FrankenPipe

[DocAitch]

Good afternoon.
I have just joined this forum, but was a freehand pipe maker in the 1970s.
I have been setting up shop and searched out a box of stummels that sat in the basement for 40 years.
Among the treasures in box were a couple of unfinished projects which I had forgotten about.
There is a bowl with no stem. I cannot recall why, but it has no shank. I assume that it had a terrible flaw or I broke it off. I had drilled it out and obviously thought about putting another shank on it, but it wound up in the box.
Yesterday I pulled it out and started again.
I turned a cylinder of briar scrap and fitted it to the bowl.
I didn't have a tool to square the bowl face joint, so I turned a false tenon from a piece of ebonite and made a tool to square off the contact face of the bowl. (I got into the ball park with a Dremel tool)
I also made a sanding "finger" to shape the briar tenon at the bottom of the bowl.

Now I am ready to glue the pieces together and continue shaping a project that has been in abeyance for 40 years.
I plan o use a clear epoxy to make the joint permanent.
Do any of you fore see a problem with that?
DocAitch

[sandahlpipe]

Welcome to the forum!

Personally, I wouldn't put epoxy in the chamber (or my bowels, for that matter). If this were mine, I'd just let it rest in peace.

[DocAitch]

Thank you for the welcome.
Do you have a reason for this opinion? i.e. is it toxic or taste particularly bad? or does it fail with heat and moisture?
My thought was that the epoxy would go on the briar tenon and the interface between bowl and shank, not inside the bowl. My alternatives are regular wood glue and one of the cyanoacrylates, but I'm not keen on animal parts in the former or the cyano part in the latter.
I am not clear on your other thought-giving it a rest- does that mean you would chuck it?
I am doing this mainly as a skills exercise and refresher, I am not looking for the perfect pipe.
If it does survive the making, I will wind up with a smokable pipe, I hope.
I just got the bowel joke- I went back and found the edit icon.

DocAitch

[sandahlpipe]

I suspect fumes from at least some epoxy formulations to be toxic when direct heat is applied. As long as your epoxy doesn't get in the chamber (and perhaps bowl coating may help) you can always try it, but for me, the $10 for a new block of wood and an hour or two of my time is worth not taking the chance.

But there's more, too. You see corn cob pipes with this kind of joinery. I don't know what kind of glue they use, but it is a recognizably cheap way to do pipes. If you're just making a pipe for yourself, go ahead, but I don't think I've seen a pipe sell for more than $20 with the shank glued on this way. I'd just toss it aside for when you want to try out a new finish on something.

If you had a little bit of shank, you could always try a stainless tenon and use bamboo to get a nice result, but you won't get a sellable pipe with an epoxied-on briar shank.

Thank you for the welcome.
Do you have a reason for this opinion? i.e. is it toxic or taste particularly bad? or does it fail with heat and moisture?
My thought was that the epoxy would go on the briar tenon and the interface between bowl and shank, not inside the bowl. My alternatives are regular wood glue and one of the cyanoacrylates, but I'm not keen on animal parts in the former or the cyano part in the latter.
I am not clear on your other thought-giving it a rest- does that mean you would chuck it?
I am doing this mainly as a skills exercise and refresher, I am not looking for the perfect pipe.
If it does survive the making, I will wind up with a smokable pipe, I hope.
I just got the bowel joke- I went back and found the edit icon.

DocAitch

[pipedreamer]

Welcome to the forum. I agree with Jeremia, but keep it for youe experiments, coatings etc.Get a block and make yourself a decent pipe!!!

[pipedreamer]

Welcome to the forum. I agree with Jeremia, but keep it for youe experiments, coatings etc.Get a block and make yourself a decent pipe!!!

[DocAitch]

Guys, I have the time, and this is a beautiful bowl.
I also started this project 40 years ago and its been waiting for me.
Since yesterday, I learned a couple of new techniques, made a new tool, got to practice with my stuff, and have been relearning some of my skills.
I used epoxy by the way, only applied to the briar tenon and the contact face with the bowl.
I have just a few blocks of plateaux at this time, and am using old stummels that have been in the damp basement for the last 40 years- I don't expect to think about selling a pipe for a long time. I am not going to touch the plateaux until I have confidence in my techniques and tools.
I think you will be surprised by how this turns out, despite the "corncob" construction, if I don't screw it up. I will enjoy smoking it.
I will post some progress reports.
I also posted one of my "practice" projects in the introductions.
DocAitch

[DocAitch]

Hows this look? I wet the briar to bring out the grain, which is why I saved the bowl.

Here is the join line. Not bad for no counter sink.

I will post more when I get back to this next week.
DocAitch

[sandahlpipe]

It looks like you might have a smokeable shop pipe on your hands. The grain orientation almost matches, but the grain comes off at different angles. If you'll notice, the forum here doesn't really have a section for shop pipes. I think that's because most people take pride in their good work and never let their shop pipes see the light of day.

[W.Pastuch]

You could just use JB Weld instead of regular epoxy- it's heat resistant up to 260 degrees C. Whenever I glue a piece where temperature might be an issue I just use JB Weld and I know the bond will be as strong as it can possibly be.
Still, the pipe in question is just a barely smokeable shop pipe, so I wouldn't worry too much.

