I’ve been away for pipe making for a little more than a year, but I recently jumped back in to make this pipe for a friend, and I’m looking forward to making more pipes in the near future. I would like to get some feedback on this pipe, but first I will provide my self-critique. The pipe has a simple mineral oil finish at the request of my friend.
The symmetry on the pipe is off in a few places. Most notably, the bowl is a little out of round. The bottom of the pipe, at the transition between shank and bowl, is also asymmetrical. The other very noticeable point with a lack of symmetry is in the front-view of the pipe. The sides have inconsistent angles when compared with each other, and are also not perfectly straight. The shank lines are also slightly wavy, which is especially visible from the top-view. I have somewhat limited tooling, but I know that that's not a good excuse for lack of symmetry, so I will continue to focus on improving in that respect.
Besides symmetry and the fact that several of the lines could use some cleanup, I think the largest flaw with this pipe is simply the finish. I did not spend enough time at lower-grit sandpapers, so there are some visible scratches and file marks, which is something I definitely need to improve on when finishing my next pipe.
My other big issue with the finish is the fit between the stem and shank. I could not for the life of me get the stem and shank to fit together perfectly. I did my best to sand and file it while rotating to get a good fit, but nothing I tried seemed to work. It’s possible my tools aren’t precise enough. I only really have some pretty hefty files and sandpaper, and I don’t really have any tools that I can use with more precision. It’s also possible that my tools are fine, and my hands are simply where the lack of precision lies.
This is my fourth pipe, and although I think some aspects of it are better than my first couple, the flaws in this one are much more visible to me (and more painful to look at) than in my previous pipes. Any comments/critiques are welcome and appreciated.
— Andrew
