first zulu shape

[KurtHuhn]

Hey guys, I finished slew of pipes last night, and among them was a first for me - a Zulu. Zulus are one of my favorite shapes, and I finally got a chance to make one with the tapered spade bit that I risked my life to make the other day.






Seeing as how this is the first I've made, I figured I'd solicit the opinions of the group. Anything about it stand out - good or bad? Other opinions?

[KurtHuhn]

For this pipe I used blank. It's much easier than trying to cut an oval stem.

And if you think the button is huge now, you should have seen it before I filed it down. But that's just my preferences coming through. I prefer a larger button, it works with the way I hold a pipe. That's easily modified too - if a customer wants it smaller I'll just file some more. Better to leave a little, than take too much away....

[Nick]

Nice looking pipe Kurt! To me, a zulu has a bowl that is canted a bit farther forward. Otherwise a great looking pipe. Amd I agree with Random, the staining is very pretty.

[whitebar]

Kurt,

The stummel work looks really nice on this pipe and I like it. The only problem for me is the stem. It is obvious when looking that it is a blank. One of the things I do when using a blank is to try and modify it to take away the appearance that it is a blank. One sign of a blank is the slot. I found that taking needle files to this area allows one to open up the slot and to put a better taper inside the slot. This also seems to improve airflow through the stem. It requires a lot of hand work but the final results are worth it. Try it out on an old stem to develop a technique you are happy with. Another sign of a blank is the thickness of the stem and button. You can also file down the thickness of a blank in order to end up with a more comfortable bite. For me, heavy modification really helps when i use a molded stem.

Keep up the good work!

Stephen

[whitebar]

One other thing I forgot. If you sand and round off all the edges of the button, the stem seems infinately more comfortable to me. This is especially true on the edge of the button that faces the stummel.

Stephen

[KurtHuhn]

Regarding the finish: It's a Pimo "medium walnut". I have no idea what the rought equivalent is in terms of a mix of aniline dyes. I'm not sure Pimo would be willing to give up that secret either. I'm pretty sure that you can create it with aniline dye available from anywhere, just use some brown, a little black, and maybe some yellow.

To keep the dye out of the bowl, I use a small brush. I get them at the local drugstore, packaged in 5-packs, for $1.49. When I used cotton balls, I was always getting dye in the bowl. Since I started using the brushes, I never get any in there. Also, since using the bushes, the finish appears more uniform and rich - but that might just be my head playing tricks on me.

For the stem: Duly noted. The button is an area that seems to where my preferences are in direct opposition with the world at large. I prefer a big button - but obviously that isn't so the world round. I'll pay more attention to this moving forward.

[KurtHuhn]

Guess I'll need to break down and try brushes. I started out with an airbrish, too much setup hassle. Recently been using Q-tips. Get a bad seal on the stopper though and you got a mess. Head-scratching time.

I never tried Q-tips. For some reason they just didn't seem like the right tool for the job - but neither did little brushes until I tried them. I was just wandering around the drugstore waitning for a prescription for one of my kids and came across these brushes. I figured, at $1.49, I could afford to try them. The deal was cinched when I saw a page with an Italian (I think) pipemaker using a brush to apply stain. I haven't looked back at cotton balls since.

That seems to be the way it works, and figuring out what the purchasing public wants is no easy task.

It's an ongoing struggle, and the buying public is fickle as well. The moment I change the button, people will scream that they need larger buttons. Luckily, the button is *easy* to make smaller if someone wants it so, and it's pretty a quick job that I'm happy to do upon request. I should probably add a blurb to that effect on my site.

[ArtGuy]

I would be interested in knowing the lighting as well. It almost looks like natural light from a window

[KurtHuhn]

I made myself a light diffusion box out of PVC pipe, draped a white sheet over it, hung a piece of posterboard off the back to give a curved surface, and (for the most recent photos) added another sheet to stick a tin of tobacco under to prop up the pipes. I left it unglued, so that I can take it down and stuff it somewhere when it's not in use.

Total cost of materials was somewhere under $10, including the sheets.

I'll take some pices of the setup either at lunch or this evening. Remind me if you don't see anything by about 9:00pm Eastern.

For lighting I use a couple 100w soft-white bulbs in shop-light fixtures. However, at the next opportunity, I'm going to switch to halogen lights - they're a whiter, stronger light that doesn't give that yellowish cast. Even fooling with white balance on my digital camera, there's still yellowing.

On some of my pics you can see a pink cast in the background. Those pics were taken with those Reveal color correcting bulbs. WARNING! Do not use these for pics - you can see the results are less than ideal.

I also don't use any direct lighting - I turn off the flash on the camera, and I set the effective f-stop way up as high as it will go.

Another tip, set the camera far back and zoom in on your subject. This reduces parallax (is that the right term?) and keeps the pipe from looking malformed.

This photography thing is as much a learned skill and art as pipemaking is. Thankfully, the secrets to good photography aren't as closely guarded.

[whitebar]

Kurt,

Excellent description of how to make a light diffusion tent. A set-up like this recreates the light on a cloudy day which is considered optimal light for photography because there are no harsh shadows. The light passing through the sheet is just like the sun passing through clouds. It is soft and diffuse which often makes objects look great when photographed. You have really offered some good information here and I'm sure several people will benefit from seeing the pictures of your set-up.

[KurtHuhn]

And here be the photo of the setup:


As you can see, it's *really* simple. Some PVC pipe, 4 "T"s, and 4 90-degree elbows. I put some wood screws into the back top span of pipe and used a hole punch to make holes in the posterboard to hang it.

The kids were just fooling around back there (lifting weights with daddy) so the lights are a way out of adjustment - but you get the idea.

I also have some different colors of posterboard depending on what I need to photograph, and some felt of different colors as well, for soft backgrounds.

It looks complicated, but it's *extremely* easy to use. The hardest part is getting white balance and effective exposure levels set right. That's just trial and error - snap a photo, transer to the computer, snap another photo, etc...