[DocAitch]

It looks like you might have a smokeable shop pipe on your hands. The grain orientation almost matches, but the grain comes off at different angles. If you'll notice, the forum here doesn't really have a section for shop pipes. I think that's because most people take pride in their good work and never let their shop pipes see the light of day.

Is there something wrong or shameful about showing a "shop pipe"? Why, some of the forum members don't even have shops (gasp!), and are realistic enough that we don't expect to have a commercially viable product for a long time, if ever.
We do like pretty, however! We also like tools and techniques, smooth surfaces, clean lines, detail work and actually smoking pipes
My purpose in taking on this project was to practice skills that I haven't used in years. Its been 40 years since I ran a lathe, shaped briar, or finished briar. I am enjoying the practice.
I am also limited at this time in briar pieces and am doing practice work on cheap stummels and broken junk like this. Luckily, cheap briar with faults is beautiful.
I think that this was an excellent opportunity for a practice piece salvaged from 2 pieces of unusable briar that would otherwise be tampers or stain practice pieces.
Accept this work for what it is, an interesting practice piece that looks like it may turn out alright, and which may demonstrate a couple of techniques to new guys.
While I am neither fish nor fowl, having been a pipe maker before some members of this forum were born but way out of practice and rusty on skills, I perceive your language and attitude (inferred by me, certainly) vaguely disquieting.
I think that I might even be discouraged or ashamed if I were a younger person and a real newb, instead of a crusty old doc and previous pipe maker.
At the start of this thread, my original purpose was to ask about gluing the shank to the bowl, so thanks wpastuch for the suggestion of JB Weld- I thought about it but didn't want too emphasize the join area.
DocAitch

[sandahlpipe]

DocAitch,

Please don't infer tone from text. No insults are intended or implied.

It frankly doesn't matter to me if you show off your shop pipes or not. I've done it and regret it. But I don't think the techniques you've used to make this happen are helpful for beginners. I know because when I started making pipes, my progress was slowed because I was focusing on making pipes out of pieces that should have been resigned to the rubbish bin. Were they smokeable pipes? Absolutely! Did I learn how to construct a well-made pipe through it? Nope! It's a completely different skill set.

I don't mean you any harm. I just want newbies who want to make sellable pipes to know that this isn't the path to go down.

[kamkiel]

As someone who has made and posted a few frankinpipes, I think it looks good. As the name of the forum suggests, it is for making pipes. All kinds of pipes are posted on here, and thats how it should be. I personally think its really great to have someone like you around. I'm sure others will be able to slowly glean some information and technique that you have acquired as a pipe maker.

I remember reading (or hearing) a pipe maker talking about how a large portion of making pipes is problem solving and fixing your mistakes. I think as a beginner (me) fixing mistakes is vital to learning techniques. I have a few throw awaysbin a box waiting to get frankensteined.

Good job on the fix! I look forward to seeing the completed pipe.

Kiel

[Alden]

Epoxy in the bowl bothers me, just because of the chemical nature of it. Actually, anything in the bowl would bother me personally but I would have suggested Elmers Wood Glue for the repair. Not because I'd like to smoke it, but Missouri Meerschaum uses something similar to Elmers in their pipes, and there is definitely some that gets in the bowl with no ill effects.

[DocAitch]

Sandahl,
Thank you for the reply. I don't disagree that this may be a garden path for young pipe makers who want to develop sale-able pipes, but there is another context- that of skills and technique development with limited resources.
At present, my supply of briar is limited, and even if I had a pile of good stuff sitting around, I would not be cutting it right now for at least another 10 pipes or so. The frankenpipe shown is an exercise for me to re polish my skills. I have also learned much from perusing this forum, each discussion that I have followed had at least one gem. I found the remarks on drill and tool speed to be very helpful.
I personally can't see regretting putting a "shop pipe" on display if it demonstrates a point.
The whole lathe use to cut bowls and the hand made stem techniques are new to me. I used pre molded stems and was generally of the "old school" which viewed a stem as something with which to suck smoke from a beautiful piece of briar. Lots of beautiful stuff on this site and others is demonstrating to me the error of that mode of thought.
I think this forum is an amazing fount of knowledge and skill and although I am new, I have learned a lot.
I do, however, tend to bristle when confronted with a shibboleth that may be more harmful than worthwhile.
Kamkiel- thanks for your kind words, I will look up some of those frankenpipes. Amazingly enough I had just seen your repair of the burned out Dunhill before I checked this thread- Good job! I learned something there as well.
Alden- Yeah, I was concerned about toxins from epoxy in the bowl and took special care not to get any on the briar tenon or deep in the mortise. Also, if we are worried about toxins, why are we smoking tobacco or any thing else in these devices? To quote Tom Cruise in Risky Business " Sometimes you just gotta say WTF!"
Thank you gentlemen,
DocAitch

[DocAitch]

Finished on the Frankenpipe (for now because I never know when I will pull out a pocket knife and have at some detail that offends me) . Plan to light up in the next few days.
The join line is a little prominent as a result of my skills being rusty and the fact that I faced the hole in the bowl by hand. There are also some smears on the stem which I didn't catch prior to photos.





DocAitch

[caskwith]

Good save and a valuable lesson learned I am sure!

[DocAitch]

Many lessons learned and all of it valuable.
Thanks,
DocAitch