Full pipe making pictorial, from block to finished pipe.

[Alden]

Edward you can most certainly apply the same technique on your jet lathe, just get yourself a nice thick and sturdy piece of steel and mount it in your tool post slightly below the centre line, it will work a treat, i have done it myself.

Very cool ! I will be using this technique. Thanks Meathod.

[meathod]

Okay, final update! Exciting!

African blackwood for the mouthpiece, roughly turned





I ramp up the lathe speed for using hand tools to define the final shape



After shaping with hand tools, I drill the mortise



Sanding smooth



Cutting the mouthpiece off with a fret saw



I use the disc sander to shape and smooth the end





Close up of the tenon and square hole, which I think looks pretty neat





This glue is inert when dry, and perfectly safe for using on the mouthpiece



While that dries, I plan out the hinge assembly



Here is half of the hinge, starting as a rough piece of copper



After a bit of initial hammering



Annealing



Using some water to cool down the copper after Annealing



More hammering and filing





After annealing, the copper sometimes turns this bright pink colour if you quickly submerge it in water



More hammering and annealing







Using some files to refine the shape





Using a center punch to mark where I will drill a tiny hole for a saw blade



And the hole is drilled



After inserting the saw blade, I cut a groove for the hinge assembly



I use a flat piece of brass to hammer the groove flat on the inside, and get it to the correct width



Sanding down the other half of the hinge



After some filing and sanding, they are almost ready to be pinned together





Drilling the hole. It takes great care to get the hole just right, I tape the hinge onto the lid so that I know it will fit perfectly later on. There is no room for error in this step, If the hole is 1mm off, I would have to make the hinge assembly all over again...



Came out good!



I put a piece of music wire into the vice, and use a hammer to mushroom one end of it, this will be the hinge pin



I insert the rough pin, and make some marks with a sharpie so that I know where to solder the hinge to the lid



The glue had dried, so I took a quick break from metalworking to finish the mouthpiece



All the parts, ready for assembly



After some refining, it all fits together nicely, ready for soldering



This is a method that jewelers use for delicate soldering jobs. A sliver of solder is placed between the joint, and acid flux is applied to the copper surfaces



Here it is after I used a propane torch to evenly heat the two halves and melt the solder



A quick bath in acetone to clean off the acid flux



I used a hammer and anvil to delicately mushroom the other end of the hinge pin, this secures the pin in place so that it won't fall out



And the bowl is done





Some final sanding on the amboyna wood, I intentionally left this rough earlier, because during the crafting process the wood picks up a lot of dirt and oil from your hands, and you would have to sand it at the end to get rid of that anyhow



Here it is after I sanded it to 1200 grit



Here is my buffing system, for this pipe I am only using two wheels with progressively finer polishing grits. The first wheel uses tripoli compound, and the second uses white diamond compound



First I use a coating of linseed oil to darken the wood and give the grain a more 3D look





Here is the pipe after the polishing wheels



Here is the bowl, ready to be glued in.



After gluing the bowl in, I heat up a bowl screen to darken it, and get rid of any residue from the manufacturing process



I insert the screen, and the pipe is complete!





Check my website tomorrow for more detailed photographs of the pipe if you like, www.dmpipes.com

Anyhow, Thanks for watching! I hope that you all enjoyed the journey!

[ND Pipes]

man - once more - this is great... really great thanks for sharing... ::)

[Ocelot55]

Absolutely wonderful. What an intriguing process. Beautiful pipe too. That one won't have any trouble finding a home. Very good, thanks for sharing the process with us.

[d.huber]

Thanks for sharing this process with us. Looks lovely. It was great to follow along!

[Sorringowl]

Dude, that is absolutely NUTS!!! (as in REALLLY cool!)

You are like a pipemaking alchemist! Fascinating process and the end result looks amazing!

Super talented pipe makers on PMF.

P.S. How does it smoke?

[potholer]

i can only echo everyone else

i wish i had half your patience and skill

a great photo essay you should put it all together as a presentation

bravo

regards dave

[Blueb3]

As my first post, I can't think of a more awesome thread to post in. Amazing work, the sheer amount of details and unique touches is just amazing!

[K.Anastasopoulos]

Amazing work!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have no words!

[Cory]

Awesome! I have been drooling over your pipes for some time now. I really admire your technique, skill, and 'vision'.

Now go make some more pipes!

[Traveling Wilbury]

Amazing work... Wish we could see that for all your pipes, you should have a documentary made!!!

Quick question, I'm getting started myself and have a chance to pick up a unimat mini lathe with a pile of tooling, how often do you use your mini for making pipe stummels. I'm partial to smaller bodied pipes so there's where I thought I would like to start.

Thanks for any info you can share, and the awesome pictorial.

Antony

[UncleDraken]

I don't know about the rest of these guys, but if I was buying a one-of-a-kind pipe from you I'd pay extra to receive a simple hardback book containing the above pictures and captions. Pipes should have a story and character and that's obviously something you're aiming to provide in the particular way in which you work and the particular work you produce. Your photography is great and just a simple book you throw together on a website like Snapfish (or an American equivalent) would add so much more to one of your fantastic pipes. It wouldn't be any more work than you went through posting this timeline for us and you could charge extra!

I'm super impressed, man and very grateful you shared that with us.

[avodah]

Cheers! Thanks DM. What program did you graduate from at OCAD?

[jmoss]

Amazing process! A big Bravo to the artist..

[The Smoking Yeti]

This thread got hard-core resurrected

[N.Burnsworth]

True craftsmanship! Thanks for sharing, I love the copper work.