Revisiting Etude 33 Volcano

[sethile]

My son has been here visiting and just took a look at the Volcano I finished and posted yesterday. He pretty well vowed to disown me if I didn't pull it off my site till I resolved this (I did). And he'll still have serious doubts as to my sanity if I don't finish rusticating the bottom, instead of just the patch I did in order to cover the plateaux. In brief, two little spots went deeper than my shape allowed, but I found that out too late to try to keep enough of it to look decent....

I definitely see his point, and I don't like what I have, but I wanted to run it by you all before proceeding. First, I'll post some pics, since I withheld my rather substandard treatment of the bottom from you all yesterday . I did post them on my site in order for potential buyers to see it, but have since pulled the pipe off entirely:





OK, I know it's ugly--my only defense is it's decent birdseye and I had a hard time letting go of the dream . My options are to: 1. Leave it alone. 2. Rusticate the entire bottom, up to the edge, which will likely notch up the sides a bit (might look OK, might look terrible). 3. Leave about an 1/8" around the perimeter smooth, except for the very back, where I have a bit of an "issue" to take care of. This would mostly preserve the edge and sides. 4. Blast the crap out of the whole thing, after first rusticating the bottom, since the rest of the pipe has a couple of flaws anyway, one of them pretty obvious. Oh, and number 5, which is use it for firewood!

Decided to run a poll on the above, but would also greatly appreciate any comments. Here is a link to the other post with the rest of the pics of this pipe if you've yet to see it: viewtopic.php?t=2504&highlight=

Thanks, as always, I appreciate your candid input.

[bscofield]

I can't believe someone selected blast the crap out of the whole pipe (unless they are taking into consideration that you said in the other post that there were 2 flaws on the sides). Anyway, i voted for rusticate/blast the bottom. IMO, the way to pull of an elegant partial rustication is to use lines. You have the lines well defined across the bottom... I don't see what a rim would do for you....

[kbadkar]

The birdseye is really nice, but the mole is just too distracting to let it be. I voted for finish rustication on the bottom only.

I think there are two camps out there in regards to smooth vs. rusticate/blast. One side says rusticate/blast anything with flaws, the other believes some small flaws are acceptable on a smooth. I don't have a problem with flawed smooths, but I don't sell 'em, I smoke'em. I also don't have a problem buying seconds with flaws, but if I'm paying top dollar for a piece of smoking art, I'd want a (practically) flawless smooth. Expertly filled flaws don't bother me much in a production pipe as long as I know it's there to begin with. It's pretty disappointing to have a blemish materialize as the pipe darkens. I really dislike those goofy little carvings some pipe makers inflict on the pipe to cover a flaw.

I'd be curious about polling the flawed smooth vs. rustication issue, as I think the results of your poll will reflect this basic dichotomy.

[Leus]

I vote to convert it to a Poker-like pipe.

[sethile]

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the feedback. I've got the bottom rusticated now, and I think it's much improved.



The partial on the bottom was terrible... I don't know what I was thinking!

In terms of blasting the entire pipe--I think there is certainly something to be said for that. I might have been tempted except I don't see much ring grain potential on this block, and the blasting rig I have access to is not working all that great right now. If it were mine I'd change the media and nozzle, but beggars can't be choosers. I'm just glad I can use it when I want! If I could get blasts like Rad and Skip have been getting, I'd have done it in a heartbeat! I guess this is the best I can on this one for now.

Thanks again for the help folks!

[Nick]

Its a shame you couldn't just reshape the bottom. I think I'd have scooped the front edge up to take off the ugly part. but maybe that wouldn't have worked. If not, then I'd have blasted it. A blast (almost) always sells for more than a rusticated pipe. And, that was some darn pretty birdseye. You could have just blasted the bottom I suppose.

[souljer]

Its a shame you couldn't just reshape the bottom. I think I'd have scooped the front edge up to take off the ugly part. but maybe that wouldn't have worked. If not, then I'd have blasted it. A blast (almost) always sells for more than a rusticated pipe. And, that was some darn pretty birds-eye. You could have just blasted the bottom I suppose.

This was an interesting problem. I would not do any of the choices in the poll, however. I wish we could have seen what it looked like in the beginning to see what inspired you to rusticate just that little rectangular area. Why not just let a little of the plateaux show?

Anyway, Nick pretty much covered what I was thinking as I read along. Scoop out the bottom to eliminate the mistake and save the smooth birds-eye, or just blast the bottom, if you were happy with the sides and not too bothered about any other little pits. I would not have scooped out only the front edge, but dished the whole bottom, being careful about where the bottom of the bowl and draft hole are - assuming you had some room and/or would not need to dig too deep. That really was some nice birds-eye structure.

Another option now that you've rusticated the whole thing (which does look better), is to knock down some of the rustication by re-smoothing it out now but only enough to reveal some of the birds-eye from about 3/4 of the peaks of the plateaux -now rustication- thus saving some of that nice birds-eye while eliminating what ever it was that you didn't like about the front edge.

On an unrelated side note when was this brought up and done? I never seem to get an accurate date on posts here. If you just posted this yesterday I think you should have thought it through a little more and not rushed into rusticating everything with only about 3 or 4 people responding. What's the hurry? Also there are obviously many more ways to go about dealing with something like this than what you imagined and put in the poll. I would have loved to hear what some of the more experienced among us would have come up with.

On the other hand if this has been up for a week or so I can understand you wanting to solve the problem and have thought on it for a while (a few days is not a while, btw). Like I said I never know when something was posted. Sometimes when I post, it ends up showing that I posted it... tomorrow. Tomorrow?~? WTF?? LOL

[kbadkar]

Souljer,

The post times are EST. So for us left coasters posting past 9pm, it appears like tomorrow. Otherwise, I haven't noticed anything strange about the date/time stamps.

[sethile]

Nick and Gunner, Thanks for the input. The problem was actually the plateaux surface going much deeper than expected in two spots. One on either side of that partially rusticated area in the first photos. Scooping wouldn't work. I tried, and the bottom of those spots was too deep-- too deep to blast effectively too. If I were to opt to blast the hole pipe, it would have been after rusticating the bottom.

I was not really in a hurry, but felt pretty good about rustifying the bottom being my best option, and there is a pipe club meeting in Nashville tomorrow night. Now I can take this along with some other offerings.

I don't love it, but I don't hate it anymore either. I would have been much better off to save the plateaux on this one, and will take a better look at how deep it goes before doing that again!

Thanks again all. I needed a little help plunging the nail tool into that pretty birdseye!

[magruder]

I think I might have reshaped into a bent billiardish or brandy shape.
Just a thought.

-steve