New Guy

[Woitkiewicz]

Hello,
Brand new to the forum. I hope I can learn a lot here. I'm a pipe smoker with a wood carving habit but never thought to put the two together. So Ive started by getting cheap pipes on auction to refurbish to get a feel for how they are made. May not be the best smokers but I want to get some knowledge of what works and what doesnt. My latest refurbish is below, some cheap Missouri Meershaum hardwoods all pimped out.
At this point I have a design for my first pipe and Ive started carving a non-smokable prototype in bass wood, since it is a wood I am used to. From there I'll spend the big bucks on some better wood for pipe making. My goal is to make some pipes from local woods and tree burls & roots, there will be trial and error over the next few years as I gather wood and cure it. Glad to be here and look forward to some advice.

[DocAitch]

Welcome from Baltimore.
A couple of cautions about your projected course.
Jumping in with your own design is OK, but there are a number of designs out there that are supremely efficient tobacco smoking instruments. Learning the ins and outs of making a good billiard has served many of us well on this forum.
As for wood choice, briar has so many advantages that making a pipe out of something else almost seems futile. There are olivewood and morta pipes which are very nice, (and some of rosewood, cherry wood etc), but no other commonly available wood has the combination of heat resistance and figure that briar has.
Yes, the burls of many trees are beautiful, but their figure is much too large to be appreciated in a pipe sized object.
DocAitch