First Prince, but he died safely ...

[Odissey]

Good day!
I have been without briar for the past week. The Briard that I ordered was driving towards me rather slowly. It was necessary to kill time and I decided to try to make my first prince. I had 2 ebauchons of trash briar, bought special for making models of future pipes. I used one of these ebauchons to make a prince.
I knew that nothing good would come of this briar, so I decided to learn how to do useful operations in pipe making on it.

The first thing that was done was a stainless steel reverse spike. and an insert made of horn and two cupronickel plates.



The prince is a completely new classic form for me. In my opinion, there are no rigid standards for its manufacture. Someone makes the Prince look rather like a pot, someone makes it in the style of an apple. I need to learn how to make this form correctly, so if someone notices inaccuracies and inconsistencies, please give your comments.

I don’t know what it’s connected with, but I rarely see a prince in the form of a full-sized smoking pipe. The prince I made is a full size smoking pipe. The dimensions of the tobacco chamber are 19 by 34 mm. Typically, the Prince's tobacco chamber is 23 to 25 mm deep.
Here are his photos.










When all the work on making the prince was finished and he was photographed, I decided to repaint him with a new stain. I bought "Chocolate".
In its pure form "Chocolate" did not make any impression on me. I decided that I would try to put a third paint on top of it, and at that moment the shank of the smoking pipe broke off. There was a micro crack in the shank, so I did not notice this crack. The contours of the crack are now clearly visible, the stain has entered it well.



This ended my torment with the Prince.
Now I have to make one more Prince, I have to somehow save the already finished stem.
Or maybe two ...

Best regards, Odissey

P.S.
You probably have a question .. What was wrong with this briard?
At the cost of great efforts, the grain was shown. But there were also very large numbers of sandpits. The shank alone had 8 sendpits. And some are pretty big. They are practically not visible in the photograph. But they were clearly visible on the pipe, which made this pipe virtually unsaleable.

[wdteipen]

Looks very prince-like to me. The prince shape is typically a short apple shape with a skinny shank, long flared stem, and straight or sometimes slightly bent stem. It is a very graceful, almost feminine shape. I think you got the shape relatively within the acceptable tolerances to firmly call it a prince. Your bowl is a bit taller than a traditional English Prince and looks a bit more Danish to me. Your stemwork could use more refining. This is arguably one of the hardest parts of pipe making to master and you are doing a better job than most at your experience level. There's more material yet to be removed for a graceful prince stem. Move away from the squared sides and taper then round them. The taper on the bottom of the stem is abrupt. Smooth out that transition. Lessen the severity of the flare just a touch and you'd have a pretty more graceful prince. The transition from shank to bowl is a bit sharp for my tastes but some like it that way. You won't see many high end pipemaker's making the transition that tight though so, to me, it has more of an amateur feel to it. Finding that sweet spot is what separates the masters from the hoi polloi.

[Odissey]

Thanks Wayne!
I've seen your work. You make very good pipes. I want to come back to your site again and again to see these pipes again. I need to grow and grow to your level. The only question is how much to grow?

It looks like I started making classic molds too early, I'm not ready to make them yet. Without a lathe, working on them becomes a headache.
I made two more princes over the past weekend. This time they are small in the English style. Looks pretty cute, but neither pipe is a prince. At best, it's a prince-style freehand. I'll try to redo it. If everything works out, I'll show you.

Best regards, Odissey

[wdteipen]

We should never stop growing. I still have a lot to learn and improve in pipemaking as well. Pipemaking should be a relentless pursuit of perfection, IMHO. There are always things I wish to change and improve in the pipes I make. You can clearly see the progression of gradual improvement from year to year in the gallery section of my website. My earlier work is a bit embarrassing but I keep it there as a reminder of where I started and the progress I have made in large part due to the honest and critical feedback from this website and my peers. There were times when that feedback stung; especially when I was particularly proud of a pipe, but I always reminded myself that the feedback here is actually a form of rooting each other on to reach the next level and inch closer to perfection. That's what's really special about this forum. You have natural talent at this craft. Keep reaching for perfection. I'm enjoying watching your progress.

[Odissey]

Thanks for the support and help Wayne.

I really like what I do. I like it not in the smoking pipes that I get, but in the very process of their production. It turned out that this activity (making pipes by hand) fascinates me very, very much. Of course I want to achieve perfection and become a good master. All my efforts are directed at this.
Study, Study and Study ... our whole life is study. If I knew about hand-made pipes at least 10 years ago. Then everything would be much easier.

Regards, Odissey