Jumbo Charatan gets the Hot Rod treatment
Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 10:02 pm
Lately I'm been having fun taking "stock" pipes---meaning the way the factory made them---and altering things to improve their performance and appearance. I think of it as "hot rodding" in the same way Detroit-made cars were modified by their owners to look and run better back in the 1950s through the 1980s. (I guess it's still done to some extent, but computerized everything largely killed off America's backyard Hot Rod Culture.)
Anyway, last year I made a replacement stem for a large Charatan Supreme, and the other day came across a nearly identical junker in a box that I realized was made by the same guy. This one was a lower grade (Special), and had a slightly shallower shank-to-bowl angle, but that's it. The stem, being both extremely distinctive and poisonously ugly, was absolutely for sure made by the same guy.
So. I slenderized the overly chunky bowl and shank, opened the airway, topped the hammered-to-shit rim about 1.5mm, made a new "compression" style Lucite stem for it (meaning the airway tapers over its entire length), shaped the button to my liking, and refinished it all with a simple "virgin-style" hard wax finish.
Why? Because it seemed like the thing to do, of course. The older I get the more I appreciate big bowls/long smokes, and this thing fills the bill. A smidge short of 2" deep chamber that's 7/8" across.
71 grams, 6.5" long.
NOTE --- The last photo is the Supreme from last year "trimmed" the same amount that this Special was, and also to show the WTF stem.
.
Anyway, last year I made a replacement stem for a large Charatan Supreme, and the other day came across a nearly identical junker in a box that I realized was made by the same guy. This one was a lower grade (Special), and had a slightly shallower shank-to-bowl angle, but that's it. The stem, being both extremely distinctive and poisonously ugly, was absolutely for sure made by the same guy.
So. I slenderized the overly chunky bowl and shank, opened the airway, topped the hammered-to-shit rim about 1.5mm, made a new "compression" style Lucite stem for it (meaning the airway tapers over its entire length), shaped the button to my liking, and refinished it all with a simple "virgin-style" hard wax finish.
Why? Because it seemed like the thing to do, of course. The older I get the more I appreciate big bowls/long smokes, and this thing fills the bill. A smidge short of 2" deep chamber that's 7/8" across.
71 grams, 6.5" long.
NOTE --- The last photo is the Supreme from last year "trimmed" the same amount that this Special was, and also to show the WTF stem.
.