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Hello,

I just finished my first selfmade pipe: A classic billiard! Not so exciting as the most pipes I've seen in this forum, but I thought, that it would be helpful to make a classic shape at first to leran more about pipemaking...

The briar is a plateau block from DanPipe, the stem is made of a vulcanit rod. Ther was nothing premade at all:






The pictures are'nt very good and I'll go to make better pictures... The grain ist cross at the front and half right side and bird eyes at the rest. The finish was made with alcoholbased stain (orange), shellack and polish with carnauba.

Now I learned a lot about tools and working with briar I'm going to the next projects - a lot of 6 plateau blocks from Jaume Hom are waitimg to become pipes...


Greetings,

Heinz_D

a beautiful .. simple..and elegant pipe ..to ME.. that is EXCITING.. job well doneand congrats....BUGSY

Heinz, for a first pipe, that's very, very nice. My first pipe was (is --- I'm smoking it now) a great, heavy monster. Good job, man.

Wow Heinz, that is very impressive for your fist pipe. And a hand cut stem? Very ambitious, and you pulled it off very well! Congratulations! I have yet to do a hand cut stem, but hope to soon.

I would say the shape is closser to a Pot than a Billiard, but it's a great looking pipe, what ever you call it. Can't wait to see more of your work!

Heinz,
Great job! I'm getting ready to begin my first pipe, and am encouraged by your first project. Keep up the great work.

Nice job bud. There's nothing simple about a billiard though. Its probably one of the hardest shapes to get right. All in all it looks great. I think the bowl could be canted forward a few degrees, but other than that, you did made a great looking pipe. How's it smoke?

Thanks a lot for your kindly replies!

Of course ther has been a lot of difficulties for a beginner... The shape is a mixture between Pot and Billiard - a little spot on the border made it necessary to short the bowl a little bit... Also I forgot to plan the shaft right befor cutting with the saw! So the rounding to the bowl is a little bit to small, but I just got it acceptable. Therefor all drilled holes are nearly perfect - I feared, that this would be the most difficult step, but it seems that I luckily have good eyes and of course hands for that...

The stemwork made a lot of fun: I would suggest everybody to try to do it from raw materials! It isn't as difficult as one could mention! You can form the bit just in the way you want to (but you've to plan to've enough material for the bit before you cut off too much). I'll give you some pictures from an earlier period of the pipe:








And befor finish:










In the third picture with stem it seems that the fumehole isn't in the middle of the bowl, but it was a problem of photographing...

In the last two picture you can see, that the stem has an courios shape and that's a point where I'm not so satisfied as with the bowl - perhaps I'll make another attemp, but in the other way: It's the first pipe and with the following projects (I've allready 6 plateau blocks from Jaume Hom) it would be interesting to see my advancement in pipemaking...

At last: I did'nt smoke it yet!


Thank you again and greetings from Germany,

Heinz_D

Great work! I really like the shape. I stay away from classical shapes because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get it right, it's easier to do a shape without any expectations! Great job. It's guys like you that encourage us other begginers to keep at it!

Josh

Did you turn most of this pipe (bowl and shank) on a lathe? If not, that's impressive symmetry...

Awesome first pipe Heinz! Makes me want to throw my first one into the woods and forget about it!(but it smokes good) What color stain did you use? I like that deep red wine color.

David

ScoJo wrote:Did you turn most of this pipe (bowl and shank) on a lathe? If not, that's impressive symmetry...

Hello ScoJo,

I didn't use a lathe at all - except for the stem (diameter and smokechannel)! The rough shape was cut off with a band saw out of the block and the holes were drilled with a drill rig - all other work was made with a rasp, some files and abrasive cloth (100, 180 and 400) - only handcrafted. For the finish I used steelwool 000 to polish last scratches...

@bvartist: The stain is alcoholbased "orange" from DanPipe - but I thought it would be a little bit brighter. In natur it looks like Ferrari-Red! Because ther are no spots and the grain is quiet nice, I don't know if it was a good idea to use any stain at all...


Thank you guys, it's very nice to take part in this forum and it's a good feeling to get such compliments - it's worthe all the time I worked and sweared...


Heinz

Heinz, since you have decided to take up pipe making, there will be a lot more swearing.

That is an excellent first effort!! When you made the stem, you must have been dreaming about (insert name of favorite supermodel or actress here).

On a different pipe, that stem would look great, but I recommend not changing it. I still look at some of my first pipes and there are many things I would like to change, but I don't. They help remind me of things not to do now. Plus, it is fun to see the progression in one's work. Take the things you don't like about this pipe (and those things are very few) and change them on the next.

Wunderbar! Ausgezeichnet!

Nice Heinz, very nice. Beautiful pipe.