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I have a friend that wants me to make him a zulu. I have done a few pipes. All kits. But I've never done a dublin, and I've definitely never done a zulu.

He's not in any hurry.

I'm planning on making 2 or 3 Dublins drilling everything myself before I move on to trying a Zulu. Just wanting to get some clear definitions of what a Zulu is. My knowledge of a Zulu is that it's a Dublin with a canted forward bowl and a bent oval tapered stem. Does that cover the differences or are there more nuance than that? I plan on pumping out a half dozen weird looking failures before I end up with something that I'm actually willing to give to him.

Please pummel me into the ground with knowledge bombs if need be. I'll take all the help I can get.

Just make a Zulu. I don't know that making a dublin first is going to really help you all that much in regards to a zulu. My advice would be find a zulu you like and try to remake it in every way possible. If you had made 20 dublins first, this would still be my advice. Preferably, get you hands on a zulu to study. If you can't then google image search the shape and look at it from all possible angles and go from there. Good luck.

Besides the forward cant and the oval shank/stem, there is a major difference in the transition from shank to bowl. Whereas the Dublin has a crisp small radius transition that keeps the bowl and shank geometrically defined as much as possible, the Zulu transition is much more gradual and “organic”, making it difficult to pick out a point where shank becomes bowl.
DocAitch

Yeah, zulus are a "flowy" shape - there's a great picture of Einstein with a zulu pointed straight down out of his mouth, but it's a great example of the shape and you can see a lot of detail in it.

A zulu is like, half dublin, half horn.

Thanks guys. I am hoping to get some shop time tomorrow. Will update with progress pictures as I go.

Wish me luck.