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Never saw the concept done before, so Quinton Wells and I took a swing at it.

Pretty big. Not a true giant, but just short of that: 8" long, 135 grams... the last shot has a Dunhill Grp4 Lovat (shape 40) in it for comparison purposes.

Ho-Lee-CRAP! What unicorn butt did you scavenge to find that block or briar??? Is the shank/stem junction on a curve? What sorcery is that? This is fantastic, George. Really something else.

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Definitely a bit different.

The whole "curvy" thing works well for all kinds of stuff. Here's a car that could have been inspired by a 1924 Dunhill CK:

The real question is, who gets to smoke that puppy first, you or Quinton??

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Neither of us. Sas commissioned it. (He needed a new framing hammer).

So, genuine criticisms apply: the bottom of the shank indicates a curve, the top doesn't. This is actually made worse by the curved shank mount, which is curved up near the top of the shank, leading the eye to perceive a slight "downward angle" on the stem. Which is to say, the perceived curve on the bottom of the pipe is affected negatively by the shank adornment and the lack of matching curve on the top of the shank.

Black line on top vs blue line (curve established). See where that blue line goes on the stem? My eye wants to go there too.

Yup. What you're talking about "bugged" my eye as well.

It's something of an artifact of getting the lines to work from the top and oblique views too. Meaning "chasing it away" (I tried) introduced new problems when viewed from a different angle.

As you know, it's a bit of a merry-go-round when tweaking long curved lines. And this sort of Swoop Deluxe type of retro design is essentially nothing BUT long curves.

It would be fun to play with the multi angle thing in a rapid, reversible way, like on a high resolution, rotatable 3D drawing program. Also be interesting to see how many iterations of view-tweaking it took to be satisfied. THEN set it to "subtract material only" and try again.

I finally settled for (of course) compromise everywhere, as opposed to dead-on from square views w/wonky obliques.

It's really hard. I've made a couple hundred bent pipes and worked the shit out of some of them, tried different angles at the shank.... and there's only a few where I feel like I really nailed it.

Anyone who thinks this shit, these long curve idea is no trouble, make a hawkbill and try to carry the curve on the bottom all the way through the stem. It cannot be done. Not without some flat area. These things are a lot of fun.

Part of it is shank thickness, carrying the curve in the shank is one thing, but carrying it in the stem, tapering nicely, on those fat pipes it's hard. I got a good result a few weeks back, a really "ordinary" pipe for me, a little Italian, a little English, but I thought the piece worked, the curves, and to get it, I did really make a duck bill on the bottom of the stem, which then disappears.

The first full size LC:





The third:




I was WAY more aggressive on the taper, just outrageously aggressive, or so it felt, but visually... gotta do it.

Pretty tricky business, that last one.

Probably easy to sell, too, since true LCs made back in the day are scarce & spendy... and yours is shaped better than 90% of them.

"In El Paso I got me two hundred and fifty dollars for it"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMI1uQBHUpA





The best pipes sell, they always sell. The best pipes, the very best pipes any maker makes, never hit the market.

Truly a beautiful pipe, Sas. Both the Birdseye and straight grain are crazy. Very nice work!