making of: the cheapest way i know how

[bregolad]

here is the stuff i use to make pipes. I would love to hear some feedback/suggestions, especially from guys like Eder.


sketching and stuff


more necessary equipment


mortise and draughthole drilled


bowl drilled


bowl drill and stummel rough shaped. I use prefab stems (Guidici)


stem fit and ready for finishing





this pipe is just shy of 4 inches long. Most of the briar is flawed, and there's a crack on the rear rim of the bowl, but i'm poor and i finish all the pipes i start, just for practice.
all this is done with a dremel, hand files, and drilled by hand.
please tell me what you think.

[Mike Messer]

Not bad. Nice looking pipe. I like the shape. I like the dimple rusticating, although Todd Johnson would say, "partial rustication screams Amateur" (he's a jerk, sometimes, but he knows pipemaking).
Keep at it, I would say. Desire is the creator.
I've used the Giudici's and they aren't too bad, but the ones I had did not finish as well as stems made from ebonite rod. Put the Giudici's up close to a light bulb and look at them at different angles, and the finish looks shallow.
If you are serious about pipemaking, as soon as you can, start making your own stems from ebonite rod. You might also try acrylic stems.
Meanwhile, Definitely, Keep at it.
M.M.

[baweaverpipes]

Todd Johnson (he's a jerk, sometimes).

M.M.

Mr. Messer,
I take offense to what you have to say about Todd Johnson. I work with him almost daily and have never found him to be a jerk sometimes. He's that way ALL THE TIME.
Regarding my status on jerkness, I'm just a dumb hillbilly and too ignorant and old (but, not as old as Rad) to be a jerk.

I'd be thrilled to see some of your work posted here on Pipemakers Forum. You up to it?

[Sasquatch]

Bruce, FWIW I don't believe that you are too ignorant to be a jerk.

Bregolad, as far as I can tell, the stuff you use to make pipes is the stuff we all use to make pipes. There are fancier and less fancy setups, more heavily power tooled and less. Personally, I would prefer a see-through ruler, and I don't know what you use the remote-control for, but other than that, I could make a pipe with the stuff you've got there. I'm lucky enough to have a lathe, but it is not a central piece of equipment in my processing - really the drill press does more for me, so if part of this posting is a request for advice on where to go next, I guess that is what I would tell you to hunt down.

In all honesty, using hand tools is no excuse for poor craftsmanship (and I am NOT accusing you of this) - it's all too easy to get in the habit of saying "Well, if I had a Whimpler Device then this would have looked nicer." but it's bullshit. A perfect shop setup will allow a newbie to make ugly looking pipes a little faster. And a pro would be able to put a very good pipe out with only the bare essentials. I've been asked how I shaped any number of pipes, from very round ones to very flat ones. There's a rasp in my shop that I have probably had in my hand (long before turning to pipes) for ... geez I dunno.... 200 hours? Something like that. In fact, I should probably buy a new one. But the point is, the results I get with that tool are related to the fact that I am intimately acquainted with it.

I've seen guys use a hand held circular saw to cut round holes 8" across. I've seen the same tool used as a planer (that is something to see). The "old boys", the German/Polish/Rumanian immigrants who came to Canada and the United States around about WWII.... these cats could do stuff that we don't teach anymore, because we have machines to do it all. I can recall many times being asked "Hey buddy, you got a _______ handy?" and if I did, I got to see it used in some phenomenal way, and if I didn't, the answer was invariably "Well goddammit gimme that little _________ you got sittin there - I gotta get this done." and I'd see a tile cut with a glazing bar, or a tiny vent cut with a chainsaw, or whatever.

Moral of the story: Tools are nice, but they are secondary to skill.

[SimeonTurner]

I'd be thrilled to see some of your work posted here on Pipemakers Forum. You up to it?

Bruce, Bruce, Bruce....don't be silly. People only post pipes on the forum up until they reach master status. After that, it's just flaunting your own gloriousness. Mr. Messer's Methods(c)(tm) are so advanced, researched, and confirmed through exacting science that it would be seriously uncool for him to post pictures of his pipes on this forum (or anywhere else, for that matter).

Please don't encourage him to make us all look bad. I have pipe esteem problems as it is.

Bregolad, allow me top echo what Sasquatch said: this hobby scales very well depending on how crazy you want to get with it. If all you plan to do is make a pipe every not-so-often, you can get by with very little in the way of fancy tools etc, and all you really need is to develop skills with those tools. If you want to make pipes part time as a little side job/hobby, you probably need certain other tools to increase your speed and efficiency, and you will need to develop your skills with those tools the same as with basic tools. If you want to become a full time, hard-core, bad ass pipe maker who cranks out 300+pipes per year that are all of exceptional quality, yet again there are more tools, and more skills needed to practice and perfect.

Best advice I can offer is to just keep plugging away. The mojo will come with practice, regardless of what fancy tools you own.

[flix]

I concur, Dr. Simeon. My pipes are not worthy of this esteemed forum, I am a wretched hack, wretched, wretched...wait until they're worth at least $300/ea then start posting. You will not regret it!

[bregolad]

thanks for the wisdom, gentlemen. I get the practice thing, so i'm just plugging away.
Mostly I was looking for specific things about my set up that you may have experienced, i.e. hand drilling, no power tools (besides rotory tool) etc.

and stop girl fighting

[bregolad]

[SimeonTurner]

As a guy who started out long ago using a dremel for shaping, I can offer one bit of advice. I found it was much easier to achieve relative symmetry with a dremel if the pipe is stationary somehow. Sticking a dowel in the tobacco chamber and clamping that dowel in a vise seemed to work pretty good, if I recall. It was way easier for me to shape the wood if the pipe was stationary.

You may already do something like this, or you may find that to be exactly the opposite of a good diea for you. But, if you are looking for tips for the tools you have, there's mine.