Beautiful, especially the blasting. I was trying to find a place for a pin to hold the bamboo to the stummel, but I didn't see any. After a post you made last year about the Dunhill bamboos, I've been checking out all bamboos to see if they have any.
This is absolutely stunning as a whole, but I am curious,
@georged , does the bamboo connection have something that I am missing that elevates this one above all of the other bamboo pipes? Your post last year seamed to suggest that artisan bamboos were sub-par. Or, did I just misinterpret what you were saying last year?
Dunhill's pinning method of bamboo attachment is definitely mechanically superior. There is only one way to do it, and failure of the connection is literally impossible unless the strength of the materials is exceed. Also, it does not degrade over time.
Using metal tubing and adhesives falls on a spectrum. If you are mechanically minded, understand the stresses and tolerances involved,
and the properties of the bamboo and metal tubing being used,
and the properties of the adhesive used,
and mix it correctly in both time and proportion,
and it hasn't exceeded it's shelf date,
and the joint wasn't moved before full cure was achieved---the end result is solid. If you don't, the pipe comes apart. (And fixing it will be a major PITA for many reasons).
The root problem is a percentage of pipemakers are "shape imaginers" first and concern themselves little with technical stuff. "Make it look like X, and make sure it has a short fat hole in it connected to a long thin one" is the entirety of the situation in their mind.
Their bamboo pipes come apart.
Those carvers who understand that pipes are quasi-mechanical tools, not just static 3D exhibits, and do all the right stuff when designing and putting together multi-component ones, do
not have their bamboo pipes come apart.
Doug is 100% one of the latter. (Arguably the benchmark... he's been a professional auto/shop mechanic for a third of a century.)
