Billiard attempt...

[JMG]

Stupid billiard (and stupid photos) I would love any critique you guys can offer me. Sorry the pictures suck. The profile pictures never look right to me. I will take the picture then look at the pipe and the two just don't look the same. In the photos the bowl seems to cant forward more than it actually does and the cheeks (what I could manage to shape) makes things look lopsided in the profile pic.

This was my first time to do an extension and first time to use SS tubing. Thanks for your help guys.

[Joe Hinkle Pipes]

Without sounding like an expert I'll give you a few thungs that stick out to me. The most obvious is the shape of the bowl. In the next to last photo the bowl appears to be basically cylindrical. It ahould have a "waist" about 1/3 from the bottom that would be the widest point. Looking at the profile the chin of the pipe should be a smooth curve transitioning from the front to the bottom. Yours has more of a abrupt Italian chin. You have quite a taper going from bowl transition to the stem transition. This is more of a preference thing, but it looks a little drastic. The stem taper looks nice and straight, which is tough to get right. The extension is throwing off the proportions, being almost as long as the briar portion looks odd. Ive done a lot of billiards and struggled with these points as well. The major victory will be seeing the reasons certain things dont work. The easy part is correcting them once you have your eyes trained to spot them. Lets see the next one!

[JMG]

Thanks for all the advice, Joe. I definitely get what you are talking about on the waist. I think that is the hardest part for me when it comes to a billiard. It was like watching a train wreck as I was shaping, and aggressively so. Saw it happening and felt helpless to stop it, ha. The chin is something I went back and forth on. I almost took more off, but obviously ended up not doing so. I think I should put a well shaped billiard in front of me as I shape and check it regularly...maybe that will help me.

Do you think this pipe would look better if I went back and evened out the taper on the shank? Should a proper billiard's shank be even all the way, or does it have a bit of a taper, just less than what I did?

Thanks again for your advice.

[wdteipen]

I wouldn't take anymore off the shank. The taper is fine. It's a little more on the drastic side but still within acceptable for a billiard. The shank is already small in proportion to the bowl anyway and taking more off would make it worse. There's enough briar on the bowl, however, to make a proper billiard yet. To help you out, draw a line 2/3 of the way down the bowl around the circumference. Then round the bottom half of the bowl in a ball shape and the top half every so slightly tapered to the rim. Try not to sand over the line until you are satisfied with the bottom and top half of the bowl then blend them together. Make adjustments then look at the pipe from different angles and continue. You can do it.

[Tyler]

It would immediately be a lot better if the rim was perpendicular to the bowl. You made it (mostly almost) parallel with the shank.

Where's my graphics monkey?? Sas??? Come do your thing.

[Charl]