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I drilled a small ebauchon tonight. Drilling couldn't have gone better. However, when I looked inside the chamber to check the draft hole I noticed a fairly large flaw on the chamber wall, Can I still use this block, or will it more than likely crack when it gets smoked? This sucks.

welcome to pipemaking
if you're going to sell it, use bowl coating.
if you're going to smoke it, smoke it. no harm will befall you.

p.s. this happens to everyone all the time

A flaw like that is not going to be a seller for me, though I use a bowl coating I never use it to hide big flaws like that, tiny black spot or spilled stain maybe but not a big one. Selling to a friend etc with full disclosure is sometimes an option though. Either way a bit if bowl coating should stop it burning out.

i agree with Chris... i would not use it for a pipe that is intended to be sold....
...

you can try to sand it out or remove it using dremel tool if you have enough wood to do it - to shape the chamber like a brandy - simetrical on all sides and wider where you have the flaw... maybe it is not to much deep but i seriously doubt it - maybe you can remove just the cracked part and leave the spots (better than having a crack in my opinion)... it looks like a bad crack... probably at the end it will be your pipe to smoke as a reject....
sorry ...

Thanks for the advice guys. This was going to be a pipe for my father for Christmas, but I will probably just end up hanging on to it for myself. What a bummer. Figures that when the drilling goes effortlessly and ends up nearly perfect that something like this would happen, Oh well, roll with the punches.

Coat the bowl and keep it.

Merry Christmas to you.

If its for your father then put in a good layer of bowl coating and give it to him. I doubt it will cause any problems and even if its does then its only your father and not a paying customer. You can always make him a replacement if needed.

That's a bad one. You may find if you shape that pipe "normally" that you see daylight.

Better luck next time.

That one looks deep and wide. Like Sas said - I'll bet it goes in quite a ways.

Post it in the garbage

Now you have a shop pipe for yourself. Experiment with shapes and if it turns out to be a dog, it's your shop dog's pipe. My dog has a couple of them

baweaverpipes wrote:Now you have a shop pipe for yourself. Experiment with shapes and if it turns out to be a dog, it's your shop dog's pipe. My dog has a couple of them

Todd smokes your pipes?

Waay-oh!

SimeonTurner wrote:

baweaverpipes wrote:Now you have a shop pipe for yourself. Experiment with shapes and if it turns out to be a dog, it's your shop dog's pipe. My dog has a couple of them

Todd smokes your pipes?

Simeon,
Todd would never be seen smoking one of my hideous bastardizations of briar, he smokes group one Dunhill's.
This is the head of the design team at BAWeaverpipes.com, who has been instrumental in creating some of the most atrocious pipes, never viewed outside of my shop.

Does he eat dust? Man your shop is CLEAN!

Sasquatch wrote:Does he eat dust? Man your shop is CLEAN!

Butch is a bit of a neat freak.

Rad

Sasquatch wrote:Does he eat dust? Man your shop is CLEAN!

Holy Smokes...do you have some sort of black hole in the ceiling that sucks up all the dust?

One thing I try before chucking a pipe due to chamber flaws is to try drilling a size or two bigger to see if it disappears. It doesn't appear that it will work on this one but you never know. If it's drilled 3/4", a 7/8" could remove enough. Since you're gifting it, coat it and gift it. I wouldn't sell it unless it was a friend sold at a discount with full disclosure.

Bruce, if thats what your shop looks like all the time, I'd like to offer my profesonal time as phsycologist so we can chat a bit.

pipeguy wrote:Bruce, if thats what your shop looks like all the time, I'd like to offer my profesonal time as phsycologist so we can chat a bit.

I'm a neat freak.