Let me be brutally honest in full disclosure, Click: first of all, I'm an idiot. So take this opinion FWIW. When I originally glanced at this thread, I thought you were just pointing out an odd pipe that you had found on the web somewhere. Hey! Look at this interesting find!
Yep! Never saw a pipe like this before and did not associate the term "steampunk" with this. It wasn't until your third post that I remembered that you also make pipes and were showing a new creation of your own.
THAT SAID and FWIW, I am liking the pipe even more with these new views! I am not into light yellow finishes as a rule but that is one damn gorgeous pipe. This might be the nicest pipe I have ever seen you make, both grain-wise and artistically. I THINK YOU NEED TO SEE AND HOLD THIS PIPE IN PERSON TO REALLY APPRECIATE IT.
Now the stupid part--- and this is really stupid, but the mechanical engineer part of me gets confused by all the little gears! I'm intrigued by them, but I have a hard time getting past the fact that they wouldn't actually work together as a machine. You cannot turn them and make them work. Does that make sense? I am very intrigued by the idea, but my brain has a problem with that. If left up to me, I say, on your next steampunk pipe project, I would use fewer, larger gears /that actually MOVE, TURN.
Some sort of lever, machine, mechanism, maybe a faux steam motif, maybe something that you turn and the pipe lights itself. Maybe you just turn it to fiddle with. A gear on each side connected through the bowl or maybe across the back. I'm just throwing out ideas.
If you can incorporate some sort of actually working vintage parts and make them part of the pipe, I think you might be on to something HUGE, guy! :mrgreen: