, but be doesn't make stems that are .120" thick behind the button. Why? Because he knows that many of them would fail soon after they were sold. Is that "thinking about the repairman" or not? Depends on semantics.

Also, weirdly, making pipes as durable as their design and materials will allow somehow morphed into the undesirability and pointlessness of making "bulletproof" pipes. Those are completely different things. The former is what every good pipemaker should be doing, the latter is something that only the Department of Defense would bother wirh. (USA Special Forces tobacco pipe, 1 ea. tropical/polar field use, DoD spec 3442-7761.39)

A much better thread starter would have been something like: "What features do YOU think are essential for a pipe to be considered well designed & well engineered?" And a list compiled.

Then, once such a list had been created by pipe makers, it could have then been refined by those whose business is repairing and maintaining pipes after they've been used. Sort of like those 100,000 mile road tests in Car & Driver magazine. (And where the "beware trumpeting tenons" type of comments would come in.)

[ToddJohnson]

A much better thread starter would have been something like: "What features do YOU think are essential for a pipe to be considered well designed & well engineered?" And a list compiled.

Then, once such a list had been created by pipe makers, it could have then been refined by those whose business is repairing and maintaining pipes after they've been used. Sort of like those 100,000 mile road tests in Car & Driver magazine. (And where the "beware trumpeting tenons" type of comments would come in.)

Then start a "better" thread with the above title and see just how vague "vague" can get. I cut mouthpieces in the .120's, but not for general sale. I also make pipes that are obnoxiously impractical, but still engineered to smoke as well as a straight billiard. You can buy a Maserati MC-12 and drive it on the street, but if you try to go over speed-bumps with it, somebody's going to have to replace the front lip at some point down the road. If you choose to drive it on flat roads only when the sun is shining, and keep it in your garage/pipe-cabinet the rest of the time, it'll be in great shape 20 years down the road.

Let's take your automotive analogy one step further. The 100,000 mile test takes a car 5-7 years out from its point-of-sale. The analogy simply doesn't work. I agree that, if you're making pipes that sell for a lot of money, and you don't make them to last the collector 5-10 years, you're doing something terribly wrong. But that's not what we're talking about. You're like someone who restores classic cars, and you're basically telling high-end car manufacturers "Be careful what type of engine you produce now, because in 70 years it may be difficult for someone like me hone those cylinder-walls and still source pistons that will fit." That may or may not be true, but it is completely irrelevant, and should be dismissed out of hand as it relates to production. Don't ask pipe makers to make your job easier. Just figure out a way to be better at what you do. Produce the oversized pistons yourself if you must.

And by the way, that "Tropical/Polar Special Forces pipe you propose existed for a lot of years. It's a straight billiard with a domed metal shank-cap, and a military-mount tenon/mortise. The same pipe was smoked by soldiers who saw action on the Eastern front and in Egypt/North Africa. There are still a lot of them around, and I have several myself. They're boring as all get-out, and I'm sure thankful we've progressed far beyond that from a design standpoint, but I can't imagine a pipe repairman could have anything negative to say about them from a durability standpoint. It's the Toyota Camry of the pipe world--boring, inexpensive to produce, cheap to fix, guaranteed for life, and mind-nummingly pedestrian--the white-bread of the automotive world. They're great if you're looking for reliable transportation, but that's about it.

There are guys out there though, who can restore a 1960 Ferrari 400 Superamerica to Concours 90+ point status if they really know what they're doing. It's not my job--nor anyone else's--to make you that guy.

TJ

[LatakiaLover]

Todd,

Put your dick back in your pants, OK?

When you get tedious, you get fuckin' tedious.

[Tyler]

This thread developed PERFECTLY.

[The Smoking Yeti]

Exactly what I thought Tyler- if a thread doesn't come to this, there isn't any real debate/discussion occurring!

[W.Pastuch]

I guess Todd and George aren't really friends?

Todd's response in this thread makes a good point. I wonder why George didn't care enough to write an actual reply.

[baweaverpipes]

I guess Todd and George aren't really friends?

Todd's response in this thread makes a good point. I wonder why George didn't care enough to write an actual reply.

George loves Todd, otherwise he wouldn't mention his dick!

[W.Pastuch]

[LatakiaLover]

I guess Todd and George aren't really friends?

George loves Todd, otherwise he wouldn't mention his dick!

Honestly, Bruce. Please! Just because I got a bit of work done... why can't you leave me alone?

[RadDavis]

George! Don't let anybody tell you that you don't look pretty awesome!

Rad

[LatakiaLover]

George! Don't let anybody tell you that you don't look pretty awesome!

Ya hear that, Weaver? Rod Davies understands.

And I'm gonna be even morer prettier soon, plus a lot bigger and scarier. Like this guy. (Gyms are for suckers, all you need is a big needle and a barrel of Synthol). So you better stop messin' with me. My treatments start next week.

[d.huber]

I think I just puked a little.