Greetings from SoCal!!

[Woodrow]

I've been into pipes for a while and what usually happens is whatever I happen to be into at the moment I end up creating one or learning how to maintain, modify, etc. Happened with guitars, guns, cars, smokers/grills, ammunition, wood turning, if I love it then it becomes what I do. I got a few pipe kits from Pimo probably like 15 years ago and never gotten around to cutting them...I'm sure I'll run into them when I get to cleaning out my garage again haaha. But I purchased a few more just recently from Vermont, I guess Pimo turned into Vermont Freehand. They're nice large chunks of plateau and I hope they cut out to be clean. I've been in the fabrication business for most of my life. I turn wood, build furniture, urethane paints, RTV, composites, cold casting, welding, machining...the job I had for most my life to make stuff. It was badass!

I like unique pipes and currently my liking is larger pipes. The largest pipes I have is a Wiley freehand and a Boswell reverse plateau. I want to make a large pipe, my vision is a Poker/Cherrywood that's the size of a soda can. I have tools, just have to fashion the thing. I do have questions about these larger pipes and why they work the way they do, but that's for topics to post.

I want to thank the admins for accepting my request to join, thank everyone for their posts that I am going to learn from and I hope to be able to contribute something useful here some day.

If you're in the Los Angeles are and you want to shoot some clays, or talk pipes please contact me!

[DocAitch]

Welcome from Baltimore.
There is plenty of info on this site for techniques and tools but it sounds like you probably have a lot of stuff that you will need.
Briar to make a pipe the size of a soda can may be an issue. I recently made one with a chamber 2 1/2” tall x1.2 “ wide and that was about the largest I’ve made.
Steve Norse at Vermont Freehand may have briar that large but getting a clean piece that size would be difficult. Mother Nature plants lots of disheartening little surprizes in that briar.
Good luck.
DocAitch

[Woodrow]

Thank you for welcoming me! Yea I think locating a good piece of briar is going to be difficult. I asked Vermont for status of giant briar and he says maybe onr small batch a year. I also see that these larger pipes are always rusticated. Thats a good way to hide any flaws of the briar.

Can you post a link to your pipes please? Id like to see how yours turned out. Thanks again!

[DocAitch]

I dont know how to link it, but there is a post on the Pipe Maker’s Forum Face Book page that you can find by searching “cutting a turtle”. A “turtle” is what some folks call the huge blocks from Makis in Greece.
I also have one that I made from a second turtle which is posted in the pipe making section of Pipe Smokers Den.
I can try to send some photos later but have to up load to a service first.
DocAitch

[Ratimus]

Howdy, and welcome!

Here's a thought, though probably a bit beyond your skillset at this point:
Make the poker out of two or three pieces. The soda can could be made of a top and bottom piece that are hollowed out like a true calabash and threaded to join together. The shank could be integral to the bottom piece or constructed from a third piece and attached via threads. Would be weird for sure, but you could make something MASSIVE this way.

[Smoky Bear]

Nice to see other locals on here.