pipemakersforum.com

For purposes of my own, I want you guys to tell me, as a pipe maker, how interested you are in making a pipe from this block:




Or put another way, what do you see here? This is the "bottom" as it were of an R-type ebauchon.

to answer simply, yes and no.
yes, because its still briar and still worth making a pipe. most likely a rusticated one.
no, because it has the grain of the heath tree stump not of the burl beneath and it looks riddled with pits.
this wont look as nice a piece of straight grain plateau, obviously, but still pipe worthy.
what do the other sides look like?

I wouldn't make that pipe with a 10 foot pole.... I wouldn't make that pipe with YOUR lathe.. what else ?
Oh yeah, I wouldn't make that pipe with 2 condoms on....
Actually, it looks a lot like some blocks I have on my shelf I have this feeling your going to flip it over and its some kind of birdseye that would make Eltang drool. Or maybe its studded with Emeralds ? Did you find Mikes old supplier?

On a scale of 1 to 10? Maybe a 3. Looks like there might be some birdseye on the front left side of the block. No idea about the rest of the block. I would draw it up, cut it on the band saw , and if it looked promising at all after that I would work it until the cavernous flaw opened up. Then I would throw it across the room.

No it's not a trick or special or anything... one side is washy random blobs, the other side is nicer birdseye, but it's pretty flawed looking. About a 3, I agree.

No the thing is that on another board a guy was lamenting the "fine, straight, tight grain" of the pipes made before 1970, and my suggestion is that those pipes were cut from heartwood rather than sapwood. Just cheap ebauchon cuts.

Naturally it's more fun to believe that pipes stopped being "good" in 1970 because Algerian briar became unavailable temporarily.

Looks good to me. All my briar looks like that!

...or at least it did until I ordered from Mimmo! His stuff rocks!

Ocelot55 wrote:Looks good to me. All my briar looks like that!

...or at least it did until I ordered from Mimmo! His stuff rocks!

nice plug

wisemanpipes wrote:

Ocelot55 wrote:Looks good to me. All my briar looks like that!

...or at least it did until I ordered from Mimmo! His stuff rocks!

nice plug

You wouldn't believe the kickbacks Mimmo offers.

Todd I think that would be a nice experiment block to put an idea to wood with no real high expectations
Nothing to lose, everything to gain

SAS what are the reasons of your own?

Black blast!

e Markle wrote:Black blast!

Werd.

I didn't want to stain the responses I got, and really Evan's first post is bang on - you are looking at a block that has a lot of heartwood mixed in with a little sapwood.

The conversation on smokersforums about "old wood" had a few guys contending that the old wood was more finely grained, and my response is basically "Yeah, sure it is, because it's just heartwood ebauchon cuts because nobody gave a shit about grain 50 years ago."

So it's funny that as pipe makers (modern) we look at the block and say "meh" and it's actually wood that a certain crowd would get excited about, but for the wrong reasons imho. And of course there's the "it hasn't been good since June 13 1971 when Barling bought all the Algerian briar" sort of beliefs too, and there's just nothing we can do about that....

http://www.smokersforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=114048

Blast.

Unless you know someone who really wants a smooth with that "look", retro, heartwood, whatever you call it.

Score of 3/10 is fair.

I know nothing about judging briar but going by the standards of other woods, it looks good to me.
I'd be interested.
Rodney

Interesting. Now, suddenly, this is just fun on its own. I will post some more pics later of other blocks and get some ratings.

I'de use it without hesitation. Straight grain is nice, don't get me wrong. But, I really like the crazy, all over the place, grain. It's nature....she's gonna do what she wants and I dig it.

Sasquatch wrote: And of course there's the "it hasn't been good since June 13 1971 when Barling bought all the Algerian briar" sort of beliefs too, and there's just nothing we can do about that....

Oh, pleeze... It was June 14. People always forget that the briar rich area of Algeria is one time zone to the east of London.

You really need to tighten up your game, Squatchy.

I used to just pick up any block I had and try to make a pipe out of it. Now that I'm paying more attention to reading the grain of the block, and finding the pipe to fit the grain well, I wouldn't know where to start with that one.

There's no hope on this one. It's goofy, and that's fine. I will cut a dead standard small billiard out of it and it will sell in 5 minutes to the crowd who like that kind of thing. Or I'll cut a dead standard small billiard out of it, find out it's garbagey, and throw it away.