ShiniKoroshi
Dept. of Shenanigans
Last edited:
Show us your homemade pipes!
- Thread starter CowboyTed
- Start date
StoneCarver
Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense
That's basically how I smoke my stone pipes. The bowls on the Eastern woodlander style pipes I have barely hold more than a pinch. 1 or 2 puffs usually.
I have to admit I really like this way of smoking. Sometimes I don't want to commit to the big bowl of a briar pipe. Also, the nicotine from the stone pipes seems to hit much more satisfyingly. I don't know why but there it is.
ShiniKoroshi
Dept. of Shenanigans
The spirit of the stone is happy with your work.
True, and you're also smoking less stale, gone dead tobacco or wasting it. In the winter I was stubbing out half a cigarette or more and rushing to get back in out of the cold. A waste of good tobacco. With the small pipe I can make quick runs and save tobacco. I smoke both pipe and cigarette blends in mine. Stone and clay don't seem to ghost the flavors so much from the previous blend.
StoneCarver
Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense
y'know, I didn't really think about it but I agree. I've been experimenting with blending the tobaccos in different ways in my stone pipe since I only need to mix just enough for a pinch (which has its own challenges) and the smoke does seem to be untainted by whatever I smoked previously. So the flavors do come through true. Here I've been working with it and kinda taking it for granted. Having this ease of mixing the tobaccos for each smoke has been kinda fun and I've been learning a lot and developing ideas of how I want to mix the tobacco when I press my next plug. Eastern woodlanders did smoke in clay pipes too and I would assume the smoking characteristics of stone vs clay would be similar since they are both mineral instead of wood or corn cob. Not everyone had easy access to soapstone or alabaster back in the day but almost everyone could find clay nearby. I've been thinking of making a clay pipe just for some s&g but havent yet decided on a way to fire it. I got a whole yard of clay under my feet. Otoh, getting some soapstone is a multiday camping expedition up in the mountains.
I bought my clay pipe from Missouri Meerschaum
Old Dominion Jamestowne Clay Pipe - Missouri Meerschaum Company
The Old Dominion Jamestowne Clay Pipe is a faithful reproduction of mid- 17th century based colonial-era pipe.
corncobpipe.com
Pipe for cigarette tobacco
I modified a Missouri Meerschaum clay pipe for cigarette tobacco use. https://corncobpipe.com/product/old-dominion-jamestowne-clay-pipe/ The original: I put the bowl and bit on a belt sander (180 grit) and took off some height of bowl, and length of bit. Hand sanded the sharp edges by hand...
jaredwyoung
Active Member
A horn shape made of osage orange and Japanese ebonite. There was a bore hole that went through the bowl, that I didn't see until I was nearly finished. I wound up finishing it for the sake of finishing, filled the hole from the inside with pipe mud. Used black epoxy to fill the void on the exterior.
Beautiful pipe.
Bob
Bob
jaredwyoung
Active Member
Thank you!
Redleaf
Well-Known Member
Jaredwyoung “wound up finishing it for the sake of finishing, filled the hole from the inside with pipe mud. Used black epoxy to fill the void on the exterior.”
On a wood turning forum I was offered some great advice about any flaws or errors on a project that had a flaw in it.
“Turn it into feature”
By doing so it may turn the flaw into appealing feature that makes the item more valuable.
Just a suggestion, you could engrave your initials or a makers mark into the black epoxy.
On a wood turning forum I was offered some great advice about any flaws or errors on a project that had a flaw in it.
“Turn it into feature”
By doing so it may turn the flaw into appealing feature that makes the item more valuable.
Just a suggestion, you could engrave your initials or a makers mark into the black epoxy.
jaredwyoung
Active Member
I like that idea! Along those same lines, someone had mentioned they had picked all of the filler out of an old factory pipe and refilled them with epoxy and brass dust. I've done that with a few of my own pipes, only with black.
Mikko
Member
kshamala
Member
A wonderful idea; I really liked it.Sitter CornCob Pipe
This pipe (almost completed) is made from one of the massive Boone County corn ears that BigBonner sent to me. The top of the bowl is the slightly flared bottom of the cob. With a 10" bamboo stem, the entire pipe weighs not much more than the stem and its bit. It's just light as a feather. Other than shelling the kernels off the cob, which I did last winter, this has consumed about 90 minutes of effort.
My segment of bamboo is from a set of untreated, bamboo tomato stakes. This is the small end. Although bamboo is hollow, there is a rigid partition at each node. I was unable to punch through them with a metal rod, so the final length of the bit was determined by the length of my drill bits. The segment could have only two nodes, and each node had to be close enough to its respective end to allow my hand-drill to bore the partition. So a 10" stem is what I got.
[It is possible to bend bamboo, but it requires many hours of steaming, plus torch heat while bending the sand-filled bamboo, and a jig that can hold the bend in place overnight. It might be worth the effort for a dozen or more stems, but not for a single stem.]
I used the same hand-drill to bore pilot holes for the tobacco hole and the angled smoke hole. Taking a wild guess about the final center of gravity, I sawed the bottom at an angle that would allow the pipe, both empty and packed with tobacco, to stand on its own.
To provide a more friendly bit to the stem, I added a small section of Tygon tubing (conveniently curved from its coil). It's just slipped snugly over the bamboo.
Using a hand-held, electric Dremel, I shaped the smoke hole to fit the base of the bamboo stem, which was then gently hammered into the cob. Despite careful shaping, the irregular structure of the cob still allowed an air leak at the stem base. I eliminated the leak with a seal of colorless Silicone Cement on the exterior.
Had this pipe been a more reasonable length, it would now be finished. But alas, Dremel bits are just too short to complete the interior of the bowl all the way to the bottom of the pilot hole. I still have about 3/4" to go. I couldn't locate my narrow rat-tail file, so I'll have to either search for it again, or purchase a new one.
I've had the materials to make this pipe for a long time. Youn inspired me to begin. So, thank you, Youn, and thank you BigBonner.
Some time next year, I will have a serious look at the corncobs I grew this past season.
Bob
