Prince

[Doug535]

After redoing the stem this is completed as far as I'm gonna go. It does have a little wiggle in the stem at the bite zone. Any other comments/advice for the next one would be much appreciated. No shot of the slot, trust me it ain't pretty. My lighting sucks and makes weird lines and dots on the stem (LED), gonna hafta get a cheap light box.

[Doug535]

[wdteipen]

Solid effort.

[JMG]

Maybe just a touch too much bend on the stem for my liking, but this ain't bad at all.

[DocAitch]

After redoing the stem this is completed as far as I'm gonna go. It does have a little wiggle in the stem at the bite zone. Any other comments/advice for the next one would be much appreciated. No shot of the slot, trust me it ain't pretty. My lighting sucks and makes weird lines and dots on the stem (LED), gonna hafta get a cheap light box.

Careful with the light boxes. My cheap light box has a series of LEDs that leaves that string of lights reflection on polished surfaces.
DocAitch

[Sasquatch]

That's a really decent Prince. I'd like a little less bend, and a little less "whale tail" on the stem - aesthetically, that takes from the slimness of the shank and stem (makes a comfy smoker though).

[Doug535]

Thanks for the kind words guy's. Doc, I'll keep that in mind, that's what I have a problem with, the dots from the led light i have right above where I'm taking my pics. I'm looking at a couple that have different lighting. On this one i didn't have a whole lot of clean up on the stem after blasting, followed by a very light blast after cleaning it up. Sas, what should I aim for at the bit? Or do just a straight taper. This one is right at .650.

[Sasquatch]

"What should I aim for at the bit..."

This sort of decisions get easier with time.

If you have a prince with a shank of say, 3/8" diameter, that might be a little small to run a dead straight taper - it wouldn't be a very wide mouthpiece at all. Conversely, if you have a billiard with a 5/8" shank, it might be too wide to run a straight taper. So you need to fudge things a bit.

On the prince, one thing that looks nice is a real long slow taper out to the button - the stem is getting thinner top to bottom, and wider side to side, the whole way. It's very small because you don't need the bit to be 1" across. Nice subtle look.

On a more bent pipe, this kind of thing looks awful, and a "waist" of some kind is more appropriate (look at Castello 65s).

Anyway it was just a point for future reference - holistic pipe making requires a lot of pre-vision, and you just can't do it till you've made and handled tons of pipes was my experience. I make these kinds of little decisions in my sleep now, and I used to fucking agonize over them. Hell I forget entire steps in my process sometimes and just... take it to the wheel and make it happen.

[Sasquatch]

Here's a Prince I did where that flare is well reduced - the bit is wider than the shank, but it's only just so, and there's no real transition point.

[Doug535]

Thanks Sas, so it's on a what's pleasing to the eye basis moreso than a particular bit width. Is there a point at which a bit would be at an uncomfortable width? Thanks again for all of your input and help.

[DocAitch]

Jumping in, I have been told that 3/4” is about maximum for comfort on bit width at the button. There is a French paper where the author examined and tabulated a number of artisan pipes and came up with a pretty narrow range of bit widths that folks apparently thought were comfortable, and this range is a tad under 0.7” if I recall correctly. I will see if I can find it and PM it. The Google translation is a bit clumsy, but there’s a lot of food for thought in the document.
DocAitch

[DocAitch]

http://www.fumeursdepipe.net/arttuyauxroan.htm
I had to access this through Google Chrome and use their translation program. I believe SeaMonster sent this to me.
DocAitch

[Doug535]

Doc, I had read something similar and had that in mind when doing this stem. I also talked to Scottie about bit width on the authors she makes.

[sandahlpipe]

I asked Tom Etang to review my pipes. I had one button at 22mm wide and another at 18. He said pick between 15-17mm and stick with the same button size on every pipe so the customer who likes the first pipe can expect the next one to feel exactly the same in the mouth. I go with 16mm or so now. Much wider and it’s hard to close your mouth over the stem. Too narrow and it will roll between your teeth.

[Sasquatch]

Who?

[LatakiaLover]

eTang. Can't you read?

It's a company that specializes in selling Tang over the interwebs. You know, astronaut fuel. This stuff:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm ... TIHc7th8zM

[Sasquatch]

Part of the.....


Tang Dynasty?

[RickB]

I asked Tom Etang to review my pipes. I had one button at 22mm wide and another at 18. He said pick between 15-17mm and stick with the same button size on every pipe so the customer who likes the first pipe can expect the next one to feel exactly the same in the mouth. I go with 16mm or so now. Much wider and it’s hard to close your mouth over the stem. Too narrow and it will roll between your teeth.

I remembered you saying this and read... somewhere - maybe from Jeff(?) - about Jody Davis doing and recommending the same thing - and have been trying to follow it to the letter. It's interesting because it really shows off how hard consistency is as a novice pipe maker. Doing something well once is easy. Every time to the same specs/shape/button profile? Much harder, but I'm working on slowing down and nailing that consistency.

Thanks for the kind words guy's. Doc, I'll keep that in mind, that's what I have a problem with, the dots from the led light i have right above where I'm taking my pics. I'm looking at a couple that have different lighting.

You need to diffuse the light. Try taping something semi-translucent over them and what works best for you (I've tried tissue paper and white computer paper, thin white fabric would work, and I'd swear I've seen pictures of Yeti using cut up milk jugs).

And I haven't tried a prince yet, but I like the pipe. I think everybody covered what jumps out at me.

[sandahlpipe]

Darnit. Well it's good advice no matter who it came from...

As for the LED lights, they make a fabric that's specific for diffusing light. It's not expensive and works better than tissue paper at giving you a smooth light. I stapled it in my light box over the lights. Just be sure to pull it tight so it doesn't cast shadows where the fabric is wrinkled.

[Doug535]

Thanks for the input all. Lots of good stuff to keep in mind. This was just supposed to be a fun hobby. I got sucked in.