My first pipe! Please critique

[Iantkoelle]

I stuck to a fairly simple design, please critique away. I can see some issues in symmetry between the "front and back" of the bowl when viewed from the side, and I think I may need to work on defining the bowl shape in general some more. I plan on making another like this to see if I can get the symmetry worked out, and I really like the way rusticated pokers look, so I may have to try one of those as well but I want to get the fundamentals down first.

Also! It is is getting progressively darker? Is that because of the cheaper quality block it began with? Or is that just something that happens that I am not aware of? This is what it looks like after about a month of smoking every other day or so. (One previous picture is in the thread, the others are all current) I don't think I'm smoking too hot because there have been no changes in the bowl shape or size internally. I am new to both making and smoking. I had the desire to make a pipe before the desire to smoke one! I figured I had made the thing, so smoking it was next on the to do list.

[Sasquatch]

It will darken with use to a mahogany sort of color, nothing to do with briar quality.

That looks just like a pipe, which is a good thing. Still lots of material on the bowl and particularly where it joins the shank, it flattens out and the shape changes in that area, but for an early pipe it's real good.

[Iantkoelle]

Thank you for the kind words. I did add a different picture for the top view that is more perpendicular to the opening of the bowl, the last one was at an odd angle that made it look MORE egg shaped than it already is.

So I need to get a more uniform circular shape where the bowl meets the shank? That is where I had the most trouble shaping. Any suggestions on a tool for that area? Round files? I did 99% of that with flat foam blocks, hard and soft, and by hand. I think I was afraid to take off too much material, but everybody here seems to have the pile of scraps that didn't make it to finished product. This being my first attempt I was determined to get it to a finished form and make another improving on where this one went wrong.

[calsbeek]

chainsaw files work well in there.

Your first pipe looks loads better than my 1st, 2nd or 3rd.
Hell I'm somewhere around 14 right now and I'd still be pretty stoked with that outcome.
nice work

[Iantkoelle]

Thanks!

[Charl]

Yip, pretty decent for a first!
Go make more!
Just as an aside: won't you please post pics that are a bit bigger? I know my eyes need testing, but it is quite difficult to properly look at a pipe that is 5 cents small.

[Iantkoelle]

Haha, I apologize. I tried to use an image host and the pictures are definitely smaller than they should be. On my end of things you can click each picture and it will give you an enlarged view.

[Charl]

Indeed, but old farts born pre-computer do not like a lot of hassle.

[mightysmurf8201]

I had a customer contact me recently about a pipe that darkened quite considerably after only 4-5 smokes. It smoked fine and he wasn't upset about it, he just thought it was unusual to happen that fast. It happens. Sometimes faster than other times because each block it different, but eventually it will show.