Obsessed, and embarrassed!

[sethile]

Well, here is pipe number 3. I like a lot of things about this pipe, but I see a lot of things wrong, and besides, I completely destroyed it, as you will soon see….





This was a larger ebouchon this time, and I had high hopes. It even shows some decent grain, although it falls off badly in spots. This started life in my sketch book as as a Rhodesian shape, but I ended up unhappy with my implimentation of that and turned it into more of a egg shaped freehand. Ok, here is the horrible terrible picture, and following that, my confession:



As you can see, this turned into just another painful educational experience. It might still smoke ok, but I completely ruined it while drilling the airhole (no, that is not a large fill, it was the end of the airhole!).

My drilling procedure so far has been to drill the tobacco chamber first, then I drill the airhole while watching in the tobacco chamber and stop when they intersect (hopefully where I expect them too). Well, the airhole never showed up in the chamber on this one, so I stoped, but not in time. Best I can tell the drill bit drifted down and I just missed the bottom of the tobacco chamber). "No problem", I thought, knowing I had a little room in the bottom, and not knowing I'd also drilled way past the tobacco chamber, I drilled the tobacco chamber down to the airhole. That looked great until I went to shape the pipe and the end of the airhole poped up on the exterior of the pipe as I was shaping.

Hazmat mentioned in the stummel section, after I confessed this disaster there, that I may want to change my drilling order and do the airhole first. Problem is, I think I would have a very difficult time seeing into the tobacco chamber if I drilled it after the airhole. I’m using a drill press, and I would pretty much have to remove the block from the vise in order to see into it well enough to see if I had reached the airhole. I know on a lathe that would be best (boy do I want a lathe). I may experiment with this on the drill press too. Perhaps with compressed air and a mirror I can pull it off.

Anyway, I decided to keep working on this, just for the experience, and the sad thing was I started to see some decent grain. So wanting to finish it in spite of the hole, I plugged it with some maple dowel, which you can easily see in the above pic. Not sure if it will hold up after smoking or not…. Ok, one more confession pic:



As you can see, if you look closely (in addition to seeing the flaws), I am still not catching all of the little scrathes from the shaping/sanding process. I need to work more carefully down the grits. This time I used alcohol to look between grits for areas I missed, but the stain and buffing clearly shows I missed some. Next time I will use stain between grits to see if that helps. I am also seeing some break out in the tobacco chamber, which I think is from the PIMO modified spade bit. I use a HS drill first, but apparently the break out occurs anyway, perhaps becuase of faulty alignment after changing bits....

I’m continuing to learn a lot. This time, I'm afraid I ruined a nice piece of wood with some potential, and that's a bit more depressing than #2, which was also ruined, but that block was crap anyway. At least this "education" has not been real expensive so far. I've been using the less expensive PIMO R shaped ebauchons to learn on. That's about the only smart thing I've done! Really learned a lot on this one...

As always constructive criticism and comments are welcome! I’m not at all proud, just trying to learn.

Thanks again for all the help and encouragement, Scott

[alexanderfrese]

I know about those missed sanding scratches. It is all about patience. And it is abut having some experience, that I cannot gather, since I am doing it not too often. If I want to force myself to be patient, I do stain after every sanding grit. dark stain, only wiped over the wood, not to let it soak in too deep. But it will sink into the scratches. So you clearly see you have sanded them out, when no dark lines are left. This way, you are sure and you can get a feeling of at least how long you have used every grit over time. After a couple of tries, one might come up with the outcome, that (e.g.) 5 minutes with 240 grid is fine, 7 minutes with 400 is good, or whatsoever.

BTW besides the issues: I do like the shape and the flow of it all!

[ScoJo]

Draft hole drilling mishap aside, I like the shape of this pipe. Nice definition of the bowl - I like the round, chubby shape. Good job!

[hazmat]

Scott.. I, too, drill on a drill press. I have a lathe available to me, but I have yet to drill on it. That will be my next pipe

So far as seeing into the bowl, a dental mirror will work. If you don't have one handy, break an old compact mirror(your girlfriend/wife should have one of these somewhere, and no, it's not 7 years' bad luck, either!) and mount it at an angle on some kind of improvised handle. It's ugly, but it works.

