scotties22 wrote:I have to thank Growley and his Ramses for the inspiration. He has also given me quite a bit of advise and it is much appreciated. I'm not discouraged in the least and am actually sitting at the computer with the pipe in front of me right now.
Ha,...I wish I could call it "my" ramses. The Ramses I did was a direct rip off of Tom Eltang's Ramses, which is probably his version of a Bo Nordh Ramses. Yep, I'm a copy cat. Most of my first pipes were copies of some sort. I found pipe makers who I thought were doing it right and tried to find my way to make their pipes. It's the way I study. I look at pipe maker's pipes every week and love the study of it.
To go along with a lot of what's been said already. Copying is a great way to lear. Painters do it all the time to get started. I was just talking to Ocelot about this last night. I've found that after I copied pipes for a while, I'd be working on one and get an idea of how I could do it a bit differently to suit my tastes more. My suggestion is to copy pipes you like until you start finding your own way. But be judicious in the pipes you choose to copy. If you copy junk you'll probably make junk. LOL Pick much better pipe makers than myself to copy and you might go somewhere
.
Also, to add to what Cory was saying about making it look like it was found in a cave, here's how I'd look at it: Think about what kind of pipe it was
before it was ever lost in a cave for 100 years. Picture it being a perfect pipe, and then make that pipe. Once you've got the shaping done as perfectly as you can, then start thinking about what kind of life it led getting to a point where it was lost in a cave, meaning; how was it treated, did it get beat up by rocks because it was lost overboard? If so, what kind of marks would those rocks have made on it? Did it get beat down by the sun and sand and wind sitting on the beach for 40 years? How would those elements effect the way it looks? Was the rim charred because the sailor who smoked it constantly tired to light it in the raging wind? When you're putting a story behind a pipe, you have to tell the details of the story, not just the ending, otherwise the character of the story is less believable.
And, no matter what form of rustication you use on a pipe, I think you have to make a brilliant pipe first, and then rusticate it. Otherwise you'll lose the look you are going for. Rustication can be used to cover flaws in the wood, but it shouldn't be used to cover flaws in shaping. Those flaws will still be transposed in the final shape.
Did I just take that way deeper than it needed to go?
