Finishing off a pipe

[Briar Spirit]

I was very fortunate to receive a fantastic belated Birthday gift from a good friend, you will all know him, Paul Hubartt (Larrysson Pipes), Paul had sent me a partially completed pipe for me to work on completing. This is to get me prepared for working on a full pipe blank. I am very honoured that Paul has done this for me, he has pretty much made a pipe but has yet to clean off the rough edges, what a fantastic and wonderfully thoughtful present, thank you so very much Paul, I am really enjoying finishing off this pipe.

Well, this is where Paul got the pipe for me to finish off, as you can see he has done all the really hard work already and provided a couple of clear guidelines for what to do to bring the pipe into form.

 

[Briar Spirit]

I spent a couple of hours working on finishing this pipe, I filed off some of the rougher stem surface, that was interesting, I have never worked on an acrylic stem before, they are much more resilient than Ebonite. Which is good really as it's much harder to make careless mistakes, but, my eagerness to get on with the Briar won out and I put a stop to working on the stem and got to work on the Briar.

I removed the most of the Briar as marked out by the pencil lines seen on the Briar surface, these markings were made by Paul to guide me as to where to go next. I didn't follow the lines religiously as they would have meant losing too much of the Plateau on the front heel, it's only a small Plateau to begin with so I didn't want to lose any of it. I have made a start on making the bowl a free-stand by making a flat base, that took more filing than I suspected, Briar is really light and feels quite fragile in the hand but boy is it resilient.

I started work on the shank to round it off more and to fit nice and snug with the stem, that went quite well I thought, I'm really enjoying doing this, I thought it would be interesting to work on a pipe but it is in fact really engaging, much more so than I would have guessed. I have got to work on smoothing off the sides of the bowl and we can now clearly see the to be final shape of the bowl now, it still has a long way to go but we can see what is coming, I am very excited at this point and eager to see the pipes progress.

 

[Briar Spirit]

Finished the filing and the sanding, ready for staining and polishing.

 

[Briar Spirit]

Here is the pipe all finished.

I have made the pipe more professional looking, I personally prefer darker pipes but I know most folk will want to have the grain showing as it is damn gorgeous grain, so here's how it looks now:

 

[user 2031]

That is beautiful! Love the bit of plateau and the idea to make it a sitter. You've done a fantastic job finishing that one.

 

[Briar Spirit]

That is very kind of you to say Jack, thank you, I ended up having to trade it off in the end, story of my life really, I actually heavily regret trading it, not because of the trade because Jimmy sent me some wonderful pipes in trade. As time went by I started to feel weird about losing the pipe and now, every time I see how the pipe looked in the end, I get this horrid sense of loss, silly I know but there it is.

 

[user 2031]

That is very kind of you to say Jack, thank you, I ended up having to trade it off in the end, story of my life really, I actually heavily regret trading it, not because of the trade because Jimmy sent me some wonderful pipes in trade. As time went by I started to feel weird about losing the pipe and now, every time I see how the pipe looked in the end, I get this horrid sense of loss, silly I know but there it is.

No, not silly at all. I have passed on a few things that I have owned that I was really ok getting rid of but still, sometimes when you see them you get a bit of regret, if only for a moment. Just remember that someone is cherishing it and that helps you still enjoy it.

 

[Briar Spirit]

Oh I do Jack, Jimmy adores that pipe, he was absolutely thrilled when he got it, the pictures don't do it any credit at all, I know everyone says that but it's true, that pipe was a much richer red-brown with a heavy dark brown staining to the grain, the final picture makes the pipe look 'orange', it isn't that colour at all, but I'm crap at photography.

 

[BigCasino]

another sweet pipe Kirk! I also like those dark walnut-esque colors

 

[Briar Spirit]

That is really kind of you to say BigCasino, yes, the darker stains always draw me in, I don't like black stains though, a little too Gothic for my tastes, but a nice deep dark brown stain, oh yeah, sweet as a nut mate and make no mistake. :bounce:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

That is beautiful! Love the bit of plateau and the idea to make it a sitter. You've done a fantastic job finishing that one.

This x 1,000

As I was scrolling down I said, "...gotta work with that little swash of plateaux..." then..." Man, that'd make a pretty sitter....(kid you not)...boom, beautiful pipe. Kirk, you need to start turning your own stuff soon. Finishing and refurbishing is a great way to learn a few tricks in the sandbox, though, eh? :cheers: Great job.

8)

 

[Briar Spirit]

I have considered it Kyle, but unless I magically get assigned a fairy godfather or godmother to magic me the tools, machinery and stock, it's never going to happen mate.

 

[bosun1]

Mighty fine looking piece of work!
And since you know who has it, there is always the possibility it may come home in the future! (G)

 

[Briar Spirit]

Mighty fine looking piece of work!
And since you know who has it, there is always the possibility it may come home in the future! (G)

Very kind of you to say, thank you, oh I don't believe I shall ever see this pipe again, Jimmy loves it and I wouldn't even entertain the notion of taking it from him, no, it is where it belongs as Jimmy loves it so.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Kirk, if I can carve with cheap drills, a system of C-clamps, and all on a makeshift table out of a crappy guitar case on a keyboard stand, I'm pretty sure you can work something out. You have the ingenuity. Challenge, my friend...challenge. :twisted:

8)

 

[somedumbjerk]

Kirk, if I can carve with cheap drills, a system of C-clamps, and all on a makeshift table out of a crappy guitar case on a keyboard stand, I'm pretty sure you can work something out. You have the ingenuity. Challenge, my friend...challenge. :twisted:

8)

this. don't get caught up in tooling up. you can make a pipe with very minimal tools. my first pipe i made with a $10 coping saw, $8 in sandpaper and $25 in files. all tools do is speed you up. you've got a good eye for pipe crafting, and finsihed a very beautiful pipe. try to get a hold of some predrilled kits and trade the finished pipes for tools!

you can totally do better than that! (that's my first pipe. disaster, but fun)

since then i've bought a belt sander, some nice Japanese files and some drill bits. my last pipe turned out decent. my next pipe i drilled the block and i'm making the stem from ebonite rod. since i've started smoking pipes my stress level got cut dramatically, and since i started making them i've reached a level of happiness that i haven't reached in years. if something is that engaging it's worth it for your mental health alone. keep the brain active, and challenge yourself. sorry, i sell high end bicycles, so i'm a bit on the "spend money to better yourself" side of the spectrum, but boy it helps on those hard days, friend.