Had a Cutom Pipe Made, Not Happy With the Outcome, Thoughts?

[easterntraveler]

At this time no one has judge there customer service.

 

[warren]

If I order a pipe from someone who has agreed to certain specs, I expect those specs to be met. If I tell a maker to build me a pipe to his specs then I'm up for whatever his creative mind conjures up. Big difference. My understanding of the OP is that the vendor agreed to a pipe meeting the customer's specs, implicit is that the maker could perform. The maker agreed, asked for the specs and, from the look of the finished product, simply winged it.
I suspect the vendor will make things right. At least that is their reputation here, I believe.

 

[mcitinner1]

I'd be asking for my money back.

 

[easterntraveler]

That was my issue. This was agreed on. I am waiting to hear back from them and as I stated above, I am sure they have not had ample time to assess and respond. I do appreciate everyone chiming in on the discussion.

 

[elbert]

I agree, Warren. With everything you just said.

Of course the maker should have known better than to take the job, especially if they weren't going to accept your offer to send them the original. That was the BIG mistake, in my view. They really had no business "replicating" a pipe of such an unusual shape that they had never handled.

This was from my first post. I'm honestly not sure anyone actually read it...

 

[davet]

They " goofed " not you. I would not be satisfied with that, not even close 8O

 

[elbert]

http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/the-gentleman-smoker/a-good-white-shirt-and-pipe-commissions/
There's a link to the article I mentioned. I should have provided that earlier. I offer it only as food for thought. Good luck!

 

[shaintiques]

How about a pic of the pipe assembled next to the other one. It is obvious from the photos you posted that it is different but just how different we need to see the whole pipe.

 

[warren]

Meerschaum is a different animal than brier, obviously. The mineral can be carved into almost any shape without much if any consideration to imperfections and certainly no worry about the innate weaknesses of wood with regard to grain. So, my thinking would be that if a shape is attainable in brier it should be fairly simple for a good carver to replicate, nearly exactly in meerschaum.
Not being a carver I am certainly open to correction. I do some work with wood and understand its strengths and weaknesses. Meerschaum seems to me to be akin to sculpting a chunk of properly prepared clay or ceramic.

 

[elbert]

Steve does mention grain in the article, Warren, but that's a very small part of a much broader thesis. The meat of it for me is here;

The cell rings and a collector says," I really like your upside down billiard blowfish I saw on the Uber Pipes web gallery. Could you make me something along that line? I really like your approach to pipes, so feel free to make changes if you are so inspired".
This is the ideal commission request. He is asking you for a pipe because he appreciates your aesthetic. You both agree on a budget range for the pipe, with the understanding that should the pipe change markedly from the general guidelines, the collector will be informed and photos provided as necessary and he is no longer under any obligation to purchase. Obviously the pipe maker wishes to make the collector happy, so he would not want to abuse the trust that has been placed in him.

That part I put in bold seems especially relevant here. Again, I do fault the carver. But the usual caveat emptor applies.
None of this is helping easterntraveler, however. Nothing left to do there but wait for the company to respond.

 

[easterntraveler]

This is the email I sent to them....
I had a custom meerschaum pipe, that was suppose to be a replica of a briar pipe. Unfortunately there are a few things wrong with this pipe and I feel I have wasted $260. The pipes shape looks nothing like the photos you asked for and the shank appears to be damaged. In fact I believe someone knew this be cause there is this random silver piece that "covers" the noticeable flaw. You also sent me a stem to turn it into a churchwarden which would have been really cool. Unfortunately the "tip" of the tip does not fit into the shank. It would be impossible to smoke. Overall I am greatly disappointed. I have attached picture showing you the flaws and errors made in this pipe. For as much as your companies advertises on a forum I frequent. This is a real let down."
This is what they responded with...
Hi Chris,

I noticed that shape was different when i saw the pipe.
You turned the wrong direction when removing the short stem.you need to turn the stem in clockwise direction so the plastic white adapter needs to be stayed on the pipe side

Then you can put the long stem and use it.

Always when removing or installing the stems you need to turn them in clock wise

Also the extension was not designed for removing
But as a summary I agree that shape is not same as the picture......
There was nothing mentioned as to fixing my issues. So I responded as to what my options are in the matter. Really bothers me that the customer service rep acknowledges seeing the pipe and knowing it was wrong. I was not contacted in any way other then to the tracking ingormation.

 

[calabashed]

At least they acknowledged it's wrong, good luck hope they do right by ya!

 

[lonestar]

Wow that really sucks ! It is so different, almost makes me think they found one on the shelf that almost sort of looked like yours a little and stuck that in the box instead of making one for you. If that was a guy sitting down and trying to copy the original, he did an absolutely piss poor job of it. Nothing is the same at all on the two pipes. If he got a short verbal description of the pipe instead of a picture, maybe it makes more sense.

 

[andrew]

260$ is alot for a pipe that isn't what you asked for. You could of got a nice meer cheaper than that in a shape you didn't have a custom job on. I would hope they would either refund you or should you decide to keep it at least give you half of your money back.

 

[gogosamgo]

Yeah definitely fight for a refund, but if they refuse I would use their email of accepting fault to submit a claim with your credit card company. I did that once in the past to get my money back, and though it was a pain, I finally got my money refunded.

 

[ssjones]

Hope you didn't pay total price before seeing and approving the pipe. Anyone, including contractors, retailers wanting full price before delivery and approval are out of luck with me. Always hold at least half back when ordering custom once the price is determined. I'm also a big fan of progress reports and photos.

You paid up front, a mistake, in my opinion. A refundable deposit is the most I can do on a commission.
Did you get pictures of the completed pipe with the option to turn it down? (If not, a mistake)
I've only done a few commissions, always to a specific shape. In both cases, I've gotten progress pictures and the option to not buy the finished pipe. Of course the vendor sent finished pictures of the pipe, so that was an easy decision.

 

[meerqueen]

Hi,

As i see there is a unfair court here

After the customer send his email we have sent three emails to him.he mentioned the first one here but after one minute later from our first email our collegue Natalie wrote the below email:
"Hi again,
Also we make thousand custom pipes per year but in this work we dont feel that we do the good work.

We can refund the money to you.
Best Regards,

Natalie"
We accept that we did not make a good work here and offer a full refund already in the beginning.

I dont know why he did not mentioned these emails

Sometimes there may be bad work in thousands of good works.the important thing is that to accept this i believe.

We have been in business since 1963 and sponsor of this forum for a long time.

I believe we do not deserve such attitudes

Regards,

Bahadir

 

[woodsroad]

We really have no idea exactly what went down here, since we do not have all of the details from both sides of the transaction, but I will say this: The OP should have contacted the vendor and waited for a resolution (or non-resolution) before posting here.

 

[meerqueen]

I agree

 

[bigpond]

I'm sure Bahadir will resolve the issue for you to your satisfaction. Mistakes happen, but it's unfortunate that they recognized the problem with the pipe and decided it was still good enough to ship making their mistake your problem.