Dumb Questions About Plateaus

[n80]

So far I've been ordering ebauchons to make my pipes. I see videos of people making pipes from plateaus and it seems like those are all free hand style pipes with the rough surface intact on top of the stummel and often the shank end as well. I'm planning on trying my hand at that too.

So the dumb question is: Is there any reason for using a plateau (which typically costs more than an ebauchon) to make a 'conventional' non-free hand pipe without leaving the rough surface exposed?

The second, slightly less dumb question: Will the rough surface of most plateaus lend itself to being left exposed in a free hand? I understand that there are no guarantees with briar but is there a general expectation that the rough surface will be aesthetically useful?

Thanks,

George

[sandahlpipe]

If you’re leaving plateaux exposed, make sure to clean off any bark with a brush or pick. Then stain or at least seal the surface. It likes to collect grime and look like crap if you don’t. Even sometimes when you do.


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[seamonster]

One big difference is that each type of block will have grain running in different directions. Ebuchons are usually cross cut, with the vascular grain running side to side and plateaux blocks are usually oriented with this grain running top to bottom.

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[KurtHuhn]

In all, it depends on the pipe you're making. You certainly don't have to leave the "live edge" at the top of the bowl, and you don't have to make a "freehand" from the plateaux block. If you want the grain running with the shape of the pipe, in profile anyway, plateaux is easiest to orient your pipe in. Some ebauchon might have the grain running that direction, but most do not, and the grain typically runs side to side - but depending on the cutter it could be completely random grain in that ebauchon block. Different blocks for different uses.

[danilo]

Look for pipes made from the respected guys here and I am sure you will see the difference. ( Talking about high grade pipes) .
The lines look like hand made sometimes.

( This is my opinion and is just to illustrate the difference) .



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[Sasquatch]

Grain orientation. Grain sells, plain and simple.

You want to make the most boring shape in the world? Go ahead, people buy 'em in droves. But if you want the grain to be just so, you need plateau, because the grain naturally runs in the "pipe shaped" direction.

MOST plateaus are cut better than MOST ebauchons, there are certainly exceptions.

But plateau yields this kind of thing:




or when blasting, because of the growth rings, perfect "stacked" rings







So where you can, for sure, get really nice pipes out of ebauchons, I just sold a remarkably clean piece of cross-cut (so birds-eye on the sides, the top and bottom of the plateau, as it were), neat grain.





Now you might not always want this - if a guy was copying a pipe from the 30s, say, using a perfect piece of plateau will make a nice pipe, but not a very authentic looking one.

If you look hard at most Peterson smooths, for example, you'll see that they are almost all ebauchon type cuts, very random grain, and that's a certain look. Most hand-made pipes, because a guy is looking at putting 8 hours into it and selling it for a few hundred bucks, it's worth it to buy the right block, maximize it and charge a little more. If you can get an extra 50 bucks from a block that cost an extra ten.. that's good, yeah?


There is no moral imperative to use the plateau crust. It's nice sometimes. Nor is there any moral imperative to use every inch of a block - pull the best pipe you can from any block, and throw the rest out.

[LatakiaLover]

Leaving extra material on the stem before bending, and then finishing the shaping after it's bent is the only way to avoid this. (Theoretically, you could "predict" or "project" exactly where the extra material will be needed and shape the PRE bent stem accordingly, but in practice that's impossible.)





PS --- I'm not pickin' on Sas just because he's big, ugly, mean, and says "eh?" a lot, btw... Many top carvers make the same mistake. This is an S. Bang:




This message has been brought to you by your neighborhood Stem Shaping Improvement Council, local 966, est. 1978

[Sasquatch]

Yeah those thick, short, bents are a real bag to get just right.

[DocAitch]

I agree with SAS. I generally aim for a straight grain pipe because that was “the thing” in the 1970’s when I first carved.
I still approach most stummels that way, but it depends on the shape. As a student of the “Make a Billiard School” on this forum, I have my eye out for a nicely figured billiard all the time, and generally 1/3 of my starts are going for a billiard.
Almost 70% of my starts have live edge plateau at the beginning of my quest, but I lose the plateau on most for reasons of symmetry or proportion in the process. As pointed out above, just because there is live edge plateau present at the beginning, there is no reason that it has to stay there.
DocAitch

[n80]

Thanks guys. I get it. I made a couple of pipes of black locust and used what amounted to a plateau cut with the linear grain following the lines of the pipe.

So far with briar I am more partial to the birds eye pattern on the sides and horizontal lines across the front but plan on experimenting with plateaus in the future.

[n80]

Looking at the VF site there is ungraded Grecian (Makis) briar large plateaus ($15) for less half the price of a Mimmo large grade 2 plateaus ($45). I understand that if the Grecian is ungraded there will be a higher chance of defects. Are there other differences I should know about?

[Massis]

Briar is easy: you get what you pay for. A 15$ plateaux will always be worse than a $45 one from a reputable vendor at least.

So the grain on an ungraded Makis will probably be a lot more random (vs nicely oriented in Mimmo's), it might contain sandpits, small cracks or other defects. But other than that, it'll be decent useable briar.

[n80]

Thanks. That's what I figured about the defects I just was not sure about the grain.

George

[sandahlpipe]

You do get what you pay for with briar, but it helps to know what you’re paying for. And to do that, you need to have some idea of what’s inside the block. In a $45 block, I’d expect it to contain a few small sand pits, but give me at least a 50% chance that the shape, which I’ve chosen for the block and oriented for the grain to flow optimally, will be clean enough for a smooth.

On a $15 block, I may still get a smooth, and it’s still possible that the $15 block would exceed the quality of a given $45 block in terms of finished product. I’ve had some really fantastic smooths from $10 blocks even. But I’ve also had series of 5-6 pipes in a row that had fatal flaws in the $10-15 range. But I’ve rarely had to throw out a $45 block. Part of this inconsistency is because briar is a natural material and you just don’t know. Nature doesn’t care if you want to make a bent Rhodesian or a blowfish. Part of it is whether the briar mill is paying close enough attention to what’s in the block, or likely to be in the block. They don’t spend more than a few seconds on each piece of briar, but I might stare at a block for a half hour before deciding.

One of the best skills to learn is to read a block. You can tell whether the grain will be loose or tight, whether and where it will have bare spots, where you get heartwood as opposed to burl, and sand pits typically follow the straight grain lines, but not always. And from a block of plateaux, you can read which direction the grain is flowing. A lot of people look at one side of the block and arrange the shape to fit the one side. But the block might have straight grain on the one side and birdseye on the other.


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[n80]

Is there anything about the Grecian briar that makes it less desirable and less expensive or is VF’s Makis just less expensive because it is ungraded and more of a crap shoot?

[sandahlpipe]

Makis briar can be as good, but the chances of getting a great smooth are higher from a Mimmo grade 2 than a random Grecian block. That said, I’ve gotten smooths as nice out of a Makis block as from Grade I Mimmo. Part of it is luck. Buy Makis until your skills are good enough and you don’t want to take as much time finding a block to yield a good smooth. I like Makis because they yield bigger pipes for the price, and generally make nice blasts.


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[n80]

Thanks, good info. I recently got access to a sand blaster so that is now an option other than rustication if I get an imperfect block. Will likely order a few blocks and see what I get.

George