pipemakersforum.com

Now that I have been making pipes for a little while and I am very comfortable with drilling the straight smoke hole and mortise. At first I even did this to my semi bent pipes. Now that the drilling comes with ease, I've been doing the smoke holes and mortise at different angles.

Besides having the smoke whole center on the end of the mortise, what is the excepted angle of the mortise and smoke whole?

Maybe a better question would be, what angle is acceptable between the Tobacco chamber and the smoke hole?

Using the banner at the top of the page, why would you not use a smoke hole and mortise at the same angle?

I've been making my pipes on what best fits the pipe layout. Do you guys have any method or theory used when you guys make yours?

Thanks
Chris

There's no right or wrong way, I mean, you've got Oom Pauls all the way to straights, so the angle of airway to mortis can be damn near anything.

The biggest advantage to making the airway and mortis at different angles is to be able to create interesting shapes. To use the banner as an illustration, that pipe would be impossible if the airway and mortis followed the same line. The airway would exit the bottom of the pipe and keep going, never coming close to the tobacco chamber.

Chris, scroll down the page of this link and study the cutaway drawing of Yashtylov's Calabash. It clearly illustrates what Kurt is saying: viewtopic.php?t=3428&start=15

Thanks for clearing that up guys. It was just a thought I had and wondered if there was a technical reason.

thanks for the link Frank. That is truly amazing. That Tobacco hole is really slick.