pipemakersforum.com

I have a huge watering pot that I rusticated with a hole cutter as suggested in one of the threads. It turned out nice but now I need to finish it. I'm betting it can soak up alot of wax if I tried.

So far what I did was heat the stummel with my heatgun and grind carnuba wax on it and let it melt in. I tried to keep it minimal. I then used a nylon polishing brush on my drill press to shine it.

It doesn't seem to shine quite as nice as some others I have seen. Do I need to really lay it on thick? Will too much destroy the pleasurable smoking experience?

Don't lay it on thick. It'll discolor over time if there is too much. Hard to say what's going on without seeing it though.

I did the following on the second pipe I made. This has been about four or so years ago. I made a little tray out of aluminum foil, put some carnuba in this, and then used a pot on the stove to melt the carnuba. I brushed the melted carnuba onto the stummel.

As I smoke that pipe, carnuba is pushing out of the pores and sort of refirms on the surface, still to this day. I have to periodically take off the hardened wax. That was the first and last time I melted carnuba onto the surface of a rusticated pipe. Good thing I did not stain that pipe, or I would have taken the stain off in many spots while removing the carnuba.

To help with the shine, after staining a rusticated pipe, I will brush with a nylon bristled brush prior to waxing, etc. (sort of like the brushes used to brush potatoes and such). This helps even out the color of the finish. Then I will use an unsewn buff to apply the wax, and finish off with a flannel wheel.

Other pipemakers use different techniques, some probably better than mine, and this was discussed some time ago on this bulletin board. I recommend searching through older threads to see if you can find those discussions.