So about a year ago I was on Skype with Chris Morgan (premium pipe maker) and pipe carver Scott Harris (Sparkys Pipes). Chris had these old pipes, I think he called them stemals, in a large jar in his shop. These old pipes were roughly carved about 50-60 years ago and were in different shapes (brandy, bulldog, dublin etc.). He sent me a billiard shaped pipe along with a vulcanite stem that looked like it came straight out of the press as it still had the rough edges on it. Now I'm no pipe carver/maker so it sat in my shop in two pieces until last week. Last week I went to Scott's house as we were having our annual NW Pipe Meet Up and while hanging out with Scott together we turned that rough pipe and stem into a real smoking pipe.
Scott drilled out the stem and tapered it, I filed the stem down, flared out the draft hole, I filed down the rough edges of the pipe and sanded down the shank on Scott's lathe and then filed it down more to fit a brass band on it. He used his sand blaster to put a blast finish on the pipe. I stained it and then polished the pipe and stem on the buffer with Scott's help. I went with the blast finish as there were two pits in the pipe. My friend that was with me dubbed the pipe the "Raining Blood Billiard" after Slayer's song Raining Blood. As I'm a Metalhead and I used an Ox Blood stain on the pipe it seemed appropriate.
Here are a few pictures of the making of my pipe. It smokes great with a perfect and effortless draw and smokes cool.
Scott drilled out the stem and tapered it, I filed the stem down, flared out the draft hole, I filed down the rough edges of the pipe and sanded down the shank on Scott's lathe and then filed it down more to fit a brass band on it. He used his sand blaster to put a blast finish on the pipe. I stained it and then polished the pipe and stem on the buffer with Scott's help. I went with the blast finish as there were two pits in the pipe. My friend that was with me dubbed the pipe the "Raining Blood Billiard" after Slayer's song Raining Blood. As I'm a Metalhead and I used an Ox Blood stain on the pipe it seemed appropriate.
Here are a few pictures of the making of my pipe. It smokes great with a perfect and effortless draw and smokes cool.