Kyle Weiss wrote:My lord, man, that's going to come out great. I wish I had your patience.
Thanks!
Making this pipe has had so many lessons already and I'm sure there are more to come. One lesson is that even with a lot of patience, one can feel the trials of getting a pipe just right. There have been a lot of moments when I've been working on the pipe for 5 or more hours when my energy begins to wane and I start rushing, which is never good. I've had to learn to
force myself to stop when I begin to feel like this, otherwise I could really mess things up.
This pipe, while I'm very happy with it, has a lot of little detail imperfections that I could fix, but am honestly afraid to because of the potential risk at this juncture of ruining some part of the pipe. For example: the curve on the top of the shank isn't quite right and needs some refinement, but the airway is pretty close to the low point on that curve and I'm nervous that I might penetrate if I try to correct it. Also, when I cut the slot on the stem, I messed it up by accidentally angling the slot up instead of making it perpendicular to the airway. That was a moment full of foul words, I can assure you! As a result, there's less material to work with on the top of the stem, so if I made it more narrow, I'd run the risk of penetrating the stem and after the nearly 30 hours I've put into the stem alone, there's no freaking way I'm risking that.
Other lessons include a profound sense of humility. Making a beautiful pipe is HARD. I think that, for a first pipe, this is turning out to be quite lovely, but the numerous imperfections are clear to me and I can only hope that my next pipe doesn't take me 100 + hours to complete by ironing out the details that didn't get ironed out in this pipe. I had a lot of respect for the craftsmen who make beautiful precision pipes before, but now I'm amazed by their abilities.
All that being said, I can't wait to put the finishing touches on the pipe so I can smoke it! It's a bit heavy for a clencher and the thick and wide stem makes it hard for me to hold in my mouth anyway (long canines). As such, this will be a great sitting pipe. It feels great in the hand anyway, so there it will stay.
Thanks again for the kind words, Kyle! Your constant support is invaluable.
Next up: staining and final sanding!