To fill or not to fill? That’s the question.

[UB 40]

@Brendan it should smoke nice, as said before maybe the preformed stem is a surprise. The Scottish Mixture is my daily choice because I can’t get not a lot of nice tobaccos here in South Africa. Ok there is a place with certain Peterson range, but all are Latakias.

The Davidoff is mild with the Whiskey far enough in the background. Almost no tongue bite.

When I am going back to northern hemisphere I will smoke again my certain Perique cones, some Virginias, like Hamborger Veermaster and all the other really excellent tobaccos I can’t get here.

 

[greysmoke]

Peterson, that most cantankerous of pipe makers, uses putty with abandon. This is a Sherlock Holmes. "Just slap some putty in there and call it a day." As for me, I don't care.

 

[Honkytonk Man]

Good job, for your first bulldog. It really doesn't look too bad, with the fills.

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

Turned out great man. Nice color, elegant shape, beautiful grain. All around, well done sir.

 

[jhowell]

Stunning grain...

 

[bullet08]

And here’s the pipe, stained with dark brown leather stain. I filled up the holes as @didimauw described. I just wanted to learn something new to me in pipe making. Fillings with dust and super glue is difficult to control in its hues it turns out dark brown in this case. I stained it twice to achieve what I had in mind. Now it’s one of my darkest pipes ever. But taking a closer look in sunlight there’s still a lot going on. Besides the wood showing off some decent holes it’s a nice peace of ebauchon.

The finish on the stummel is just polishing by hand with a last coat of furniture wax (do not have my workshop as I do in the northern hemisphere with buffing wheel compounds and carnauba.

The stem is sanded with grid from 400 upwards to 2000 and finished with nail polishing accessories and a last buff with liquid brass polish. „Brasso“ has done the job as good as any wheel would’ve done it.

View attachment 198908View attachment 198909View attachment 198910View attachment 198911View attachment 198912

That came out very nice!

 

[UB 40]

UB 40:

I believe that you (and Mr. Wagner) are on the right track in opening the airway. In another thread, I posted the following today:



Please let us know how this pipe smokes once your have finished it.

Didn’t smoke it yet, because it’s huge bowl, I prefer smaller ones. But the day will come.

 

[UB 40]

Love it in the sunlight, hope it smokes as good as it looks!

How do you like that Scottish Mixture?
I keep a tin handy in my kitchen for a quick, change of pace smoke. I get the Scotch whisky flavour in the after-taste.

Great looking pipe, fills don't worry me none, unless they are a different colour to the stain.

Fills don’t worry me either they melt in the grain.

 

[UB 40]

Stunning grain...

Yes the grain is really stunning. A lot going on there, glad it wasn’t a plateau.

 

[woodrow]

That’s a great job on that fill. I’ve tried a number of products. Thus far the one I like is LePages Plastic Wood. No water clean up.

 

[UB 40]

First smoke in my last homemade now, „University Flake“. It smokes just fine as expected from a 4 mm drilling and a deep v- slot in the internals of the stem.