Silverone858 estate pipe collection.

[Silverone858]

Hahaha I remember seeing a home made lathe on YouTube with a 4 jaw Chuck, the guy reached over the chuck to do something and I closed one eye like oooooooo if that thing grabbed his shirt omg!

Seriously people never clean their pipes, the first estate pipe I cleaned was the white briar it's hilarious now because I thought the stem was supposed to be brown! The reason I retort is because if it's brown on the outside and it takes sandpaper to clean it, what about the inside? Ewww! So I used the retort then bristol brush and repeat till the pipe cleaners come out clean. I still can't believe the state of these pipes, didn't the go sour? What did the guy do, smoke it till it was gross then just buy another? I smoke half a bowl at a time and if I don't wipe it and run a alcohol soaked pipe cleaner through the stem and shank, I can taste the difference. I want to taste the tobacco I'm smoking now not the tobacco I had last time. Lol just my preference. I will likely retort again after a month or so as well.

I have 5 more estate pipes to be cleaned and I'll post them as soon as I get them cleaned. I want to put some color on a few since I found the blue, orange and yellow leather dies. I seem to make most of them almost black and I want to break it up a bit hahaha!
Geoff

 

[deluxestogie]

Vermont Freehand now owns PIMO pipes, which offers a host of pipemaking stuff. They have a bunch of alcohol-based leather dyes in a wide variety of colors.

http://vermontfreehand.com/product/fiebing/

Bob

 

[Silverone858]

Nice! Thank you sir! I keep forgetting to look there. They have a bunch of cool stuff!
Geoff

 

[greenmonster714]

That is a cool site. I think it would be fun to learn the restoration and pipe making craft. It would take a while to gather the tools of the trade but it certainly would be a rewarding hobby.

I have a friend on another site that just surprised me with his skills in pipe making. Check out this pipe. Its Morta wood.

 

[CowboyTed]

That is a cool site. I think it would be fun to learn the restoration and pipe making craft. It would take a while to gather the tools of the trade but it certainly would be a rewarding hobby.

You might be surprised to learn that you can make pipes with some very rudimentary tools. I made my first two pipes using an old drill press in place of a lathe, and they turned out fine. But neither a drill press or a lathe is really necessary. You could get away with a handheld drill to drill out the tobacco chamber and the draft hole, and the entire exterior could be carved with nothing more than a simple woodsaw and some files and sandpaper. A lathe just speeds up the process, and allows a little better control to make the bowl and shank perfectly round. The lathe also helps to assure that the interior and exterior of the bowl are concentric.

Some very high-end pipemakers carve the entire exterior of the pipe bowl and shank first, and only drill the draft hole and tobacco chamber after the exterior is finished. They do it that way to allow them to work around flaws that show up on the exterior. It's harder to work around the flaws if you drill the chamber and draft hole first.

This is the first pipe I made by turning the bowl and shank with a drill press:

 

[Silverone858]

That's awesome! Great looking pipe!
You can even buy already drilled briar blocks with your choice of bowl size, stem mount and style. Alot of online retailers offer them even meerschaum (though I only saw pressed meerschaum)
I'm thinking about getting one, for the price I don't think you can go wrong.
Geoff

 

[greenmonster714]

That's a pretty nice pipe Cowboy. Although crafting a pipe sounds like a lot of fun I am not very skilled with woodworking or power tools for the craft. It would be a totally new ballgame for me but down the road all things are possible. The longs stem on that pipe is cool. Gives it a lot of character I think. Thanks for sharing your first timer pipe. I think ya did a fantastic job.

 

[CowboyTed]

That's a pretty nice pipe Cowboy. Although crafting a pipe sounds like a lot of fun I am not very skilled with woodworking or power tools for the craft. It would be a totally new ballgame for me but down the road all things are possible. The longs stem on that pipe is cool. Gives it a lot of character I think. Thanks for sharing your first timer pipe. I think ya did a fantastic job.

Thanks! I bought those long churchwarden stems off ebay for my fist couple pipes. Since then I've learned to make stems on the drill press too. Then I got completely hooked and bought a small metal lathe, so I can enjoy lots more precision and working comfort than the drill press provided.

This is the first pipe I made completely from scratch, using Turkish briar and a pearlescent acrylic pen-blank for the stem, and a sterling silver shank ring to reinforce the shank mortise.



This one started as a limb from a Denver peach tree, which had boring grain, so I carved it to resemble a sandblasted briar. For fakery, it looks good, and it smokes beautifully. The little briar prince shape above is relatively tiny, almost a "nosewarmer" but this peach-wood brandy shape is huge, with bowl walls fully a half-inch thick at the fattest part. I made them both with the lathe.



