NOTE: this is written as a Work In Progress!
I was granted a very interesting opportunity, Brenden (Oxman) had purchase a Meer' 'carve your own' block from fleabay and is giving me the opportunity of carving a pipe from it for him.
This is a first for me in more ways than one, initially of course it is a first time at carving a pipe from a 'carve your own' block, and it's a first at doing anything with Meerschaum.
This is what the block is to be when it arrives on my end:
Having only basic hand tools to work with and few of them in truth and they're all old and pretty shabby to tell the truth I am not so keen to try anything truly elaborate.
Besides which I feel pretty sure my attempts at doing so would fall well short of the mark
I have spent well over 7 hours in Photoshop manipulating the images of the block that I have available.
I have tried to make dozens of shapes work with the block but at some major point the design structure has failed.
As boring as it is the best design I have come up with that looks like it will work well and not be overly dull is a wide walled Poker of sorts,
This is the Poker shape I hope to be able to do for Brenden:
I have no idea if I can actually pull this off on a professional level but I am going to give it my best damn shot and will ensure I do the best job I can possibly do for Brenden.
I have spent a little over 4 hours working on the stummel today, to be honest I am not going to be able to make it perfectly round like Pokers are, I have tried as best I can and it just wont go.
I have spent over 1 1/2 hours trying to get the darn thing perfectly round and it is just resulting in the wall getting a tiny bit thinner on one side or the other as opposed to the bowl turning out perfectly round.
Here's some shots of the various early stages (scary huh!)
There are some rough edges to fix up when it is dry (it's going to take over 3 days to dry the leaflet says!), but this is how the stummel looks right now:
The stummel has dried out, a day earlier than expected but that's cool, I have done some fine sanding to flatten the base and rim a little better, also to remove some rough edges all over, the real fine sanding will come after the couple of days in the airing cupboard.
This is how the stummel looks now:
Brenden's pipe is ready now, I was totally devastated when I applied the wax from the Kit to the stummel, it has highlighted all of the flaws in the Meerschaum making it look less than gorgeous, which was heart breaking after the time and effort put into the carving.
This is the Meerschaum just prior to adding the wax:
This is the Pipe after applying the wax:
Seems very apparent that a very low grade source of Meerschaum was selected for these Kits, no doubt to ensure it is impossible for gorgeous pipes from being made from these blocks.
As gutted as I am about it turning out like this Brenden loves his new Poker so all is well.