Old School

[Sasquatch]

I'm had great fun on this... wanted to mimic an old Dunhill type of bent billiard, none of this "straight shank on an angle" stuff either, but the old 120-ish bend. Practicing getting the blast right to the stem, there's a few ways to do it, and they vary in difficulty and result...

The biggest issue with a pipe like this is that if you pull out a really great piece of briar, tight and dense and uniform and well cut, you just can't make that into a Shell-style blast. Gotta find a crooked piece with wonky grain and just hammer the piss out of it. Anyway I was pretty happy with my result.

[baweaverpipes]

I like it a bunch! The blast looks very Dunhill-ish!

[LatakiaLover]

My Britwood lust is stirring.

Blast --- check

Stummel shape --- mostly check

Stem bend --- nyet

(To be read in the SoupNazi voice:)

Back to the heat gun for you!

Though longer-stemmed than 120's---these are LC's---the best looking 120s had the same arch thing goin' on:

[Sasquatch]

Dear George,

Not everything is an LC and 7" long.

Also the stem is lucite, so that will really put your grizzly gray curlies in a knot. Actually I would like more curve earlier in the stem but being lucite that proved very hard to do... back to the drawing board in that regard.

[LatakiaLover]

Damn whippersnappers... never happy til you make the old guy get out of his chair, are ya?

I had to walk FIFTEEN FEET for these, unnerstand? (grumble... grumble...)

Real-live 120s one and all. From 1924 through 1972. Original stems.

Read it and weep:



As for Lucite, you just have to heat it longer & more slowly. Wear a glove on the pipe-holding hand and hold ABOVE the shank/stem joint, to both shield it from direct heat, and to keep pressure off the tenon when bending.

Once it is bent and cooled, go back and "flash" any ripples/dimples/glove texture marks in the surface of the plastic with high heat. (Heat gun on high, stem only an inch or so from the nozzle, time IN the air stream only a half-second or so.) They will lift right out.

Now, I intend finish watching my black-and-white Perry Mason and Ed Sullivan VCR tapes, so keep the noise down, dammit!

[Sasquatch]

I will try something like that next time... I was worried about my delrin, I suspect my epoxy would soften at lucite-bend temperature... if I had a wet pipe cleaner in the shank right there it might keep things cool.... Better yet I'll just use ebonite and an integral tenon next time!

[Sasquatch]

I like the pipe bottom left the most.

[LatakiaLover]

I like the pipe bottom left the most.

That one is an authentic rarity. A Redbark that's stamped "120". (All the old shape numbers were supposed to be replaced by a new numbering scheme at the same time as several other sweeping shop changes, including the introduction of the Redbark finish. For some reason a few---I've only seen or heard of one other---received stamps from both production eras.)

Completely arbitrary and quite meaningless, but Big Medicine for Dunnie collectors. The pipe is worth double the norm because of it.

[Rodneywt1180b]

I still like it.
Rodney

[Charl]

I think all those Dunnies are underbent, George.

[clickklick]

I was so hoping the Sandahlman would been in here biting your ankles!

Nice pipe!

[LatakiaLover]

I was so hoping the Sandahlman would been in here biting your ankles!

Minnesota shares a border with Canada, meaning The Squatch might just take a road trip one day. And Jeremiah ain't stupid.

[clickklick]

More likely its his new baby ! Sandahl man ain't scared of no sasquatch, pretty sure he's from Germany.

Me on the other hand, I live in Minnesota too . . . nice pipe!

[sandahlpipe]

I ain't scared of anybody. But Sas has been making pipes longer and more expensive than me, so I don't just say all that's on my mind. Now that you've brought me into this, though, I think the stem bend weirdness was already addressed and I think the bottom of the bowl is too flat. But I like it a lot. I'd totally smoke it. And you could probably find a Dunhill that looks much worse for twice the price.

[LatakiaLover]

I ain't scared of anybody.

That seems... um... a rather brash attitude given the realities of the situation.

(Board --- these photos were taken by me at the Chicago show last year):


Sandahl:






Sas:

[sandahlpipe]

Sandahl:





You clearly missed something in your picture.

[Sasquatch]

Given a pipe and a lighter, and a few blocks to hack at, I am definitely more like Jeremiah's second picture.

What's interesting is how few comments or questions you get on a simple pipe like this, except from people who really are deep in classic pipe-shape culture.

I worked more on the blast than on the shape in this case.... I wasn't trying to make a replica of any particular shape number - just the general idea of the crank-neck shank and the fairly lean bowl. Make this shape chubbier and it's a Ser Jacopo.

Regarding the flatness of the bottom of the bowl - I agree, the curvature isn't flowing there. The idea is that you get a little more definition on the bowl by having a slightly more protruberant "chin" if you take off just a little more material there, and relative to the rest of the shape, it further serves to elongate the presentation. Tiny little stuff like this fascinates me.

[clickklick]

What is the wall thickness on this?

[Sasquatch]

At the top, probably not quite 3/16", and at the thickest, I'd guess it's just a little over 1/4". Total weight 41 grams.

It's no problem to make a pipe at that thickness, so long as you are dead sure about the briar. If it's punky, soft, filled, etc, this is right at the edge of safety imho. But this was a really solid piece, 3 years in my shop to boot, so it's not delicate.