Dublin Churchwarden

[mightysmurf8201]

Just finished this Dublin Churchwarden with padauk rings for a good friend of mine. This is the second of this same shape that I've done, and I worked hard to make improvements from the first. I'm getting a lot of requests for this particular shape, so I'd like to really nail it down, so any critiques or suggestions are more than welcome. Thanks for looking.

[Literaryworkshop]

I can't fault your execution. It looks well constructed.

If you want to make the shape a little better looking, you could try canting the bowl forward just a few degrees, so that the shank and the back of the bowl make a 90-degree angle. Bend the stem only slightly, a little less than the one you show above. I've seen pictures of Dunhill Dublins like this, and they look great. I'd like to see you give it a try.

[LatakiaLover]

Long, slightly bent stems are tough to get exactly right because they magnify shaping errors. One of the most common mistakes is to inadvertently create a sagged area on the stem side of the shank/stem junction---a "Coke bottle" profile---while trying to level the joint.

You can avoid it in the future by not having tunnel vision when sanding. Stay aware of the big picture, and check the full-length profile often.

[mightysmurf8201]

Thanks for the advice guys. The sanding at the stem/shank junction on this one was particularly difficult for me because of the different materials of different densities so close to each other. The briar sanded away faster that the padauk, and the ebonite sanded away faster than the briar. It was challenging to keep them even as I sanded.
One other thing I learned from this one that I forgot to mention earlier is that when I went to the buffing wheel, the buff impregnated some of the paduak oil and/or dust (not sure which one) into the surface of the ebonite, and turned it a brownish red color. In order to fix it, I had to tape off the padauk with painters tape, lightly sand away the coloration on the ebonite with high grit, re-buff, then remove the tape, before moving onto wax and clean buff. Anyone ever have a similar problem to this?