My fifth attempt....but, alas, no pipe in the end....

[Yarnspinner]

I just posted a picture of my attempt at my fifth pipe in the photo gallery. I'm sure most everyone who has made a few pipes has done something similar to this at one point or other. The question is: Who is willing to admit it?

[KurtHuhn]

I've gotten the walls pretty thin before, but not that thin.

[aaron]

I will be honest. I have two pipes here at my house that I know there is a thin wall. However, My biggest foul up came the day that I was talking to a buddy and drilling the air hole. I noticed that I had drilled too far into the small chuchwarden stummel, but when I roughed it out on the band-saw, sure enuff, I had drilled right through the front of the pipe... and this was probably my 18th pipe... so do not feel bad.

Aaron

[jthpipes]

that is pretty thin!!! you can see through it 8O . (just kidding) I had a bulldog I was working on and wasn't paying attention to the chamber and came pretty close, not all the way through but too thin to finish it. I now use that as a shop pipe and if it burns through or gets dropped oh well. I think your pipe might be a little hard to salvage.

[JMB]

Nice two hole-er. Been there, done that. lol In the end it makes for a good store. Gives the grand kids something to remember you by.

[bscofield]

I did this on my first ever pipe that I tried to do with only hand chizels, no sand paper or nothing....

[Nick]

I made one pipe where the walls were too thin. As a matter of fact, the thing burnt out at the thinnest point. Bleechh. As for other monumental screw ups, I picked up thes nice little snadblasted Tsuge Ikebana the other day. Great pipe, and a great price. The previous owner had sanded down the shank to accept a mor traditional stems, so I got it for a song. Well, as I've been doing to most of my pipes, I wanted to open up the draught passage. So I chick up my trusty bit, and slowly start drilling away. "Hmmm, wheres' that bit?" I say to myself as I look into the bowl. Just as i finish the thought, I feel a little somthing in my hand. Sure enough I'd missed the f-ing draught hole and drilled through the bottom of the pipe. F-ing bonehead!!! Gawd I am such a goof!! Never even got to smoke it. I might try some glue or somthing, I don't know. I just tossed the pipe in a basket in disgust.

[RadDavis]

Yarnie, I have to admit, I've never done that.

I have, however on several occasions gone too far into the shank at the shank/bowl juncture and hit the smoke hole.

If you've never done either of these things, you will.

Rad

[marks]

I came real close to drilling the tobacco chamber clean through the bottom of the block once. Needless to say, I went waaaayyy past the draft hole.

[RadDavis]

Mark,

Ain't that a pisser? And it always happens with a block that's got *really* good grain.

Rad

[Brendhain]

After making a several pipes from predrilled kits I went to drill my first blocks. The first one was perfect! Dead on! I felt like a god

I grabbed a second block and drilled the tobacco hole. All seemed to be going as planned. I start to drill the draft whole. All seemed fine. The bit went to the depth that I wanted so I looked in the tobacco chamber and no draft hole or bit could be seen. I drilled further with the draft bit, still nothing. So further and further I went and checking over and over. I thought that I was breaking the laws of physics because the draft whole was way too deep to not hit the tobacco chamber. I gave it a last few millimeters and out popped the bit. Out of the back of the block! I failed to drill my tobacco chamber deep enough! The god was dead!

[Nick]

Check out this lovely piece:

http://www.theitalianpipe.com/make/bb/bblab.htm#anti