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I'm a fairly new smoker, but a long time woodworker and woodturner. I thought it about time I tried my hand at making a pipe or two. I feel like I have what I need to know to make the pipe, thanks in large part to this board, but I wanted to show you all my first designs, in case I'm doing something silly.

I have this hunk of locust (close relative of mulberry and Osage orange), so I figured I'd use it for a first shot. It's rock hard, and takes a lovely polish.

First I thought something simple, with the draught hole and mortise in-line:



If that goes well, I was thinking something with a more bent stem, and kind of a V-shaped chamber.



I hope to have some progress pictures to share soon!

Edit: made the images smaller and clickable, instead of ginormous.

Go for it. Early pipes are for making pieces fit, getting things to be shiny, just going through the processes and seeing what works and what doesn't. Make a few simple pipes, get good at the technical aspects of it, and then you can move forward to more complicated and more difficult stuff.

When you're finished with that locust, briar will feel really soft!

The first design looks just about right. About the second design, I don't see why the airway should be drilled at a different angle than the stem mortise. Why not just deepen the tobacco chamber and drill the airway at the same angle as the stem mortise? Since the bowl dips down so low anyway, it seems like a deep chamber would be just the thing. And I'm not sure about the grain orientation. I like the idea of orienting it at an angle, but maybe the grain should sweep up along the front of the bowl rather than up the back? In other words, I would consider rotating the design left 90 degrees, if that makes any sense.

But really, those are pretty minor considerations. Just dive right in. They're practice pipes, and as long as the chamber and the airway line up, you'll end up with something that will smoke decently. Since you're already used to working wood, pipe making should come easily to you. It's fun.

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, locust is pretty tough on tools. Sure is pretty once you shine it up, though.

I stopped the chamber short because I was concerned about getting the walls too thin. Is there any rule of thumb on how thick the chamber walls need to be left?

On the wall thickness: I try to keep mine a minimum of 3/16 to 1/4 or .250. However I have a pipe that has a wall that is only 1/8 or .125 thick and it has done just fine. I did coat the chamber for protection. I personally wouldn't sell a pipe with less than 3/16 wall. It also depends on quality of briar. My experience so far is that tight grain that is properly cured will have no burnout issues, but if it has balding ( no grain or blotchy grain) it seems that the briar is softer and could burnout. I've had one pipe that had balding and where it was was bald it burned out a pit in the chamber. Again this is just from my experience, I'm sure the veteran carvers or masters will have better info for you.

With really good briar, you can make pipes extremely thin. I'm talking about 1/16" and it will be issue free. But that takes superior wood. Briar's heat resistance is way higher than most other "regular" woods, not least of which because lots of the flammable stuff, oils and resins, have been removed, and you are sort of left with "skeleton". This can be burned but it takes a lot of heat to do so.

With hardwoods I'd leave 1/4" of wood everywhere for a few reasons. One is burnage, the other is that tars will wick through a lot of open-pored woods eventually, and the thinner they are, the faster it will happen.