One for George

[Sasquatch]

Hopefully he doesn't spit his prune juice.

These are really, really hard it turns out.





And the kicker: drill just like a goddam straight billiard.

[UnderShade]

God, what a beauty Sas!

[LatakiaLover]

Prune juice?! If I could see you and wouldn't fall over from letting go of my walker, I'd thrash you with my cane, young man!

Whippersnappers...

What's the size of that critter?

Definitely one of yours. (cool/weird how after a while some carvers develop a "look" that can't be explained, but it simply known...)

My personal taster prefers a somewhat more gradual bend that starts closer to the shank (example pic attached), but there were/are a number of LCs that do the higher & more angular thing. And the more tubular bowl of yours definitely evokes LC-ness.

As for being hard to make, isn't it a kick when you realize that mass-producers were never able to charge by shape, only by grade/finish level. What a crap shoot reporting for work must have felt like at the shaping and stem stations.

[Sasquatch]

Yeah I also like the long curve, and will do it on the next one - I took this from the 1928 example in about smoke and it's both less long and much less curved than some examples. I think I might try to thin the shank a hair more too, (but it's dicey, there is not a ton of room for the airway)

The pipe is diminutive at almost exactly 7" chin to button.

I'm not sure if the guys on the factory floor had fits about these things or not, watching pipe making videos from the middle of the century on, I'm struck by just how much stuff is either automated or machine assisted - you jam the stem in this chuck here, and rotate it like so against the cutter, and pow, it's oval and has a button cut on it. Pretty amazing stuff. Not sure what the production lines looked like at Dunhill in 1930, but for sure all the pipes I've handled had the same "errors" if you will, stems all bear the same drilling marks in the slot etc.

[Ocelot55]

That's a beaut, Sas! Well done!

[Sasquatch]

I heard the amazing Jesse Jones cuts an LC before bed every night just for fun.

[LatakiaLover]

Click the white dots above the row of flags:

http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/infos/d ... -comp.html

[seamonster]

My personal taster prefers a somewhat more gradual bend that starts closer to the shank

George,
Is a bend like you describe best done in stages (heat one section, set a bend, cool it all, heart the next section...) then dial it all in together with a file or sanding sticks

OR

heat and bend it all at once?

**It's really too bad someone who knows the best way to do this and likely had done it numerous times, doesn't have access to video and editing gear and an online video distribution system....

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[LatakiaLover]

I heard the amazing Jesse Jones cuts an LC before bed every night just for fun.

That was back when he was taking his time, going slowly, and in purely learning mode.

Since getting the shape down, he knocks out three of them PLUS a Walrus before going to bed each night.

[Sasquatch]

Goo goo g'joob.

[Ocelot55]

I heard the amazing Jesse Jones cuts an LC before bed every night just for fun.

Right before I brush my teeth!

It's actually a shape I'd like to revisit. I haven't done recently. Your example is one of the better ones I've seen in a while.

[Sasquatch]

The pipe is pretty hard in a bunch of ways, but maybe the most shocking thing to me was how many "large" blocks just aren't big enough in the right way to do this at all, let alone well.

[JMG]

George, what do think of some of Gustavo’s (Martelocuhma) stem bends? They look incredibly well done but certainly not a consistent, gradual bend.

[LatakiaLover]

George, what do think of some of Gustavo’s (Martelocuhma) stem bends? They look incredibly well done but certainly not a consistent, gradual bend.

If you mean his LC-flavored stuff, it's not there yet. Too long + uneven thickness + kinks = nyet





That said, the Swan Neck Thing (the 1924 Dunhill 120 below is a good example) on an oversize pipe is beastly difficult to do well. Like churchwarden stems from rod, few people who try it go back for seconds.

[Sasquatch]

Yeah I've sold this pipe to 7 different people now, basically without releasing it publically. The trouble is, I don't feel like sweating my way through another just yet.

I did manage a billiard today though.

Oh, yeah, and a pot that came out okay. And no, I'll never blast better than this, this block was put aside years ago for just this day.

[Sasquatch]

So, v3.0, a smooth, came out gooder yet, and this is the thing, every shape, every everything, takes practice.

[wdteipen]

Noice!

[LatakiaLover]

In the Dunhill LC collecting world it's accepted that their shape quality is all over the map. No one knows the backstory beyond the stummels came out of France from time to time, and Dunhill had first choice. The most likely possibility is significant tweaks had to be made during shaping to dodge flaws. How they were then stemmed and finished in London created still more variation.

The bottom line is as rare and valuable as they are, some are pretty much butt-ugly while others are sublime.

I have no idea how you did it with your Andre the Giant-sized hands, Sas, but you managed to match the best output of a century ago. The "recurve" of the shank and stem is spot-on, and the bowl is tall without looking chimney-ish/tubular. The hardest test to pass is not being able to tell how large or small a pipe is when seen alone in a photo with nothing for scale in the shot. I'm pretty sure that pipe would check that box with flying colors.

Outstanding job.

(Any new carvers who happen across this thread, heads up: The difficulty of making a good looking pipe (I'm not talking some giant-for-the-sake-of-it firelog monstrosity) increases EXPONENTIALLY with size. By all means give it a go if you're inclined, but don't say you weren't warned. )

.

[Sasquatch]

Yes, making a tiny pipe is hard in it's own funny ways, but making really big pipes, REALLY big pipes and not have them all fuckin wonky, it's a different hard.