I've yet to sell pipes the way some of you guys, both full and part timers have. Most of my earlier work, prior to stepping away for a few years, was strictly commissioned work. I did 5 pipes on commission.. thankfully, none were the lower end of the spectrum Trever's talking about(flits?), but I did get one technician(thankfully, he paid) who absolutely drove me nuts. I finally had to ask him if he really, really wanted this pipe or just enjoyed being part of the "process" because, frankly, I had other pipes I wanted to make and my time was being wasted on an ongoing misadventure in making the "perfect billiard"... bleh.. luckily he was a rational man and we came to an agreement, but it was a definite learning process. Now he just gives me a general idea and lets me have at it.. thank you Jaysus!!!
One of my closest friends is also a bit of a technician. He loves to grab raw blocks or, even worse, works in progress, and tell me how he "thinks" I should make the pipe... do this.. nah.. do that.. flush fit the stem.. or better yet, put on a shank extension and... it goes on and on... finally, this weekend, I handed him a block of scrap briar I was going to make into a jig anyway, drilled it, stuck a stem on it and said "Here, take this home with you, make whatever shape you like, and then come back to me and tell me what you think... keep in mind all of the things that make a pipe a pipe, the lines, the symmetry(or lack of, if that's the case), the dimensions, the balance, the bend of the stem and how it effects the overall line of the pipe"... I think I scared him a little bit.. some flecks of spittle began to froth up on his lips and his eyes were a bit glazed over....should be interesting to see what he's got when he stops by my shop tomorrow evening
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
I did it as an object lesson... sure, this is just putting two holes in wood to smoke tobacco in... but it's much, much more than that... maybe he'll go from "big eyes" to "now I understand"... we shall see!!!