Posted by Sean in Featured, Pipes | 10 comments
Pipe Carving – The First One
Pipe smoking has been a passion of mine for many years, I love collecting, I love the grain, the different finishes, and the endless shapes. And over the past few years I have always wanted to try my hand at pipe carving, and last month I dove into pipe making head first! I still have a lot to learn, and many mistakes were made, but I was overall happy with the first one, and I can’t wait to start on the next. I’d like to personally thank Ron Fairchild of Fairchild Pipes, Simeon Turner of Turner Pipes, Jeff Gracik of J. Alan Pipes, and Kurt Huhn at PipeCrafter.com for helping me out tremendously through the process. After showing it off to a few friends and my Austin pipe club guys I have about 12 orders! So I will be getting a lot of practice coming up real soon. I’d love some honest feedback and you overall thoughts. Thanks guys……and girls. :)
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Sean, for a first shot, this looks like excellent work! What strikes me most is your wise choice of a relatively simple shape and then, at least as far as the pictures show, your having done a great job with it. The grain, fit and finish all look to be beautiful.
As far as this web presentation goes, I have only one criticism. There’s only one picture of your process…the one of you holding the raw brier block. It would have been fun to see a couple other photos from different stages of the pipe’s evolution and the tools used.
You mention you’ve got 12 orders…just out of curiosity, what are you charging?
Looking forward to seeing further developments.
Best regards,
Bert
Nice work. What did you use to shape it, cut the stem, etc? Also, curious about your finish, straight caranuba or shellac?
Bert, Thanks for the kind words. I had a lot of fun doing this….So much that I completely forgot to take any pictures during the process….
JB, The stem was pre-cut b/c I am still unsure how to do that part of the process. (Also I think you need a lathe with I don’t have.) As far as the process I used a band saw for rough shaping, then on to a bench grinder converted into a sanding station. Sanding 120, 320, 400, 600, 800, then stain then tripoli, white diamond, finally caranuba.
Is burned varnish/shellac hazardous to inhale?
Theresa, there is no varnish/shellac on this pipe. It’s only finished with all natural wax finish on a buffing wheel. Good question.
That pipe looks great, it makes me wish I hadn’t given my pipes away.
Thanks Philip! If you ever want another one I’ll make you a good deal!
Woaw, what a beutiful pipe! Great job!
Found your site via MPC and i will sure come back, great site!
Michwen, glad you found the site, help spread the word to your pipe smoking friends for me! Also thanks so much for the encouragement, the pipe was a blast to make. I’ve got 12 more blocks coming in the mail to practice my craft.
Sean-
I like the new pictures! As I told you before, this is great work for a first pipe! Really well done!
Have fun on the rest of them.