Pipe in Process

[Literaryworkshop]

Here's one I've been working on today, and I thought I'd get your thoughts before going further.

I'm not sure what to call the shape. Reminiscent of an egg, I suppose.











There are two things I'm not sure about. 1. Does the stem need to be bent any more? 2. Should I taper the bowl more toward the top, or leave the shape alone?

Any other critiques before I proceed?

[Ocelot55]

Take more meat off the bottom if you have the room for it. That line should either be straight of a continuous curve.

[socrates]

Curve the stem more I think

Sent from my HTC0P3P7

[Sasquatch]

The issue with the pipe is that the angle of the mortise and the angle of the shank are not the same, so the stem looks like it's coming off the shank at a funny angle right at the get-go. More off the bottom of the pipe will alleviate this some.

[Literaryworkshop]

I think there's enough wood left on the bottom that I can do that. I might not have enough left to get it totally straight, but I can certainly take off a little. Once that's done, I'll take another look at the stem and see if it needs a sharper bend.

Thanks!

[Literaryworkshop]

Well, this one just went from bad to worse. I got to filing it down a little bit to refine the shape and opened up a long fissure in the back of the bowl, right above the stummel. So I set it aside to think for a while and decided that, just for practice, I would work on it a little more.

First I filled the void with some JB Weld epoxy tinted black. I have no idea if it will hold up to smoking, but the glue itself will withstand 500+F, so it's just a matter of the surrounding wood staying put, I suppose. I really just wanted to see if I could hide a filled gap like that.

Then I decided it was time to learn to rusticate a pipe. It was kind of fun and didn't take all that long, especially compared to sanding. I still need to work on my technique, but I can see myself doing this kind of finish more often.









So it turned into a shop pipe (or gift pipe, maybe), but it was good practice.

[kamkiel]

I think the rustication looks pretty good (better than my attempt). I used a mean looking bit and batted it at the pipe then stained it black on the bottom and red on top. My rusticated pipe looks like a city projects building that needs to be torn down. So... I like yours better!

Kiel

[Literaryworkshop]

Thanks. I did this with a makeshift rustication tool: a few wood screws with the tips sharpened, all taped together. I need to epoxy them into some kind of handle now that I know what I can do with them. I just dragged the tips around the pipe until the texture was as even as I could get it. It took a little practice, and I know what I should do differently the next time. There's one spot on the pipe (not visible in the pictures) where the rustication lines radiate out from, and it shouldn't be like that. The lines should flow continuously around the pipe with no clear beginning or ending point. I'll do better next time.