Your critique Please
Your critique Please
Please let me know what you think.
Hey Ryan,
Well done choosing to work on billiards. Too few pipemakers can properly make one and the fact that you are working on them says a lot about your methodology and desire to master your craft in the way of other masters.
The blast looks good, Ryan, as does the finish. I think that you're heading down the right path and that with a attention to some key areas that you will soon see much more refined versions of the shape emerging from your shop.
This is a nice shot at a billiard, but it could use some improvement in the following areas:
1. Be sure to look closely the proportions that you are using in your shank compared to the bowl. I think that if you'll look at billiards produced by more experienced carvers and those made by factories you would see that they either have a larger diameter bowl to pair with the shank you've used or a smaller shank to go with the bowl you've chosen.
2. As is often the case with folks giving their first shots at classics, you need to more precisely define your shank/bowl joint. This is difficult to do at the beginning, but if you study other successfully shaped pipes closely and copy them you will be able to do this in the future with no problem whatever.
3. The curve you used on the bottom of the bowl is suggestive of one that should continue through to the rim. Yours stops, giving the pipe a more chimney-like look while maintaining the proportions of a billiard. You can either reduce the curve somewhat and end up with a billiard closer to how Jody carves them, or follow the curve around and make a more Eltang or Chonowitsch styled bowl.
4. When cutting saddles, be sure to make the saddle lengths the same on the bottom and the top. The top is longer than the bottom on yours.
5. Also, when cutting a saddle, make it deeper. By that I mean that your stem after the saddle should not have such a pronounced taper. This looks like it is somewhat confused about whether it is a saddle or taper stem.
6. Finally, for a stem of this length, with this pipe, your saddle should be longer making the flattened portion of the stem following it shorter. The proportions look off in this version.
Hope this helps.
Best,
Jeff
Well done choosing to work on billiards. Too few pipemakers can properly make one and the fact that you are working on them says a lot about your methodology and desire to master your craft in the way of other masters.
The blast looks good, Ryan, as does the finish. I think that you're heading down the right path and that with a attention to some key areas that you will soon see much more refined versions of the shape emerging from your shop.
This is a nice shot at a billiard, but it could use some improvement in the following areas:
1. Be sure to look closely the proportions that you are using in your shank compared to the bowl. I think that if you'll look at billiards produced by more experienced carvers and those made by factories you would see that they either have a larger diameter bowl to pair with the shank you've used or a smaller shank to go with the bowl you've chosen.
2. As is often the case with folks giving their first shots at classics, you need to more precisely define your shank/bowl joint. This is difficult to do at the beginning, but if you study other successfully shaped pipes closely and copy them you will be able to do this in the future with no problem whatever.
3. The curve you used on the bottom of the bowl is suggestive of one that should continue through to the rim. Yours stops, giving the pipe a more chimney-like look while maintaining the proportions of a billiard. You can either reduce the curve somewhat and end up with a billiard closer to how Jody carves them, or follow the curve around and make a more Eltang or Chonowitsch styled bowl.
4. When cutting saddles, be sure to make the saddle lengths the same on the bottom and the top. The top is longer than the bottom on yours.
5. Also, when cutting a saddle, make it deeper. By that I mean that your stem after the saddle should not have such a pronounced taper. This looks like it is somewhat confused about whether it is a saddle or taper stem.
6. Finally, for a stem of this length, with this pipe, your saddle should be longer making the flattened portion of the stem following it shorter. The proportions look off in this version.
Hope this helps.
Best,
Jeff
