Frank Axmacher - hurts my brain

[Growley]

I love looking at Alpacia to get some inspiration. They host a lot of great pipe makers. Frank catches my attention often, but this particular pipe really got me looking. The asymmetry on this one just hurts my very symmetrical brain! Don't get me wrong, I think the pipe is really cool. I'm just sitting here wondering how wide that ebonite had to be for him to make that stem. Am I correct in assuming that it was about twice as wide as shown, and he just took a ton off the one side, or is there some way of offset drilling that made this happen? Or even worse, is this some sort of freehand shape first, drill last voodoo?

[LatakiaLover]

A VolcFish.

Kewl.

I'd guess the stem's drilling & tenon were not done on a lathe. (My DP setup would allow for that with no problem.)

[andrew]

He probably used plate, not rod stock. You could drill or shape this first.

[jogilli]

he makes nice pipes.. I was just at one of the local tobacconists on Friday and got to check out about 12 of his pipes...

this one wasn't there but there was some super nice ones... and I got some ideas.. as you do

james

[caskwith]

I would say it was probably plate stock for economy. Using either a 4-jaw independent chuck or a drill press to make the first hole you could easily machine a piece like that without significant wastage. I believe Frank uses Delrin but I might have imagined that.