pipemakersforum.com

Rant time,

I just ruined by first piece of briar (XL piece of course) and pipe. I do freehand shapes and for some reason I must of thought my name was now Lars or Jess and tried to adjust my shape of my stem to go a little more with the grain. Well I got in a zone and started sanding away not watching where exactly I was and I sanded right through to the draught hole at the bowl stem junction (I was trying to get a dramatic sweep upward).

Anyway, I know making mistakes is the name of the game, but it still makes you mad.


-Nate

Nate, sad when that happens. I know firsthand. Did the same thing when I was making a volcano shape once. I saved the pipe for my own smoking though. I cut the shank off and replaced the entire thing with a piece of bamboo. It smokes fine and doesn't look bad either. Plus at least I didn't have to pitch it and take a total loss on the block. (They aren't cheap)

I still mess up sometimes. Was making a pear shap a few weeks ago, hit a flaw and thought thats fine i can modify the shape a little, sanded into the bowl as i hadnt taken that into account. Oh well we live and learn lol.

Make it a nosewarmer. That's probably how they got started anyway.

Or make a bamboo shank.

Tyler wrote:Or make a bamboo shank.

hmmm

might have to try that.

Not that I have even remotely mastered the craft of pipe making, but I have joked that the difference between my early pipe making and later pipe making was not the number of mistakes I made but that I learned how to recover from them.

I would hope that someday I'll just make less mistakes. Until then, bamboo for an "oopsy" on the draught hole is a handy fix.

Tyler

Tyler, as a carpenter, I was told that the apprentice makes many mistakes, the journeyman makes few. The master turns mistakes into features - so you're on the right track.

I haven't wrecked too much briar .... built a really difficult long stem, and sanded through it, and then made another one, and .... sanded through that. AAARRGH.

My day yesterday might be the winner. I was working on two churchwardens (Ihave too many friends who are Lord of the Rings fans ) and the first turned out to have a fatal flaw all the way through to the chamber that I only found when I was rusticating. The second caught on the buffing wheel, flew out of my hands, bounced off the wall and broke of the shank. Its salvageable but still frustrating. As if this wasn't enough, while I was sitting outside working on them a pigeon with some intestinal issues dropped what had to be at least a cup of the nastiest crap I have ever seen and when it hit the concrete it splashed all over me. Needless to say, yesterday was not my day.