pipemakersforum.com

I am working on my first pipe and I have a question that might be obvious to someone who knows what they are doing. I was wondering if the stem has to glued into the stummel. I have been trying to follow advice that has been given to others and have been looking at the gallery and the for sale page. I noticed that some of the pipes have the stem removed in some of the photos. Does that mean that glueing in the stem is optional.

Thanks for the help. I'll post a pic later if I can get it to post. I'm sure it will be the most amazing first pipe you have ever seen.

Paul

Some of us temporarily glue the stem in place while shaping to stop it from moving, use a little epoxy on the face of the stem or mortice.

One piece pipes are the domain of small children and Random.

David.

I personally don't know of anyone that glues the stem to the stummel. Just my personal experience.

Well. Who knew. I thought that the stems were glued in since most of the pics showed the pipe as one piece. Well now I know. You learn something new everyday.

Thanks for the help.

Two main reasons for coming apart:

1) cleaning
2) replacement at some time in the future (generally stems can be replaced more easily than the stummel)

Geez, we have very nice guys here on the forum!

DMI wrote:Some of us temporarily glue the stem in place while shaping to stop it from moving, use a little epoxy on the face of the stem or mortice.

One piece pipes are the domain of small children and Random.

David.

I'm just curious...Who is this Random character I keep hearing about? I see people replying to him in older posts but it appears that all his posts have been deleted.

excellent question.

Random was a rogue who rebelled against the established pipemaking community. He was a rebel and a traitor. He ruffled many feathers with his nougat stummels and petrified donkey shit stems. His posts were expunged from the record. Let that be a lesson to all the radicals out there who want to make a bowl coating from tomato soup and powered sugar. Now who was this gator-aid fellow i keep seeing?

Petrified donkey shit stems, Yuck , I think I will save that for pipe #2 and give it to someone I really don't like.

I'm interested in seeing this guys pipes (Random). Does he have a name I can Google? Or a website? I don't want to talk trash about anyone I'm just curious what type of pipes he's making.

You can see one of his pipes here:
http://www.glpease.com/Pipes/Reviews/Random.php

Mike Messer is a more recent example of what Random was infamous for. He was fairly convinced that all the established makers were stodgy old fools, or foolish young whippersnappers as the case might be. He scoffed at traditional methods and efficiencies, and pretty much priced his pipes according to how much time he spent making them. He stood in polar opposition to pretty much any advice given him, because he was pretty sure he knew better, even though he was a complete newbie maker and just happened to get lucky with a few sales. He shunned traditional materials like ebonite, and insisted on using stuff like Ultem even though it took an act of God to properly finish and bend (with a blowtorch!).

Today he is nowhere to be found. No website, and no lasting contribution to pipemaking outside of the occasional humorous quip or comparison.

Thanks for the info Kurt.

I found his old blog a couple of months ago, as a psychologist it made interesting reading.

http://randoms-pipes.blogspot.com/

David.

Dozuki wrote:Well. Who knew. I thought that the stems were glued in since most of the pics showed the pipe as one piece. Well now I know. You learn something new everyday.

Thanks for the help.

Have you never owned or smoked a pipe?

Rad

DMI wrote:I found his old blog a couple of months ago, as a psychologist it made interesting reading.

http://randoms-pipes.blogspot.com/

David.

That's a true gift, and I thank you for it.

KurtHuhn wrote:Today he is nowhere to be found. No website, and no lasting contribution to pipemaking outside of the occasional humorous quip or comparison.

I think Mike and random are similar in that they went against the "status-quo," even if they did so in different ways. Random was plain stubborn; he fancied himself a Luddite, which may even be true. He was passive-aggressive in his exchange with established pipemakers, and tend to make statements that were shaky, as best.

His trademark quirks: endless sanding (he affirmed a couple of times that he sanded the interior of his bowls to 2000 grit) and the infamous "OnePiece pipe" which was a wacky material (Ultem) glued to the pipe in-place. Some of his pipes were plain ugly. Others, just unconventional. I understand they were good smokers, but never got one, even if at some point I really wanted to.

Mike, on the other hand, was much more aggressive and prone to change his mind and edits his posts. He liked to talk with authority on subjects he clearly didn't grasp (for example, he said that if you sanded enough of a premolded stem it could be considered hand made; he also thought an order of ebonite he got was "bad" because it smelled...) and went on and on on doing things in clearly... non-optimal ways. I understand he was some form of engineer by trade, which may explain some things...

His trademark quirk is to charge up to $6,500 for an amateurish looking pipe. Yup, kid you not.

Both of them have proven (at least in pictures) that they can build a functional pipe. But, even if both of them may have believed it, none of them took the pipemaking world by storm.

(I, for one, enjoyed -perhaps a bit too much- reading their posts and the reactions they caused.)

I never dealt with Random.
Mike was funny to sit on the sidelines and watch, but got annoying quick if you were drawn into a conversation (argument) with him.
I can only imagine how un-funny it was to moderate him.

Leus wrote:
(I, for one, enjoyed -perhaps a bit too much- reading their posts and the reactions they caused.)

I agree - hugely entertaining! I miss those Random, TJ exchanges.

Man I missed out! I'm sure someone, somewhere will eventually fit the role that once was Random. Ya know it's gonna happen sooner or later.