What's the inlay on the top?Wow. I didn't realize the "shape love" was so prevalent. I thought it was a hardcore collector Thing.
The visual magic happens when the stem is pushed to its limit in both size and bend but absolutely no further. Teetering on the brink of cartoonish---one step more and it would fall off the edge---but it never does no matter the viewing angle. Seriousness and dignity prevails.
As for how many pipes I've made, it's six or seven. Quinton Wells and I were going to team up to make lots of 'em in 2012 but it never happened for an assortment of reasons, and I still have some briar blocks from the project in a box under a desk.
Once in a while the urge strikes and I give it a go.
Here's a 90-degree side shot of the swanny I meant to include. Always the benchmark viewing angle when assessing line. (Oblique shots are sexier but less useful)
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You are talking to the standard shape junkies on this forum .Wow. I didn't realize the "shape love" was so prevalent. I thought it was a hardcore collector Thing.
The logo came about because I always thought pipes---Britshapes, at least---looked naked without something there, and every reasonable combination of colors, dots, and rings had already been taken. Also, stamps like Barling, Charatan, etc. weren't durable. (The world's Great Buffer Army has seen to that.)
An inlaid, semi-stylized half (third?) moon fit the bill.
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Not to be too nitpicky, but the bottom of the moon doesn’t look parallel to the stem face edge—is it just the camera angle and/or lens distortion making it look off?
Hoover assured me it's OK, though, and to carry on.
well if such a handsome beast is fine with it, then it can't be wrong. Though that face says is this going to effect the local fish supply???Ever notice how rarely the trademark is dead center on "dot logo" pipes?
It's because hitting dead center on the surface of a casually-shaped object AND have the "strike" have zero tilt as well as be axially aligned is pretty close to impossible to achieve manually more than half the time.
If the logo is a true circle/dot, the only resulting "damage" is the circle will be imperceptibly out of round (from half to maybe three ten-thousandths of an inch depending on dot diameter and stem diameter) . If the logo is anything other than a circle, though, evidence of the miss can usually be seen with the naked eye.
In the case of a half(ish) moon, the straight line across the bottom will tilt a smidge.
Hoover assured me it's OK, though, and to carry on. He likes it when I fuss over stuff. Especially his food.
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I have a question about the swan's neck—really more of a general question about pipes where the shape of the stem causes the rim to be canted when clenched. Most pipes are not perfectly level when clenched but is this more of an issue with the swan's neck?
Very true! I try to be the "collector" but end up being the "smoker" more often than I'd like. Thanks for the reply.Few pipe rims are dead level with the shank, and fewer still are held that way by the smoker when being lit.
How much the pipe's geometry adds to the tilt mostly depends on if you're a "one-handed clench lighter" or a two-handed "hold with one hand while lighting with the other" kinda guy.
Collectors tend to be the latter, while smokers who think of pipes mostly as tobacco access devices tend to be the former.
Pappymac's 151 is one of the coolest Dunhills I've ever seen.
Weirdly, the shape didn't survive long, reason unknown. You'd'a thunk people would have lined up around the block to buy 'em.
Check out the stamping on his specimen. Perfectly executed at the factory---level, straight, even depth, not too shallow, not too deep---and then perfectly preserved (for almost a century!):
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