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Aspen? How is that pipe holding up? I would think aspen would be too soft to hold up under regular smoking conditions. It is an interesting idea though. Please keep us posted.

Stephen

Jeff,

The Taig is a great choice for stem work. I love mine!

Stephen

Good Work!

Stephen

Tyler,

I'm looking forward to continued updates on hand cut stems, especially the section on shaping. This site is so informative and I really appreciate your efforts here.

Stephen

I was just wondering what sorts of things others do to modify molded stem blanks. So far, I have only worked with acrylic stem blanks and so my comments apply to them. With blanks, it is often obvious when looking that it is a blank. One of the things I do is to try and modify it to take away the ap...

One other thing I forgot. If you sand and round off all the edges of the button, the stem seems infinately more comfortable to me. This is especially true on the edge of the button that faces the stummel.

Stephen

Kurt, The stummel work looks really nice on this pipe and I like it. The only problem for me is the stem. It is obvious when looking that it is a blank. One of the things I do when using a blank is to try and modify it to take away the appearance that it is a blank. One sign of a blank is the slot. ...

Using scraps is a wonderful idea that really works. A couple of times when I have had a big enough piece left over from trimming on the band saw, I have created a test strip of sorts. On it I tried a number of different stain combinations to see what would look best on the pipe before actually finis...

Kurt,

Please keep us updated on your progress. I have really been curious about this as well.

Stephen

Kurt, Like you, I have found that just carnuba doesn't give me the shine I would like. The rusticated pipes coming out of Italy seem to have a lot of shine to them. I saw a thread on another board that talked about using natural shellac flakes disolved in denatured alcohol. The poster even said this...