#18 - Bent Tomato - feedback appreciated
Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2017 9:06 am
So after making my last billiard and learning a metric shittonne, I decided that for the foreseeable future I'll be building pipes in pairs: one billiard for learning and one 'fun' one to try to better satisfy my creative urges while I try to mimic the shapes I see online and in my head. I know that critiquing non-standard shapes is a pain in the ass and a slippery slope of 'I meant to do that', but I'm still appreciative of any feedback or tweaks to improve things that aren't right on this one.
Anyway, here's the fun one (for the billiard, please see '#19 - Second Billiard Attempt...'). I'll run through my self critique below and will then point out specifically the things that I know I struggled with but wasn't sure how to address. Hopefully this will let you guys know where I know I've missed the mark so you don't have to waste time repeating things. I'll follow the same format for the billiard post, and hopefully learn a lot from my mistakes on these. Apologies for the rough pictures, I'm still figuring out a way to take more effective photos, and need to run a light into the bowl next time.
The Good:
1. The internals on the whole are probably the best I've ever done - drilling off by about 1/64" of center, but mortise/airway angle perfectly centered, and funnel in stem open and even. Passes a cleaner without a hitch.
2. I generally am pretty pleased with how the shape of the stummel turned out (particularly in profile), and the finish is also my best thus far.
3. Slot/button face also my best so far - this is the first button face that looked 'right' to me, so I'd be inclined to refine this and continue to use an evolved version of this moving forward.
4. Smokes very well. I know Mark Tinsky's briar isn't particularly in vogue on here, but this pipe tasted great immediately. It's very strange to be at a point where my best smoking and 'nicest' pipe is one that I made (but still see a ton of flaws in).
The Bad:
1. The tenon is short - really short. Need to adjust the angle differently or possibly keyhole a little bit in the future.
2. I completely whiffed on the grain orientation. I was trying to use a bit of the plateaux on the bottom, but then I remembered I wasn't a crypto-hominid savant and fucked it up - I couldn't get the bottom line to look like I wanted, so I ended up sanding it off until I liked the shape. End result being a patch on the bottom that just looks like a nasty flaw, and grain way off center of the chamber. Tried to shoot the moon and missed.
3. I don't like the way the hard lines end under the bowl, but wasn't sure how to approach them. I generally really like the sharp side of the shank of teardrop pipes, but don't love their continuation up the bowl - and I'm just not sure how to address that any differently.
4. I would have liked a bit more symmetry in the roundness over the top of the shank.
5. General cleanliness of polish on the stem is not yet where it needs to be.
The Ugly:
1. The airway countersinking on the tenon is an embarrassment. I really struggle with getting delrin to look clean - I chamfered the outside on the edge on the lathe, but ended up being a bit too long, so pulling it down and redoing the countersink was by hand and it just looks like shit. Seems like working it on the lathe gets a nice smooth finish, but any attempt to adjust it once it's off the lathe just results in a ghastly mess.
2. The button is huge - probably too big by at least half in both dimensions. Behind the button is right at ~3.8mm, but I haven't been able to find the same sort of near-absolute guidelines as far as "here's how big to make this" for button height/thickness.
3. The stem itself is a mess. I think I really needed to taper toward that final cross-section profile and 4mm point a whole lot sooner - it looked okay before I bent it, but it looks bad now - I've bent and re-bent it four or five times and it just looks bad - on top of that, it's uncomfortable to clench because it gets thicker so fast (I'm learning that there are such different things to consider on a short stem). This is another part I'm just not entirely sure how to approach... would it make the most sense to funnel through nearly the whole length of the stem so that I can get it thinner there?
Once when I was a kid, I got a fortune cookie with a fortune that had something about the 'glonous history of China' - in a lot of ways this pipe is sort of like that... if you don't read English, then the 'n' and an 'ri' look awfully close, but as soon as you know English it's embarrassingly wrong - and that's what I'm trying to improve. Hoping you guys can help, thanks as always.
Anyway, here's the fun one (for the billiard, please see '#19 - Second Billiard Attempt...'). I'll run through my self critique below and will then point out specifically the things that I know I struggled with but wasn't sure how to address. Hopefully this will let you guys know where I know I've missed the mark so you don't have to waste time repeating things. I'll follow the same format for the billiard post, and hopefully learn a lot from my mistakes on these. Apologies for the rough pictures, I'm still figuring out a way to take more effective photos, and need to run a light into the bowl next time.
The Good:
1. The internals on the whole are probably the best I've ever done - drilling off by about 1/64" of center, but mortise/airway angle perfectly centered, and funnel in stem open and even. Passes a cleaner without a hitch.
2. I generally am pretty pleased with how the shape of the stummel turned out (particularly in profile), and the finish is also my best thus far.
3. Slot/button face also my best so far - this is the first button face that looked 'right' to me, so I'd be inclined to refine this and continue to use an evolved version of this moving forward.
4. Smokes very well. I know Mark Tinsky's briar isn't particularly in vogue on here, but this pipe tasted great immediately. It's very strange to be at a point where my best smoking and 'nicest' pipe is one that I made (but still see a ton of flaws in).
The Bad:
1. The tenon is short - really short. Need to adjust the angle differently or possibly keyhole a little bit in the future.
2. I completely whiffed on the grain orientation. I was trying to use a bit of the plateaux on the bottom, but then I remembered I wasn't a crypto-hominid savant and fucked it up - I couldn't get the bottom line to look like I wanted, so I ended up sanding it off until I liked the shape. End result being a patch on the bottom that just looks like a nasty flaw, and grain way off center of the chamber. Tried to shoot the moon and missed.
3. I don't like the way the hard lines end under the bowl, but wasn't sure how to approach them. I generally really like the sharp side of the shank of teardrop pipes, but don't love their continuation up the bowl - and I'm just not sure how to address that any differently.
4. I would have liked a bit more symmetry in the roundness over the top of the shank.
5. General cleanliness of polish on the stem is not yet where it needs to be.
The Ugly:
1. The airway countersinking on the tenon is an embarrassment. I really struggle with getting delrin to look clean - I chamfered the outside on the edge on the lathe, but ended up being a bit too long, so pulling it down and redoing the countersink was by hand and it just looks like shit. Seems like working it on the lathe gets a nice smooth finish, but any attempt to adjust it once it's off the lathe just results in a ghastly mess.
2. The button is huge - probably too big by at least half in both dimensions. Behind the button is right at ~3.8mm, but I haven't been able to find the same sort of near-absolute guidelines as far as "here's how big to make this" for button height/thickness.
3. The stem itself is a mess. I think I really needed to taper toward that final cross-section profile and 4mm point a whole lot sooner - it looked okay before I bent it, but it looks bad now - I've bent and re-bent it four or five times and it just looks bad - on top of that, it's uncomfortable to clench because it gets thicker so fast (I'm learning that there are such different things to consider on a short stem). This is another part I'm just not entirely sure how to approach... would it make the most sense to funnel through nearly the whole length of the stem so that I can get it thinner there?
Once when I was a kid, I got a fortune cookie with a fortune that had something about the 'glonous history of China' - in a lot of ways this pipe is sort of like that... if you don't read English, then the 'n' and an 'ri' look awfully close, but as soon as you know English it's embarrassingly wrong - and that's what I'm trying to improve. Hoping you guys can help, thanks as always.