Anyone buy from this guy?

[PipesByDesign]

Do YOU believe in miracles?! YES!!!!!

[Nate]

Never rush a Miracle Man, Sonny.

You get rotten miracles.

Fine. Spoilsport.

[Nate]

Sas, did you miracleize that pipe yet?

[Sasquatch]

Dewd, not yet, man.


I may not have any carving time at all, or very little, till new years. I have a ton of "real work" that needs doing, and there's about 10,000 bucks on the line. So pipes is just gonna have to sit. I'm dying though - this stuff looks so wonderful I just need a day somewhere to have at 'er.

[Nate]

Dewd, not yet, man.


I may not have any carving time at all, or very little, till new years. I have a ton of "real work" that needs doing, and there's about 10,000 bucks on the line. So pipes is just gonna have to sit. I'm dying though - this stuff looks so wonderful I just need a day somewhere to have at 'er.

I hate the 'real work' bs don't you? Always gets in my way.

[bregolad]

I saw this thread when it initially got posted, was curious, and checked the seller on ebay. It sounded really tempting, but I had some briar already, so I didn't order. I checked it again today and saw the good reviews, so I couldn't pass it up. hopefully three weeks from now I'll have another good review to post.

[TRS]

I saw this thread when it initially got posted, was curious, and checked the seller on ebay. It sounded really tempting, but I had some briar already, so I didn't order. I checked it again today and saw the good reviews, so I couldn't pass it up. hopefully three weeks from now I'll have another good review to post.

Me too. Sasquatch's good review of the service was the deciding factor. I won an auction for 3 plateaux blocks with no other bidders. It looks daunting at first when the shipping costs as much as the blocks, but after averaging I think I got them for $13.50 a block, shipped. I'll post a review when I get them.

[Sasquatch]

I haven't posted again in this thread for a couple reasons. One, I wanted to make some more pipes. Two, I want to give this guy a fair shake because he's been way more than fair to me so far.

So.

I have seen 9 blocks. (Paid for 3) Cut 8.

3 have borer tracks, and won't produce a pipe. These show basically no outward signs of issues. Cut in, and find problems. If Alex cleans the blocks better, he may be able to detect and discard these.

3 are completely perfect, and super tight - I mean, just incredibly tight grained, and very nice.

2 are pretty average - one I will do a rustic with - it would have blasted too. One is nice but not too exciting, and I had to cut the plateux down to an M-type ebauchon because of some cracking.

I really want to use some more of this stuff before I come out and try to give some kind of average as to how many blocks have what kind of flaws. The best stuff is absolutely wicked, and the worst stuff is absolutely not useable. It's nice and dry, and pretty hard. Takes stain really nice.

So I'm hopeful that I've been unlucky and have seen the worst of Alex's briar. I'll be curious to see what other people find when they cut their blocks.

I really like this briar and want to use it. I'll order 10 and see what happens. At that point, I'll have a pretty good bead on the percentages.

[Sasquatch]

Look upon my birdseye rim ye mighty and despair!

[Charl]

Nice!

[Nate]

That is wild Sas! Speaking of wild, I think you need to wash those paws...

[jogilli]

Sas

I agree w/Nate .. on all points... might want to stop using the wire brush on the hands and try soap


james

[d.huber]

Wheeeeeeeew! Well that turned out well.

[PipesByDesign]

*despairing*

[Sasquatch]

I'm getting nice pipes out of this stuff.

Blocks need a little exploration, they do have some flaws, but they're big enough offer some flexibility.

[PipesByDesign]

That is superb. Seriously.

[Sasquatch]

Well, I feel like I've done enough with this stuff to offer a fairly accurate report.

This is nicely cured briar, by which I mean I have seen only one block in about 20 that showed any interior cracking. That's pretty good.

It smells fine and certainly doesn't add any weird tastes or anything when you are smoking. It smokes freaky dry. I mean, put the pipe-cleaner guys out of business dry.

The blocks need some trimming, and you'll surely find flaws on many of them. The most difficult to handle is the occassional block showing up with tracks in it, and some of these are very localized, some are just garbage. Little pits are fairly common but they are little - haven't found any big ugly fissures or runs inside the blocks. You can't just grab a block, cut a pipe whereever/however and expect perfection. A little planning goes a long way, and a few exploratory cuts are in order. But... if you do this, a lot of this stuff is real good.

Alex sent me a really nice ebauchon with the plateaux pieces I ordered, and I actually feel that this is where this briar excels. Let the vendor do the cut-work, and save yourself the trouble. For a guy like me who is ordinarily making fairly routine shapes, this briar is working out really well because I can cut the big blocks down, find the best bits, and get something from it.

I'd be interested to hear from the guys who have ordered large packs of ebauchons.

[Ocelot55]

I ordered 20 ebauchons the other day. I'm anxious to see how they turn out.

[bregolad]

I ordered 50 smaller ebachauns. They turned out a little smaller than I anticipated, but I think that was a function of my absentminded-ness rather than cutter error. The word is very, very dry, as sasquatch said. Smokes great. Every once in a while I would smell some mustiness, and I got one block that the briar beetles (or whatever they are) got to.
They are mostly rustication material; I got one block out of 30 that's smooth so far. But it turned out to be less than $4 per block WITH shipping. Can't complain to much at those prices.

I'd recommend the cheaper blocks for practice, but maybe not for marketable pipes.

[Archer]

The key to Alex's ebauchons is to really look hard at his measurements. What is his sizing code? I think its something BPB-M8 and higher are decent sized ebauchoons, and of course his pricing reflects that.