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I am a big admirer of the Dunhill Duke. Since it is rather doubtful that I will ever own one of the originals I decided to make my own versions. These three have features of both the Duke and Don along with my own treatment on the finish.
The shank "nubs" (ala the Don) are aluminum, brass and desert ironwood. The reed-like stems are acrylic and ebonite.
The briar is more of the lot that I got from Alexander on eBay. No major flaws so far. Small sand pits are prevalent though.
As always, comments are welcome.
Chas.
Wow, those are really great! Very nice work. I especially like the first two. There hasn't been a pipe posted in a very long time that I've liked as much as these. Great job.
Thanks to all for your comments!
All of my work right now I basically consider to be prototypes. I'm trying different things and learning from my successes and screw-ups. I've yet to sell anything as I feel I still have a way to go.
The hardest part of these three was the reed stems. Cast acrylic rod stock in colors and 1/4" diameter is usually a custom order (read $$$$$). Half inch material can be found but I didn't feel like going thru the hassle of turning it down and polishing it back. So I had no choice but to use the dreaded extruded material. Boring a .156 dia. hole thru 4" of that stuff three times was a challenge (scrapped four; extruded material is brittle). In hind sight I probably should have used the 1/2" inch rod.
Working the briar was pretty straight forward. I bored the airway .156 then used a 1/2" dia., 4 flute aircraft counter bore with a pilot to make the mortise for the stem "nubs". The nubs themselves were made on a Taig. After boring the 3/4" chamber in each, I made a jam chuck held in a 3/4" collet and turned the blocks down to cylinders 1.4" in dia. For the angled bottoms I stuck a .156 pin back in the airway then made a wooden spacer that the pin rested on and kept it at true horizontal. I used a 12" disc sander to make the angle cut. The pin and spacer kept everything in the proper geometry to prevent the bevel from being cockeyed to the axis of the airway. Simple and it prevents cutting away half of the pipe if you try to do it by trial and error eyeball.
The finish on all three was two steps except for the last one (iron wood "nub"). It had a single application of Behlen Solar-Lux black. After it dried I wiped it thoroughly with Solar-Lux retarder then polished the crap out of it. The second one got blasted as it had excess sand pits. Fortunately it had decent ring grain.
Chas.
J.McKnight wrote:I have wanted a Duke or Don since I started looking at pipes, so if you need someone to test for you send one my way
Really great work though!
Josh
Thank you very much!
Sorry, the "testers" are all gone. You just missed out.
Chas.
