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Greetings!

The pipe working at the end of last year was delayed big time with some tooling up process (among a few other things, i got me an HSS spoon bit. Man, isn't it actually fun to drill a chamber with proper tooling ... And with our second child born at december, the shoptime has been SEVERELY cut down... But, this is what i've been able to squeeze out.
A simple Billiard with brass accent and smallish proportions. It is also the very first one i've rough-shaped and drilled on a lathe. (And yes, i used some northern magic on it and made it grow hair... Maybe a little more time and sterility with the next photosession ...

1401:








Thanks for looking, and as i'm very driven to be good at this, please poke me with sticks (and/or crayons) and offer some critique.

Thanks. Enjoy your weekends.

Very. very nice. I'm sure the real carvers will have comments bit I think it's really well done. The slot work looks really great! Great job. I love slight accents like that.

oh, by the way CONGRATS!

Nice pipe. For the next billiard you make, either try to make the stem from the top profile come out straight from the shank then fishtail with a concave curve, have it slightly taper in instead of out. You can also make it parallel.

Shape of the bowl is subjective, but little more curve would be more attractive.

Just a couple more degrees cant forward on the bowl will match better with the taper you have on the shank.

Thanks wmolaw!

PremalChheda wrote:Nice pipe. For the next billiard you make, either try to make the stem from the top profile come out straight from the shank then fishtail with a concave curve, have it slightly taper in instead of out. You can also make it parallel.

Yes. Good, there was something wrong with the stem to my eye also but i just couldn't put my finger on it, now it's so obvious. Thank you Premal.

PremalChheda wrote:Shape of the bowl is subjective, but little more curve would be more attractive.

Just a couple more degrees cant forward on the bowl will match better with the taper you have on the shank.

I'm a fan of curves myself so i tried to do something out of my comfort zone...

But the forward cant thing boggles (is it even a real word..) me, i thought that the few degrees (in this case, pretty accurately 2 deg.) are there for the purpose of creating a optical illusion of the pipe being about straight 90 deg., rather than seeming to curl inwards...

is there a link between the magnitude of the shank taper and the degrees of forward cant?

Very good feedback, thanks Premal.

Actually the cant does look to work. I must have had my monitor turned a little or it may be the lack of sleep. I would say the taper and length in the shank determines the degree of cant that is needed to look pleasing. This billiard looks good with this cant or could look good with a couple more degrees cant forward. A lovat or saddle billiard would need a very small cant maybe 1 to 3 degrees. Taper shank 2+ degrees maybe. However, it is all subjective. You can always not cant the drilling and just slightly bend the stem or cant severely forward.

The only rule in pipe making is you must be able to smoke tobacco in it.

PremalChheda wrote:The only rule in pipe making is you must be able to smoke tobacco in it.

Heh. True that . And a valuable lesson to remember also.

T. Suominen wrote:

PremalChheda wrote:The only rule in pipe making is you must be able to smoke tobacco in it.

Heh. True that . And a valuable lesson to remember also.

Actually, as Jody Davis would say: "90% of pipe making is recovering from mistakes". Either the briar causes fits or one buggered up!