pipemakersforum.com

Greetings! I stumbled on these forums the other day, and have enjoyed reading through all the posts. Great pics and advice here! Lots of talented people contributing.

Anyhow, here's my first pipe project. I wanted something fun to 'work' on during vacation at the beach last week, so I drilled out a nice looking block of cherry, roughed it in with a jigsaw and beltsander, and tossed it in the suitcase to carve/sand while lounging in the beachchair. Fun fun fun

I've never crafted a pipe, but I have done some woodworking. My toolset is limited but I made do with what was at hand. Limitations considered, I'm quite happy with how this first 'experiment' came out. I finished it tonight, and already tried it out with a nice VA flake. Tasty

Wood is cherry. Block was drilled on drillpress. Shaping done with needle file and 80 grit sandpaper. Tenon cut with Pimo tool. Stem was steam-bent over my wife's teapot. Stain is a rub of coffee grounds. Finish is hard carnauba wax block rubbed vigorously into the surface and then buffed with a drill as I don't have a grinder/buffer.

I love it!

Not bad at all...you're stem/shank junction looks pretty good. Smokes good?

Oh yeah, forgot to say welcome!

When shown in your hand, it looks almost dainty --- certainly delicate. And how, pray, did you drill the stem??? Nice work. And you've come to the Round Table of pipemakers; what a find this site was, eh?

Thanks guys!

Bryan, I've only had one smoke with it so far, but seems to smoke well. It draws GREAT, but gets a little hot. To be safe I gave it a few cooling off periods while smoking. I'm guessing Cherry doesn't dissipate heat as well as Briar- and I'm hoping it survives break-in and smokes even better with some cake built up.

John, the stem took some headscratching! (with my limited tools) In the end the solution was simple. I found an inexpensive 12" long 1/8" drillbit at Home Depot and slowly hand-drilled a hole thru a 2"x2"x10" block. Took a couple tries to get a straight hole; if I forced the bit it wandered a lot. Then I sawed the block down to a manageable size and slowly carved it down.

Low-Tech, and Slow, but it worked

Shows what you can do when you put your mind to it. We get more and more spoiled by technology --- more and more things we use without enderstanding, perhaps, making us take our inadequacy for granted. At least I know this is true in my case. (The fact that my family takes it for granted as well doesn't help.) Once again, nice job. I'm sure your pipe will cake up and smoke well for you. "Enjoy," as they say.

Nice!

Welcome to the forum.