Hi all of you who happened to stumble on this first post of mine!
I have not been a pipe smoker for long - maybe a year or so - but have already managed to get hooked on corn cobs, mainly thanks to a YouTube user called Hilman and his videos.
My first custom pipe
Half a year ago, when I was in touch with Missouri Meerschaum asking for a non-filtered Diplomat, I learned that they make custom pipes. Inspired by the Stanwell Featherweight no 245, I decided to draw a sketch of a poker style Diplomat in the 5th Ave. bowl shape:
I sent an e-mail to Marilyn, describing that I was looking for a darkly stained, straight stemmed, 5th Ave Diplomat with tilted bottom. She responded a few days later that she had showed it to her General Manager (Phil Morgan, I believe) who had given the project the green light. Happy to hear this, I told her I wanted to place an order.
Own customizations
When the pipe arrived it had the basic light, wooden stem with the kernel pattern they use on most of their pipe stems. Since it was quite a big contrast between the light stem and the dark bowl, I did the same thing I had done to my Country Gentleman: I grabbed a ProMarker (Cool Grey #4) and painted the whole stem dark. I also painted the bottom of the bowl (after I had sanded it a bit to make the pipe more steady when standing):
This made everything match better to the colour of the corn cob itself and my pipe kept this configuration for several months, until yesterday night, when I just could not fall to sleep.
In the middle of the night I suddenly realized I had to do a final customization: The stem needed a better matching corn cob pattern! I got up, took a regular, thin pointed marker pen and started drawing. The bowl's pattern is very different on the right side compared the left, as you soon will see, and I wanted this to be seen on the stem too. I did my best cob doodling and after a while it looked like this from the right:
...and like this from the left:
The difference on the pattern on the sides are, indeed, quite visible!
Ofcourse, there has to be a transitional area, which would be the back of the bowl:
With some doodling the stem ended up looking like this:
Eventhough the pattern is far from a professional customization, and eventhough it might make some of you cry out: "What have you done!!? My eyes! My eyes!", I am happy with it. It makes the whole pipe more complete I think. Those of you who have very colour sensitive eyes will notice a hint of blue - the first marker pen I used looked black but turned out to be very dark blue. I tried to fix this today with a completely black pen. It is good enough, I guess! Loyal MM customers will also notice one thing is missing: The MM stamp at the bottom. It is a pitty they left it out on this pipe, but on the other hand I would not have been able to sand the bottom: It is much more stable now.
Oh, yes: As you probably have noticed, I also dipped the straight bit into boiling hot water and gave it a slight bend!
Have any thoughts, questions or opinions? Just let me know! Meanwhile the pipe will be resting on my smoking table:
Cheers!
I have not been a pipe smoker for long - maybe a year or so - but have already managed to get hooked on corn cobs, mainly thanks to a YouTube user called Hilman and his videos.
My first custom pipe
Half a year ago, when I was in touch with Missouri Meerschaum asking for a non-filtered Diplomat, I learned that they make custom pipes. Inspired by the Stanwell Featherweight no 245, I decided to draw a sketch of a poker style Diplomat in the 5th Ave. bowl shape:
I sent an e-mail to Marilyn, describing that I was looking for a darkly stained, straight stemmed, 5th Ave Diplomat with tilted bottom. She responded a few days later that she had showed it to her General Manager (Phil Morgan, I believe) who had given the project the green light. Happy to hear this, I told her I wanted to place an order.
Own customizations
When the pipe arrived it had the basic light, wooden stem with the kernel pattern they use on most of their pipe stems. Since it was quite a big contrast between the light stem and the dark bowl, I did the same thing I had done to my Country Gentleman: I grabbed a ProMarker (Cool Grey #4) and painted the whole stem dark. I also painted the bottom of the bowl (after I had sanded it a bit to make the pipe more steady when standing):
This made everything match better to the colour of the corn cob itself and my pipe kept this configuration for several months, until yesterday night, when I just could not fall to sleep.
In the middle of the night I suddenly realized I had to do a final customization: The stem needed a better matching corn cob pattern! I got up, took a regular, thin pointed marker pen and started drawing. The bowl's pattern is very different on the right side compared the left, as you soon will see, and I wanted this to be seen on the stem too. I did my best cob doodling and after a while it looked like this from the right:
...and like this from the left:
The difference on the pattern on the sides are, indeed, quite visible!
Ofcourse, there has to be a transitional area, which would be the back of the bowl:
With some doodling the stem ended up looking like this:
Eventhough the pattern is far from a professional customization, and eventhough it might make some of you cry out: "What have you done!!? My eyes! My eyes!", I am happy with it. It makes the whole pipe more complete I think. Those of you who have very colour sensitive eyes will notice a hint of blue - the first marker pen I used looked black but turned out to be very dark blue. I tried to fix this today with a completely black pen. It is good enough, I guess! Loyal MM customers will also notice one thing is missing: The MM stamp at the bottom. It is a pitty they left it out on this pipe, but on the other hand I would not have been able to sand the bottom: It is much more stable now.
Oh, yes: As you probably have noticed, I also dipped the straight bit into boiling hot water and gave it a slight bend!
Have any thoughts, questions or opinions? Just let me know! Meanwhile the pipe will be resting on my smoking table:
Cheers!
:
