My First Foray Into Black Bamboo

[taharris]

My customer wanted a Bulldog with Black Bamboo, so I came up with a bent Acorn shape.

I'm pretty happy about this one, so please bring me down to earth.

Todd







And yea, my photography sucks...

Todd

[Nate]

Nice work Todd! One thing I notice is the diameter of the 'knuckle' on the stem. It looks too big, or perhaps the spacing is off just a touch. Really like the bamboo transition to the stummel though! Lookin good!

[d.huber]

Looks pretty sweet to me!

In the interest of critique, I'd say that the stem could lose a lot of material around the... y'know I'm not sure what to call that. The stem accent? The bulge razor disk?

This part:


I would also say a bit more space between this part of the stem and the last knuckle of bamboo so that they're evenly spaced and give you a more balanced look.

Other than that, it looks pretty sweet to me! Nice work!

[d.huber]

Nice work Todd! One thing I notice is the diameter of the 'knuckle' on the stem. It looks too big, or perhaps the spacing is off just a touch. Really like the bamboo transition to the stummel though! Lookin good!

Or in short, I agree with Nate.

[taharris]

Thank you both.

I agree. I struggle a little with the stems on these pipes.

Thanks for the tips.

Todd

[DMI]

Todd asked me to cast my gaze over this so here goes.


First a critisism

My customer wanted a Bulldog with Black Bamboo, so I came up with a bent Acorn shape.

So why didn't you give the customer what he wanted?

The shape sits somewhere between an acorn and a rhodesian there is noting bulldogish about it, where's the diamond shank and crisp deliniation between the rim, top bevel and lower bevel?

The shank looks wrong, there is a nice curving line from the bowl on the bottom but the sharp downward sweep on the top needs sorting so that it is parralell, parallel, straight sided. If you trimmed it down to fit the bamboo why not trim the bamboo to fit the briar? By shortening the distance from the knuckle you would have gained width. It could just be the picture but it also looks slightly off centre from above.

The hard line of light on the underside suggests a ridge?

The bamboo section looks fine but I cannot tell if there are spacers at both ends.

The stem has been well covered but is it a saddle or taper? It lacks definition, oh and thin the button by at least two thirds.

David :

[taharris]

So why didn't you give the customer what he wanted?

Good question. The customer originally asked for a Bulldog with a bamboo shank and I really had no idea how to merge the two concepts since a diamond shank is pretty important for a Bulldog. I came up with this concept before I started and the customer liked it.

The pipe has a point at the bottom instead of a ridge because I didn't see a good way to transition that into the bamboo.

I think all of your comments are spot on and I appreciate you taking the time to share your insight.

Thank you.

Todd

[mredmond]

I think sometimes the customer can't have everything they want. I've not seen diamond shaped bamboo, so I'm not sure how you would pull off an actual bulldog with a bamboo shank. A diamond shank with a piece of bamboo sticking out of it would be a bad decision for a couple of reasons, I think. Never mind the fact that the qualifications for "bulldog" vary a bit throughout the pipe world. I agree with the critiques on the stem flare being spaced further back towards the button, to echo the spacing of the bamboo knuckles. I also think maybe the bottom point of the acorn should be further back to the centerline of the chamber, or maybe behind the centerline, to give a bit of forward momentum. I've seen acorns a lot of different ways, though, so I'm not sure it would be better. It sounds like you communicated your ideas to the customer and he liked the result, which is how that whole thing should work.

[caskwith]

I like everything except the stem, nothing wrong with the shape it is just too thick and needs to be thinned down. You have a beautiful delicate piece of bamboo for the shank and the stem needs to follow.

[taharris]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Aesthetics is a difficult topic to pin down. It seems to be about half science, half art and half emotion.

I'm trained as an engineer, so putting a pipe together is fairly easy for me. Its the artistic side that sometimes (read usually) baffles me.

Todd

[Hudson]

Well, I still like it a lot but that's some insightful criticism you got, too.

But I bet we'd all agree we'd love to see more work of such high quality. Good job!