First Billiard. First stem.

[n80]

Taking advice from the group I've attempted a billiard. It is patterned after a Savinelli 128. This is my first ever stem from scratch. Sorry that the photos are not great. Criticism of any type welcomed and needed. (The marks on the slot are not scratches or tool marks but lint from a pipe cleaner.)

Thanks,

George

See post below:

[n80]

Sorry, images were posted in Pipes Magazine forum and because I don't have 50 posts the thread was deleted....I have way more than 50 posts but they were lost with the site upgrade. I'll try to host the images somewhere else and repost here.

George

Here they are:

[UnderShade]

Nice work George! Contrast and finish look good. I feel like I’m too amateur to critique, but here goes...

I would have kept the shank 1/4-1/2” shorter and took more off the back of the bowl by the elbow. Stem looks good. I prefer a thinner bite zone and narrower slot, but it’s hard for me to judge the scale from the picture. Good looking pipe!

[n80]

I would have....... took more off the back of the bowl by the elbow.

Agreed. So hard to get right. So easy to mess up. I fiddled with it forever.

I prefer a thinner bite zone and narrower slot, but it’s hard for me to judge the scale from the picture.

Bit is thicker than I would have liked (0.17"). Scared I would sand into the channel. For the slot I was actually trying to copy a Love Geiger slot that I like the look of and looks more like an open mouth than a slot. Probably not the right choice for a classic billiard.

[UnderShade]

I know that fear, as I’ve done it many times. LatakiaLover showed a great tip on one of his videos where he put a strip of masking tape on each side of the rod stock to use as a gauge showing where your airway is. That tip has saved me more headaches than almost any other technique I have learned.

[RickB]

This is a pretty great first billiard. I was about to take you to task for the duckbilled stem, but it looks like that's how the Savinellis are carved as well. Biggest thing that jumps out at me is the back of the bowl - start transitioning that so that it's cutting toward straight down about halfway down the back of the bowl so that it's about dead vertical where it intersects. From there you might also need to cut the transition in a little harder.
Smaller things I see:
- probably too much off the chin, and you might want to move the visual weight of the entire bowl down somewhat
- I agree that the shank/stem are probably both a bit longer than they should be
- it looks like the shank is smaller at the transition than it is at the stem junction, you want to taper that a bit so that it's a bit smaller at the junction.
- it looks like you either buffed or sanded while the stem and stummel were apart - you've got a slight rounding over there.
- button looks a little long/deep

I'm inclined to say do the slot however you like it. Mine have changed a bit but I've landed on doing them a way that I like and plan on refining that I expect it to be pretty close at this point. Once you figure out a button/slot/etc. that you like, keep cutting them the same way.

I know that fear, as I’ve done it many times. LatakiaLover showed a great tip on one of his videos where he put a strip of masking tape on each side of the rod stock to use as a gauge showing where your airway is. That tip has saved me more headaches than almost any other technique I have found.

This is really good advice. I saw that and have done this since my second or third stem and am yet to sand into an airway in ~25 stems and I regularly take them to a 3.8mm bite zone.

Now go make another!

[n80]

Thanks guys. Great advice.

I find stem making to be a challenge. No lathe. Took me twice as long to make the stem as the stummel and I'm still not happy with it. Also, used Japanese vulcanite (lower price at VF) and it has three inclusions in it that do not show up in the pictures. The Savinelli stems are a little duck billed. They also flare out at the tip a little which I failed to duplicate. I did buff the stem off of the stummel and that is probably where the rounding of the edges came from.

One pleasant surprise, this ebauchon was a low grade block I bought for practice and was amazed at the pretty grain. There is one small linear pit on the shank.

Thanks again,

George

[Masonrygh]

First of all, if my first Billiard had looked like that, I probably would have cried tears of joy.

Good job.

One major thing stands out to me, simply because it was my biggest area to work on from my first Billiard.

Right now it looks like a smooth gradient from shank to bowl. I can’t tell where the shank ends and the bowl begins. You want it to look more like an individual shank, connected to a individual bowl, with a tiny little “schlwhoop” connecting them. (Doing this will also bring out the “cheeks” of the bowl in the bowl/shank transition.)

Hope that incredible description helps hahaha