Get yourself a very cheap bit in the diameter you use to drill your air hole and, after drilling the air hole and while drilling the tobacco chamber, insert the bit into the air hole. As you work your way further and further into the tobacco chamber, you'll be able to tell when you've hit pay dirt. The bit will chatter as the tobacco chamber bit makes contact with it. Obviously, you'll want a light hand in this process, but it works for me. Hope some of this stuff helps! Your pipe looks just fine.. just put some more time into the finishing steps.. it's the best and worst part of making a pipe, but it has to be done!!! Good luck and keep working!

[sethile]

Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions all!

Hazmat, thanks very much for the great outline on your drilling set up for the press. That sounds very doable, and potentially much safer! I love the idea of using drill rod in the air hole as a stop guide. I'll try changing the drilling order and use your technique and the mirror set up. Congratulations on your lathe. Let me know how that works out. I have my eye on an old Atlas metalworking lathe that a friend has and no longer uses. Hoping to buy, steel, or trade him out of it.... :think:

I really thought I had gone through the sanding pretty well this time. I only noticed how bad it was when I saw it in the last picture, and only then took a closser look at the pipe itself. Sure enough, it's pretty bad all right. Seems to mostly be very fine scratches on the front. I must have missed that area in particular on one or more of the grits. I'll go with longer and more methodical sanding next time, and also check the final results with stain more. Heck, I may even have another go on this one since I'm waiting for more briar before I can start another pipe anyway. I have a nice looking plateaux block sitting on the bench, but in light of the above I've decided another couple of efforts using cheap ebauchons are in order.

[hazmat]

Scott.. you're very welcome on the drilling process. It's not perfect, but it works for me and while you're still learning(which I believe we all are in this craft!) some things can be left to the way-side to be tweaked once your overall process is in good working order fundamentally.

Once you find a process that suits your needs, you'll be able to tweak your methods in getting the holes to match up properely, mortising the shank, etc, etc.

On the finishing, take your time. When you think you're done sanding with grit X, sand just a little bit longer to be sure. Instead of checking your mistakes with stain, use plain isopropyl alcohol. I have a small bottle I keep on my work bench and I can rub it liberally on areas of the stummel to check for scratches/tool marks. It dries up quickly, but is far less messy than constant staining to check for problems. Of course, these are my methods and may not work for you but at least it's some food for thought. That's what so much about pipe making, in my experience so far, is all about. You "know" the basics, now, how do you make them work for you and how do you improve on the methods you already employ?

I hadn't made a pipe in a while until I got my new shop space(by the way, the lathe isn't mine, just in the same shop space so I have use of as long as I'm in that space) and just going through the forums here has a) brushed me back up on alot of the techniques I'd forgotten or was hazy on and b) given me alot of new thoughts on old process I was using that could be upgraded if the process suited my tools, style and designs.

Main thing, you're not selling to live on, so enjoy it and learn as much as you can with the first few pipes you make. The more attention to detail in your early pipes, IMHO, the easier it is to move on to the next one feeling a little more at ease with what you're doing both right.. and wrong..

[bscofield]

after I confessed this disaster there, that I may want to change my drilling order and do the airhole first. Problem is, I think I would have a very difficult time seeing into the tobacco chamber if I drilled it after the airhole. I’m using a drill press, and I would pretty much have to remove the block from the vise in order to see into it well enough to see if I had reached the airhole. I know on a lathe that would be best (boy do I want a lathe). I may experiment with this on the drill press too. Perhaps with compressed air and a mirror I can pull it off.

I'd try this regardless (I do it on my drill press). Try sticking a pipe cleaner in the airway before drilling the tobacco chamber. When the chamber bit hits the cleaner, you'll know it. It will either twitch or get wrapped around your bit and sucked through the airway (the latter is the funnest ). That way, you'll know when you hit and can take the block and inspect it and figure out how much further you have to go to hit the bottom of the airway. Incidently, don't take your block out of you vice. take the vice off of the press. I find it easier to get it back on the press and in line with the chamber bit that way.

Anyway, onto the pipe. I like the shape, it's elegant. I seem some line "faults" when I scan the shank/stem area (a few bulges). As far as the scratches go, if you look closely after staining they show up pretty prominently. That's usually what I end up having to do to find them all. Stain, find the scratches and stain again.

My $0.02

[hazmat]

Ben... never tried the pipe cleaner. May have to give that a whirl.. no pun intended.

Quick question on that, though. When and if the cleaner gets sucked in, doesn't the wire in the cleaner gouge your mortise? Or do you drill your mortise after the air hole is drilled?

[ScoJo]

Want to give a pipe cleaner a real whirl? Try using one while drilling your block on a lathe at 500 rpm. (Note: I have not actually tried this - honest!)