Scottie Piersel’s interview, P&T magazine

[DocAitch]

In one of the threads below, George Dibos referenced Scottie’s interview in P&T magazine after her Author won in the GKCP contest. Her advice was to put the pipe aside after you had “finished” shaping and think about it, check it from all angles, and if something was not quite right, figure out what is wrong and fix it.
This is the single best piece of advice that I’ve received in the last year. Every pipe that has gone through that process since I took the advice to heart is better for that contemplative intermission.
Discontinuities of line or surface, asymmetries, and even bear claw marks are revealed and can be dealt with during that time, without a major make over.
I now have a progression of pipes in various stages on the bench, and the last one or two are sitting in “contemplative purgatory”, getting eyeballed and handled in between other tasks, until I can clearly say “it’s ready for finishing”.
I notice in the thread below that RickB has also incorporated this interlude into his making.
Thank you Scottie and George.
DocAitch

[RickB]

Agreed! That's up there with "drop everything and make a (hundred) billiard(s)". See also Jeremiah telling me to read Bob Flexner's book about 5 times before I actually did it.

[Bluesytone]

I tried this in the past week after Doc mentioned it to me and it saved a pipe I nearly tossed out of frustration. After taking a little time away from it, I came back and let the block tell me what it wanted to be rather than forcing my will on it. I don’t mean that to sound weird or mystical.. but I realized in that moment that sometimes I try to hard to force my design or idea on a block and nature chose a different path. A little perspective from different angles and a willingness to toss out what I had planned in this particular case made all the difference.

[sandahlpipe]

Recovering from a badly-placed flaw is tough. Plan your work and work your plan is the surest way to get good-looking pipes. Changing the design on-the-fly is a skill that requires a lot of experience. Learn to read a block and how to place the pipe optimally in the block. But then follow your design. Scottie's method is a good one, but it's meant to refine the idea you had, not necessarily to redesign the pipe after a day. Taking your time to do it right is probably the best advice any pipe maker can get, though.

[RickB]

Taking your time to do it right is probably the best advice any pipe maker can get, though.

This, so hard. Also included with that Scottie advice was the comment that your eyes will start lying to you as a pipe gets closer to being finished. I have a very bad tendency to rush late steps or let shit slide that I know isn't perfect (or the closest approximation I can get to that) because I start getting excited that a pipe is "almost done". Forcing myself to slow that ending process down and do things right is turning out to be a serious mental challenge, but I'm hoping it will help me a lot.

[sandahlpipe]

At the same time, there comes a point at which you have to leave well enough alone. I might spend several days tweaking things to get the shape just right, but then once I'm finished, I find this or that detail that I wish I'd done differently. Experience (and feedback from experienced eyes) will help you walk that line between what's good enough for the pipe you're working on and what's something you'll do better on the next one. From my own experience, it's better to fix it with the pipe you're working on than postpone that detail to the next pipe. If you're doing it right, the pipe will very possibly outlive the customer, so the extra attention to detail may make the difference between something that gets sold at the estate sale or something that's kept as an heirloom. From that perspective, the extra time spent is an added value, and customers do notice the cumulative effects, even if they're not able to pinpoint all the individual details.

[DocAitch]

I meant to endorse Scottie’s advice for the nearly finished stage.
“Make a plan and execute the plan as best you can” is not my method. I have picked up a block with a rough idea of doing a Dublin but wound up with a blowfish. , BUT that blow fish might have benefitted from the contemplative interlude before the finishing stage.
Different strokes for different folks, but Scottie’s advice holds true for ALL methods of approach.
I also agree that there has to be a time to stop and move on. Some aspect may be less than desirable, but the physical reality of the piece prevents further modification.(i.e. chamber wall thickness, proximity of the draft hole to the surface, etc.)
DocAitch

[sandahlpipe]

I also agree with Scottie's advice. I wish I'd heard the advice much earlier in my learning.

When I first started making pipes, my philosophy was one of conserving materials, so when I messed up the shaping, I'd change the shape to accommodate the mistake. The problem was that my eyes weren't trained to see what constitutes a good design and flow, so it made the shaping worse, not better. Eye training is probably the single largest barrier to making high grade pipes. If your eyes are trained well enough to transition a dublin into a blowfish, that's great. But for those in earlier stages of learning, not working a predetermined plan will impede learning the basics. I would have learned much faster if I hadn't spent the first 2 years avoiding the discipline of making a straight billiard. I'm sure if you saw my early work, you'd agree.

[DocAitch]

I don’t disagree with making a billiard or 50. I’ve certainly learned more about pipe making from doing billiards than any other shape, and I spent a lot of time floundering before I took the advice of the forum members here. I still include a billiard or two in every group of pipes that I start. However, every billiard that I make is different in size and shape, and a few wind up as pots and apples due to the vicissitudes of Mother Nature. The shanks might reach the bowl from anywhere along a 30 degree arc, and if Mother Nature decrees, it might hit at an angle to produce a bent or even a cutty.
I was just pointing out that my path to the final shape is very different from yours. My “transition” to a blowfish occurred when I began to shape the entire block along the grain and revealed a swathe of grain 3 inches in diameter that suggested a blowfish. I could have reduce that swathe to a Dublin bowl, but decided otherwise, because I could. I had no lines or other restrictions on that block, and could then change my direction radically. I also have no need to keep the block square for a lathe chuck or vise.
BUT, getting back to my OP, that pipe might be better if I left it alone for a few days rather than working on it like a madman for 3 days.
Just sayin’
DocAitch

[LatakiaLover]

Yeah, but... but... Scottie's a girl

[scotties22]

Eye training is probably the single largest barrier to making high grade pipes.

Not true. Your eyes will trick you...tell you a line is straight when it's not...show you a bend is perfect when there is a huge kink halfway through. Your HANDS, however, will not. It is your hands that you must train and trust.

Yes, I spent a lot of time looking and adjusting the pipe referred to in the OP. However, I spent most of that time feeling the pipe to find the areas that needed to be fixed.

Don't get me wrong, eye training is important. But it cannot be relied on exclusively. As my grandpa would say "It's not what your eye sees, but what your hand feels."

[sandahlpipe]

I think it's both. I do feel for bumps and kinks, and I use a straight edge to check for straightness, but while I'm shaping and checking the shape, I hold it up to a contrasting background with good full-spectrum light and check for bumps and symmetry. As you turn a pipe around in the right light, you can see the bumps and bulges--especially when working bent shapes where my fingers are too big to feel between.

But perhaps we're just looking at different stages of the process. When it comes to designing and shaping, it takes eye training specifically to know where a curve should be and exactly how much curve there should be in the first place. For me, the point in my work where my pipes made a drastic improvement was when the eye training clicked.