Here's something you don't see every day.
Someone sent me a Peterson's Giant freehand (no idea if old or new), that had no stem. So, I fixed it up with two of them. A straightforward replacement of normal size, and... a pre-war Chesterfield that was originally made for who knows what. Something seriously huge, for sure.
The pipe's owner knows the brand doesn't match but doesn't care. After seeing it, the idea of owning a convertible stem "Churchwarden-y Giant Freehand" was impossible to resist. :lol:
For scale, the "small" pipe in the photo is a full size Dunhill Grp. 4 that's sitting in the same plane as the Pete. (meaning no forced perspective like a fishing pic.)
What made the job difficult was that for whatever reason, the giant pipe DIDN'T have a correspondingly large tapered mortise. It apparently came with a stick bit of some sort. Which meant that the entire portion of the Chesterfield stem from the flare back had to be re-cut to a smaller diameter and different taper rate. With rod stock such cuts are no problem, but on a giant, pre-existing MOLDED stem (all P-lip stems are molded---they have to be) doing that is quite a tricky business. (It's also a good example of why pipe makers avoid pipe repair like the plague. Invisibly re-cutting the diameter and taper on something like that is an entirely different "shop animal" than what they deal with.)
Anyway, I bet it will smoke great. The stem's airway tapers from over a quarter inch (!) at the tenon end to normal size at the button. Seriously free breathing.
I included a close up of the stamping in case it's meaningful to you detective guys. That's all there is, too. Nothing more is stamped on the other side of the shank or the bottom.
.
Someone sent me a Peterson's Giant freehand (no idea if old or new), that had no stem. So, I fixed it up with two of them. A straightforward replacement of normal size, and... a pre-war Chesterfield that was originally made for who knows what. Something seriously huge, for sure.
The pipe's owner knows the brand doesn't match but doesn't care. After seeing it, the idea of owning a convertible stem "Churchwarden-y Giant Freehand" was impossible to resist. :lol:
For scale, the "small" pipe in the photo is a full size Dunhill Grp. 4 that's sitting in the same plane as the Pete. (meaning no forced perspective like a fishing pic.)
What made the job difficult was that for whatever reason, the giant pipe DIDN'T have a correspondingly large tapered mortise. It apparently came with a stick bit of some sort. Which meant that the entire portion of the Chesterfield stem from the flare back had to be re-cut to a smaller diameter and different taper rate. With rod stock such cuts are no problem, but on a giant, pre-existing MOLDED stem (all P-lip stems are molded---they have to be) doing that is quite a tricky business. (It's also a good example of why pipe makers avoid pipe repair like the plague. Invisibly re-cutting the diameter and taper on something like that is an entirely different "shop animal" than what they deal with.)
Anyway, I bet it will smoke great. The stem's airway tapers from over a quarter inch (!) at the tenon end to normal size at the button. Seriously free breathing.
I included a close up of the stamping in case it's meaningful to you detective guys. That's all there is, too. Nothing more is stamped on the other side of the shank or the bottom.
.
