Carving Animal Shapes from Briar

octaviusasshammer · Jun 25, 2012

so i'm playing around with the idea of carving my first pipe and i figured why not make my first one as difficult as possible?...anyone have any experience with animal shapes i.e. faces and such?...i've heard that briar is very hard...is this feasible?...was going to try and go the meerschaum route but found out that it is not legal to buy large raw meer...looked to the ends of the internet and all i could find on the subject was from ehow.com which i figured is straight shite...thanks for the help!!!

barkar · Jun 25, 2012

I have one pipe that is the shape of a bulls head. Never smoke it though.

martiniman · Jun 25, 2012

Meerschaum kit
Briar kits
Nording kits
alot of them out there if you look hard enough.... :D
P.S. Welcome aboard and when your done you need to post pictures.

wayneteipen · Jun 25, 2012

You can do it but you'll probably have an easier time with a rotary tool with various bits to do the carving. Briar is very hard and dense and isn't easy to shape with traditional carving chisels and tools.

octaviusasshammer · Jun 25, 2012

martiniman...found that meerschaum kit but it is not big enough for what i want to do...i would have to get a block of briar at least around 3-4 inches in height...which i've already found...thanks though

lonestar · Jun 25, 2012

One Word ; Very sharp high quality tools........ Ok, so thats 5 words, doesn't matter, thats what you will need to have.

Very good steel carving tools that take and hold a razor sharp edge.... and those are pricey :D

Good Luck, post pics !

tiltjlp · Jun 26, 2012

Wally Frank used to offer figurals, both animal and people, in their catalogs for years, so it's possible. Good luck.

docwatson · Jun 26, 2012

BAC Art Pipes has some incredible animal carvings. Truly museum quality renderings IMO. I have a wild boar carving that is spectacular and will post some photos in the near future. Just like Lonestar says, you need razor sharp chisels and knives no different than those used for engraving steel.

octaviusasshammer · Jun 27, 2012

@docwatson...museum quality indeed...i'd really like to see that wild boar carve you were talking about...thanks for the info...okay so really sharp, really expensive tools (wife won't be happy with that)...think i'll take more than a few practice runs with some fairly pliaple wood and once i get an idea of what i want i can take the plunge...thanks for the posts so far

lonestar · Jun 27, 2012

Flexcut is a good brand of carving knives that arent terribly expensive compared others. You'll pay maybe $30 per knife and probably want at least a set of 3 to do much detail. Also need a good way to keep them sharp, diamond hones are pretty good and a good leather strop with compound.

That would be the direction I would start for good results.

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