If you are interested in learning, try to find some wood from a fruit tree. Nearly all fruit woods make acceptable pipes, and they are easy to come by. The first pipe I ever bought is made from pear wood, and I've been smoking it for almost thirty years now. Fruit trees don't have the magnificent grain of the best briar, but frankly, most briar pipes don't have good grain either. That's why so many wind up with rusticated or sandblast finishes. Briar with good grain is expensive.

 

[deluxestogie]

That's some good pipe work.

Bob

 

[CowboyTed]

That's some good pipe work.

Bob

Thanks! Each pipe gets a little better than the last. I haven't reached the point where I feel comfortable selling any yet, but I'm proud of one I gave to my best friend. It's made of Russian Olive burl from a tree that grew in our home county. He's the only pipesmoker I know who grew up in Goshen County, Wyoming, and I figured he should have a pipe made from local wood. I made him a lovely bulldog with some unique design elements. Maybe I can find a photo of it. Be right back!

Edit: I don't have any photos of the pipe I made for my friend, but I asked him to take some photos for me. In the meantime, these are my fist two pipes, which are both made from the same Russian Olive burl. You'll notice that I re-worked the shank on that Dublin shape that I posted photos of a few posts up the page. I broke the mortise, so I shortened it, than added a shank extension with a brass tube inserted to act as a mortise, and a bit of acrylic as a decorative element. The second pipe is from the same burl, though the color is much lighter. It has a shank decoration made from cow bone I dug up when I leveled the site for a new barn.

 

[CowboyTed]

I'm sorry Geoff, I should really quit hijacking your thread! I got my buddy's photos of the pipe I mentioned, and I started my own thread over here.



Feel free to go over there and post your own pipemaking projects. I'm curious to see what other people try.

 

[Silverone858]

Oh nothing to be sorry about! One day I will make a few pipes just to say that I did it! I really want to buy some morta but probably a few briar blocks to start. I only have 2 briar pipes that aren't kaywoodies, and I'm not sure when I will break away from them. When I smoke any of my mm cobs I just don't enjoy my smoke as much. I think the kaywoodies make me sip plus the aluminum in the stem must cool the air just enough to get all the taste out of the smoke. I may be wrong but I've said before for 10 bucks it's hard to pass on a estate kaywoodie.
Geoff

 

[CowboyTed]

Oh nothing to be sorry about! One day I will make a few pipes just to say that I did it! I really want to buy some morta but probably a few briar blocks to start. I only have 2 briar pipes that aren't kaywoodies, and I'm not sure when I will break away from them. When I smoke any of my mm cobs I just don't enjoy my smoke as much. I think the kaywoodies make me sip plus the aluminum in the stem must cool the air just enough to get all the taste out of the smoke. I may be wrong but I've said before for 10 bucks it's hard to pass on a estate kaywoodie.
Geoff

Yeah, you're right. I have an estate Kaywoodie that's among my favorites too. If you have a chance to buy a Duncan Hill Aerosphere or a Grabow CDL, you might give them a try. Both pipes have "carburetors" designed to draw some cool air into the hot smoke as you draw on the pipe, and I find that they provide pleasant smoking as a result. They can be found dirt cheap too.

 

[deluxestogie]

For corncob pipes, which have a huge smoke hole, try packing the bowl more tightly.

Bob

 

[Silverone858]

I lost an auction for a Duncan aerosphere, and got a yello bolle air control instead, I still have to clean it but there's 3 estate kaywoodies in front of it lol!
Sometimes I take a cob to work but just don't get the same enjoyment out of them. I was thinking about getting one with a filter to try to slow down the draw a little.
Geoff

 

[greenmonster714]

I'm sorry Geoff, I should really quit hijacking your thread! I got my buddy's photos of the pipe I mentioned, and I started my own thread over here.



Feel free to go over there and post your own pipemaking projects. I'm curious to see what other people try.

We hijack threads. Its what we do. Don't worry about it...lol.

 

[Silverone858]

So I have been prepping the last couple of estate pipes and decided that sanding oxidation off the stem is to labor intensive and I decided to try the Mr clean magic eraser method. Wow results are great!
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First pics are before 3rd and 4th are after 10 minutes of scrubbing 5th and6th are with a wipe of Obsidian oil. The finish is matte but all the oxidation is pretty much gone just a bit left by the button. Now I can just smooth it out with a micro sanding pad and buff it out! Awesome I would say! Probably saved me a bunch of time!
Geoff

 

[greenmonster714]

Nice work

 

[deluxestogie]

What a clever idea.

Bob

 

[Jitterbugdude]

Sometimes I take a cob to work but just don't get the same enjoyment out of them. I was thinking about getting one with a filter to try to slow down the draw a little.
Geoff

Just cut a pipe cleaner in half, fold it and insert it into the pipe stem. Perfect draw.
Or, get some ebonite stems and fit it to your pipe. I think Aristocob sells them already finished.