Ebauchon vs Plateaux?

[Sasquatch]

I just drilled an ebauchon, the first I've done in a long time, and it felt totally different than the various plateaux cuts I've been using. Drilled like wet wood. On top of that, there was a huge gash buried in it.

Should I be expecting a quality difference between the two cuts? I would have thought a good ebauchon would feel the same as a good plateaux?

It was PME stuff, and the plateaux has been fabulous.

Just a one-off bad block most likely? Seemed poorly cured to me.

[KurtHuhn]

The quality of the two Algerian cuts, in terms of wood itself, not counting grain orientation or whatever, is (or should be) the same. That is to say, I think you got a bum block of wood - it happens to everyone. Welcome to pipemaking.

From time to time you'll come across a block like that, where a giant hole opens up inside. This can be due to rushed drying or wide variations in temperature while curing - sometimes. But sometime the wood just does what it wants to do, and you can't tell it otherwise.

[Sasquatch]

Okay.

I've had pits and fissures and stuff, but this whole block just seemed wrong. I'll mail it back to PME full of dynamite and blow their lousy city up!!!!

[FoxGuy]

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger I just started shaping a piece of Plateaux from PME tonight and got into a fatal flaw. That piece of briar is now keeping me warm for a few minutes!

[Sasquatch]

It hurts more if you paid a lot for the block, or especially if you are almost done the pipe when the horror shows up. At least this was a 10 dollar piece and I never got past the band saw stage.

[caskwith]

No matter how bad hte flaw I never throw the block away. Pieces of briar cut from flawed blocks are used to make pens, parts on knife handles, rings in stems, shank extensions, tampers. Little sacrificial blocks when drillings etc, used as parts of little jigs or for measuring, make dowels, test stains, test rustication, mix epoxy on. There is no end to the uses you can put scrap wood to. I have a big box that i keep all my bits in (obviously little shavings to tiny bits go in the bin or for burning, but anything bigger than the end of my thumb gets kept as a rule. Always handy!

[KurtHuhn]

And they make pieces for the smoker too! Chicken and fish especially taste rally nice smoked with briar wood.

[TRS]

And they make pieces for the smoker too! Chicken and fish especially taste rally nice smoked with briar wood.

Briar's pretty slow burning, right? Do you soak it at all?

[KurtHuhn]

Briar is so dense that it really doesn't require any soaking - at least the larger off-cuts don't. It might be beneficial for the smaller bits, but I usually just toss them all in as a handful.

[ckr]

Toss them on the coals and put on the burgers and don't forget the beer. I do soak them.

I feel the density of an Ebauchon if cut from the center of the burl is denser than the Plateaux. Many of the Ebauchons I receive are cross cuts from the plateaux part of the burl. For the money I think they are great.

[Sasquatch]

Agreed ckr - most of the ebs I've used were almost a wide, flat plateux cut, and perfectly good pieces.

You find that ultra-dense core in bigger plateuax blocks too.... it can throw off the shape real easy.

[ckr]

it can throw off the shape real easy.

That is why I have to come up with all these new shapes, last week I did a blow snail pot. A very, very intricate shape I must say.