little poker

[bregolad]

a little poker/cherrywood i made a while back. its by no means perfect, but i've been smoking for a while, and it smokes really well.
in my exuberance to make it sit, i filed quite close to the bottom of the bowl, and it came dangerously close...it made a little black mark on the bottom. anywho, i really dig this shape. lemme know what you think.

[KurtHuhn]

The shape is quite nice, and I dig the rustication. I'm sure you've learned more in the act of making this than I could point out in regards to attention to detail. Lets see the next one!

[DMI]

A nicely proportioned pipe, if it smokes well what more can you ask for?

A couple of tips, if you are afraid of burning through the bottom add a piece of decorative wood to the outside bottom, then if it does go through there's still life in the pipe. I used this method to repair an old Comoys' Poker (which had burnt through) about four months ago, the owner was delighted with the result and now uses a blunt ended knife.

When I started fitting stems I would clamp the tennon in a drill mounted in a vice then use a needle file to face the stem, if you angle the file slightly it will create an inward bevel which makes it easier to get a flush fit. If you have a variable speed drill slow it down about halfway, if you don't have a vice gaffa/duct tape works.

David.

[bregolad]

oohhh...thats a good idea thanks

[prosmoking]

....in my exuberance to make it sit, i filed quite close to the bottom of the bowl, and it came dangerously close....

Does anyone have a minimum bottom of the bowl thickness number? 0.100, 0.090, 0.080, ??????

[DMI]

PROSMOKING, I have kept the records of the thousand or so estate pipes I have sold over the last couple of years, the average thickness of the base of a factory pipe is 5mm, 'handmades' run from 3.5mm up

Factory Billiard
Avg Chamber1.9cm or 3/4" by 3cm or 1 3/16", Wall thickness 5mm
Factory Fancy
2.1cm or 13/16 by 3.7cm or 1 7/16" 9mm

On an estate if the base is less than 2 or sometimes 3mm thick I don't sell it, I usually include them as extras to new smokers and regulars.

David.

[prosmoking]

Thanks DMI, glad to know someone is keeping track of these things.

[d6monk]

Thats very interesting DMI, thanks for the statistics. I usually try to leave about 1/4" at the bottom of the tobacco chamber, but it would really make some of the drilling easier if I could make thinner walls (especially if 3.5mm is ok) without a greater risk of a burnout. What minimum thickness do some of you other guys leave for the bottom and side walls?

[KurtHuhn]

For side walls, I try to keep everything over 6.5mm at a minimum - and only go there if it's truly necessary. Same for the bottom. And the larger the chamber, the more thickness is needed.

However, for smaller pipes, like ones with 15 or 16mm chambers, that isn't always a hard and fast rule.

[DMI]

The problem with going below the 5mm mark is heat, the thinner the wall the hotter a pipe is to hold, and I believe there is a greater chance of cracking as there is less wood to deal with the expansion and contraction. I recently sold a pipe to someone in New York which had 9mm walls, he sent it back as it was to hot to hold, me I had no problem smoking and holding it.

Wall thickness is something that falls within the personal taste of the buyer, some prefer thick walls others thin, these tastes are picked up, or influenced, by the makers who produce pipes to suit the market. Vauen for example produce a lot of thick walled pipes while Stanwell pipes are a bit thinner (in general), Dunhills tend to be thin to medium as are old Comoys', the newer Comoys' tend to be thicker. I don't see many American pipes so cannot comment on them.

It is also probable that the quality of the briar plays a part.

It has been my experience that thin walled straight grain pipes are more prone to splitting than a similar pipe with swirly grain.

Figures and statistics should be used with caution, mine are weighted by the large number of straight billiards that pass through my hands, if I sold only high grades I might get different numbers.