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I was asked by a friend last Monday night to make a briar calabash as a Christmas gift for his father. A little last minute, but ok...
I called Tim at JH Lowe on Tuesday morning as I had no briar wide enough for a calabash of this size. Tim kindly hand picked a few blocks for me and got 'em in the mail that same day.
The briar arrived on Friday, which happed to be day two of what would become a four-day "bed ridden with severe flu symptoms" nightmare. By Sunday night, I had decided to try to start this pipe. I got to the point of trying to do some lathe turning, but I was in a cold medicine stupor and quickly decided that operating the lathe in this condition was dangerous, so it got put on hold again.
On Christmas eve, I forced myself to work all day on it, stopping only to do some last minute Christmas shopping which I had also neglected to do while I was sick! By the end of the night, it was almost done. All that was left was to finish sanding and polishing the stem, but I was so exhausted and still feeling loopy that I had no choice but to quit for the night.
I spent Christmas day with my family after letting the customer know that the pipe would not be finished. He assured me that it would be ok as a "late" Christmas gift. I got up this morning, made my coffee, and got the stem sanded and polished.
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