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Let me start off by saying, I know this is bad. I made some miss cuts when rough shaping and what should've been a medium sized pipe turned into a small, flat sided, thin walled mistake. Initially I wanted to blame the tool, but really it was just my inexperience with how much material can be removed when rough shaping the block amplified by the inaccuracy of using a hacksaw.

All of that aside - any suggestions that might help take this piece from bad to not so bad before I decide I'm done with it and half-heartedly sand it smooth and finish?

Well, it's not going to end up a classic billiard. The cheeks are gone. But it will look like a nice pipe if you make the shank lines straight from the stem to the bowl junction. There's plenty of material to remove right around the bowl junction.

I would also remove a little bit of the top of the bowl on the side opposite the shank.

If you sand through the grits and apply a nice stain, this can end up a nice pipe for you to enjoy.

OK - been slowly working on the shank and stem here and there over the past few weeks. Any other suggestions for improving the shape would be appreciated.

sandahlpipe wrote:...if you make the shank lines straight from the stem to the bowl junction. There's plenty of material to remove right around the bowl junction.

Is this what you had in mind, sandahl? or do I have further to go to get the shank lines straight?

One thing I'm considering is trying to narrow the stem where it flares out wider than the rest of the stem and shank. Would that work? This is really my first attempt at any kind of stem work - even though I'm just trying to reshape a molded stem, any tips would be appreciated.

You're getting closer. Look at the light reflections and see where the light reflections break. That's a place where it's uneven. And a stem blank has a lot of extra material. If I use a stem blank for a shop pipe ( I don't sell pipes with stem blanks anymore.) I will thin out the bite area just like any other pipe. If you want to make it not flare, you can usually make that happen.

Keep up the good work!