pipemakersforum.com

As I learn more about making better stems, good drilling, etc, I find some of My shop pipes I smoke more than others. I know this is because My earlier pipes that I thought were "ok" really aren't. As My skills improve My shop pipes get better and I also realize I am happy none of My early pipes got out to the general public. Does Anyone Look at their early stuff and say " I can't believe I thought that was really good"? I now have 4 shop pipes that I find comfortable and enjoy smoking the rest can be made comfortable at a future date. I was just wondering if Everyone preferred the pipes They made as their skills improved and They knew the way a pipe should be made. Norm

Hopefully, everyone feels that way. If your pipes don't get better over time you're not trying. A great exercise is to look back at older pipes and do some self critique. If you can't look at a pipe you made a few months ago (if you are new at it) or a few years ago (if you have been at it longer) and just rip it to shreds you aren't trying.

I kept my very first pipe but never smoke it because the engineering is so bad.

My first several pipes don't get smoked anymore. They don't look too terrible, but they are monstrously huge, and the stems are massive. I literally had no clue what I was doing. Before I made my first pipe, I had made a couple bookshelves and some carved canoes. I thought I was set for any type of woodworking task. Boy was I ever wrong.

notow1 wrote:As I learn more about making better stems, good drilling, etc, I find some of My shop pipes I smoke more than others. I know this is because My earlier pipes that I thought were "ok" really aren't. As My skills improve My shop pipes get better and I also realize I am happy none of My early pipes got out to the general public. Does Anyone Look at their early stuff and say " I can't believe I thought that was really good"? I now have 4 shop pipes that I find comfortable and enjoy smoking the rest can be made comfortable at a future date. I was just wondering if Everyone preferred the pipes They made as their skills improved and They knew the way a pipe should be made. Norm

I don't know anyone at all who feels this way.

Rad

I definitely feel like this. When I look at my first briar pipe, I see a terrible thing that was supposed to be a billiard, and at the time I made it I thought it was. It was perfection in a pipe, and I was fully learned as a pipemaker. Then (thankfully) I found this place! I don't smoke those first few pipes either because they have un-modified premold stems and 16mm tobacco chambers, which in my opinion make them unpleasant to smoke.

Now days I usually feel happy about my pipes for about a day or two after completion, and then I start finding things I wish I'd done better or differently.

/Albert