A few months ago I picked up a sad old Ropp Edil shape 179 from eBay. The rim was burnt, the sides covered with tiny dents and the color was a dull dark brown with almost no grain showing. On top of that, once I started cleaning it, I found no less that 6 fills in random spots around the bowl and shank. Add to that the odd dent that was too deep to steam out. So what to do?
So I decided to try something different.
I cleaned out the fills to remove the old putty, sketched a continuous sinuous line around the pipe that connected all the holes and dents, Dremelled in a groove along the sketched line and filled it with brass, taking my inspiration from the Japanese pottery tradition of kintsugi. Some contrast staining later and after a coat of carnuba, she looks like new.
My wife says it looks like a pipe for an elve. There is certainly something archetypal in it, maybe the path of life, maybe something snake like, maybe smoke. I am quite happy with the outcome. A sad little pipe that was ready to be discarded has a new life
So I decided to try something different.
I cleaned out the fills to remove the old putty, sketched a continuous sinuous line around the pipe that connected all the holes and dents, Dremelled in a groove along the sketched line and filled it with brass, taking my inspiration from the Japanese pottery tradition of kintsugi. Some contrast staining later and after a coat of carnuba, she looks like new.
My wife says it looks like a pipe for an elve. There is certainly something archetypal in it, maybe the path of life, maybe something snake like, maybe smoke. I am quite happy with the outcome. A sad little pipe that was ready to be discarded has a new life
