It's Christmas!

A few times a year, I become like a little boy before Christmas. I check the post box every day, the excitement starts building. During the second week, I start checking twice a day. A parcel from the Mediterranean normally take 2 to 3 weeks. With every sound I hear from the street, I get up to go see if it is not the postman.

 Then I start getting anxious. Can it be that it got lost somewhere? Maybe the plane carrying the parcel fell into the sea? Maybe customs opened it and thought that it is firewood?

 Then one day, when I least expect it, there it is! The important little piece of paper from the Post office, with my name on it and saying that I have a parcel that I need to come collect.

 All plans for the day jump out of the window, pushed and shoved away. Nothing is more important now! With my heart racing, the keys get grabbed from the table and I get into the pick-up, tyres screeching around the corners. It's here, it's here!

 If it weren't for my ears, my smile would meet at the back of my head! I bounce into the Post Office, get the parcel and race back home. Pour myself a coffee, savour the moment and then opens the box to see what my wonderful friend have thrown my way this time!

I can do without my birthday. I can even do without Christmas. You can kill my dog, steal my food, crash into my car. But do not ever attempt to take this away from me!

Birdseye

I have a commissioned elephant's foot that I am working on at the moment. When push comes to shove, I really prefer straight grain or flame grain, but this birdseye is really something, hey?

 It is such a pleasure working with briar, so many possibilities with this type of grain. Just imagine all pipes being made from, well, for example, meranti or oak? Boring.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose

I had this volcano that needed to be blasted. Some beautiful grain made me anxious to see what the blast would  look like.

 The blast turned out stunning.

 But the airway showing up was not..

 I knew the airway was quite close to the top of the shank, but didn't think it was this close!

 Wouldn't you cry?

On the bench

I came into the shop the other day, had one look at the bench and promptly decided that a picture needs to be taken of this mess! Half a stummel and a block of briar is the only indication that this is the bench of a pipemaker.

 But lets move on to the pipes that I currently am busy with. These pipes have been cut from the same block of briar.

 The volcano was shaped first and then drilled.  The briar have beautiful grain, but a couple of flaws, very small but in strategic places, will necessitate sandblasting. I can't wait to see how the briar faerie will flourish her wand! You can see one of these flaws on the backside of the bowl in the photo below.

The other pipe is a dublin bamboo. Although I don't really make a lot of dublins, it is one of my favourite standard shapes. As with the volcano, this one will also be blasted. Small pinprick flaws on the back of the bowl and also a couple on the bottom.

The windowdressers

As a pipesmoker, through the years you accumulate pipes. You buy, you trade, you get pipes from friends. And eventually you end up with a lot of pipe "memorabilia", if you can call it that.
A small selection of these are pipes that end up on your pipe rack, but won't be smoked. They are for looks, for window dressing.

 The above pipe you often get in curio shops here in South Africa. It is made from African blackwood and this particular one my wife bought me when she was on a business trip in Mozambique. The airway follows that kink in the shank, but I have no idea how this is accomplished. It's never been smoked and I will also not try. But it will stay on the pipe rack.

 This pipe I found in a 2nd hand shop. Pawn-, antique or secondhand shops: I just can't resist the lure. You never know what you'll find, as in this case.
It's a porcelain pipe made in Holland that I got for R20 (about $2). The bowl heats up quickly and the draw is terrible. But it is beautiful to look at, hey?

 This one is Tyrolean. All those fancy bits and pieces of the stem can unscrew. The windcap is a bit skew and the stummel even sports some stars! As with the Dutch pipe, it smokes horrible, but it does have some sort of pipe history to it, so it will stay!

In Lithuanian folklore the devil is quite prominent and they even have a museum dedicated to all sort of devil memorabilia. This pipe was bought by my wife when last she went to visit her parents. The wood it is made from is very soft, one of the many reasons that deter me from smoking it. It has been carved beautifully though and will always have a special place close to the pipe rack.

Commissioned rhodesian: a couple of process photos

I recently did a commission for a gentleman and along the way I took a couple of photos. In general, I'm not very good at remembering to do that. I get into the "muse" and too late think: Ha, I should have taken a pic of that step!

But well, I thought someone would think it's interesting.

 The above photo is of the stummel after the lathe work is finished, with rough shaping started. I normally get it to this stage before deciding on stem length, -shape, etc. There's nothing concrete yet, but the rough idea is there.

Here the drilled stem has been added. I first check that the stem/shank junction is good and then go between the 16 and the 60 grit disc, to get the shape I want going.
This is also the stage I hate the most. The pipe looks like a blob, like a toddler's play dough. It's up to me, what I "see" in my mind, my hands and the sanding disc to try and coax the shape from the briar.

At this stage rough shaping is finished and I have started with sanding at 150 grit by hand. It's starting to look more like a pipe now. This is also the time where the "fine tuning" start. Thinning the shank a bit, taking a bit more off the heel of the stummel, getting symmetry, working on the flow.

And eventually, something like the above will be the result. It always amazes me that in this process, where we take a block of wood and a round piece of rod, something as graceful and flowing as this, can be made.
Every pipe is a little miracle.

Something from nothing

I've had this stummel lying on the bench for over a year now, but being the frugal person I am, I did not want to throw it away. I was hoping that one day I'll be able to do something resembling a pipe with it. As you can see in the first photo, in the mean time I even used it to try out different staining techniques.

Originally, the bottom of the bowl was much sharper and lower, the rim was convex and the chamber drilled, but not the airway. I flattened the top and took away the pointy bottom. Then I drilled the airway, along with a mortise to accept a stainless steel tenon.

This photo above is before final wax and polish. And the following photo is the final result.

 I must say in all honesty that I did not expect the grain to be that good! Perfect flamegrain all around, with a bit of birdseye on the bottom and of course the rim. Except for one small blemish on the rim and a pinprick on the bottom, this would have been spotless. But alas, briar is a natural product!
More photos and specifications on my website at http://www.goussardpipes.com/.