A beginner attempt - billiard

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Bormer
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Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2017 8:00 am
Location: Zagreb, Croatia

A beginner attempt - billiard

Post by Bormer »

Well, after your advice I tried to copy a billiard (from a pre-cut block). And it did not turn out like a billiard :D . Any tips what to improve (or concentrate first on improving) are very welcomed.

Also, two questions:
1. I had a hard time (and did not succeed) in shaping a curvature on a bowl, any tips? (I do all with hand tools)
2. I read in most of "how to do a pipe" tutorials that it is wise to keep the bowl walls about 1 cm, but it seems to me that the pipe is very bulky, and when I measured the billiard that I have it did not have such thick walls. Any comments?

Thank you for your patience and advice.
Borna

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sandahlpipe
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Re: A beginner attempt - billiard

Post by sandahlpipe »

I don't know where you heard to keep the bowl walls 1cm, but that's not even close. I like to leave around half that.

The shank on this pipe is not straight. You can see places where the light reflection bends along it. The cheeks right up by the shank are wonky as well. Focus your attention there on the next one, along with reducing the thickness of the walls.
---
Fail early, fail often. Your success depends on it.

Jeremiah Sandahl
http://sandahlpipe.com
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Ocelot55
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Re: A beginner attempt - billiard

Post by Ocelot55 »

If you don't already have a small, round, chainsaw file buy one. It will be the most important tool you own. With it you can really define the bowl from the shank. I got started with all hand tools as well and in the very beginning I did almost all my shaping with a chainsaw file.
DocAitch
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Re: A beginner attempt - billiard

Post by DocAitch »

It is a billiard, and it does look smokable. Not too bad for a first effort. The finish is nice except for a couple of overbuffed areas and that overlap line on the bowl rim, and the two tone stain is better than most.
As a mental exercise, imagine the billiard shape to be made of 3 different geometric shapes. The shank is almost a cylinder, slightly tapered toward the stem. The bottom of the bowl is the lower 1/3rd of a sphere with the South Pole at the bottom dead center and going up to the Tropic of Capricorn. At that line, it is joined by the truncated cone of the rest of the bowl. Your job is to blend the shank into the bowl with a smooth small radius, with the bottom of the shank meeting the South Pole of the bowl. The junction looks like a tear drop with the point at the South Pole.
Smallish round files (chain saw files, any hardware store) are good for this area as Ocelot 55 notes, and a nice 0 Pippin file (Otto Frei.com) is the cat's meow (learned this from Jeremiah).
It also helps to have a good filing support. A dowel (sized for a good friction fit for the tobacco chamber) in a vise in various orientations will give you a firm rest and allow you to view your work from different vantage points, and a good light hitting the work tangentially is extremely helpful in getting the shape right. You can also make templates from card stock to help guide your work.
I do note that EVERYONE working from a stummel has to shape the spherical portion of a billiard by hand, whether they turn the rest on a lathe or freehand it.
DocAitch
"Hettinger, if you stamp 'hand made' on a dog turd, some one will buy it."
-Charles Hollyday, pipe maker, reluctant mentor, and curmudgeon
" Never show an idiot an unfinished pipe!"- same guy
Bormer
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Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2017 8:00 am
Location: Zagreb, Croatia

Re: A beginner attempt - billiard

Post by Bormer »

Thank you sandahlpipe, Ocelot55, DocAitch.
I'll work on the next one to be less wonky (i like this expression), and with thinner walls. Also, I'll find the small files like you say. Finally, thanks for the mental excercise on the shape, it helps.
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