Twilight Zone Time..... This Pipe Will Pass a Cleaner

[georged]

Double fun ---

The airway is not huge in diameter and impossible to clean because it's shaggy-rough on the sides---which is the calling card of a peck drill---but normal-sized and smooth.

 

[alaskanpiper]

That thing is kookoo doodoo nutsac bananas.

 

[georged]

That thing is kookoo doodoo nutsac bananas.

 

[SmokeRings79]

Beautiful pipe. Enjoy!

 

[kcghost]

Who in hell did you get that pipe from?? To me it is kind of homely.

 

[orlandofurioso]

Wonderful pipe George.
The word "eclectic" comes to mind; who's its creator ?

 

[captpat]

That's a great looking shape

 

[ssjones]

Is the white (acrylic?) extension drilled first, then bent to that shape?

 

[LotusEater]

Elevated Frankenpipe
I love it!!

 

[orlandofurioso]

David Wagner ?!

 

[solideogloria86]

Is the white (acrylic?) extension drilled first, then bent to that shape?

Looks like boxwood to me. Could be wrong.

 

[orlandofurioso]

Yep, boxwood ( I think ) .

 

[jpmcwjr]

Wow! (for the pipe)

Is the white part acrylic or other non-wood material?

Is the "extension" of the stem a different wood, or briar?

 

[bullet08]

Wow! (for the pipe)

Is the white part acrylic or other non-wood material?

Is the "extension" of the stem a different wood, or briar?

Possibly boxwood? I can see how the draft hole is dead center on the bottom of the chamber, but it must be a great skill to line up the shank and bowl to pass the cleaner. Could have been done separately then glued on later, still..

 

[didimauw]

Sheesh, I can't even get one of my basic bent meers to pass a cleaner.....without the stem attached.....

 

[doug535]

Yes it is a boxwood shank. There was a fair amount of planning to get everything to line up and the draught actually comes in at the front. Yes, it does pass a chuchwarden cleaner with a lil twist at the very last to get into the bowl. It will be in Las Vegas this weekend at the show.

 

[georged]

Wonderful pipe George.
The word "eclectic" comes to mind; who's its creator ?

I see he beat me to it.

It's Doug Finlay from the KC club.

I posted the pipe because of its technical insanity + flawless execution of that insanity.

I've been in the PipeWorld a long time, and figured I was decades past seeing something truly new.

Not so, obviously.

The fun part for me is watching technical and engineering brilliance "happen in the same human" as aesthetic ability. Design and artistic originality. That's VERY rare. (the right brain / left brain separation usually precludes it)

 

[mso489]

That's a unique pipe, very distinctive, and it clearly took a lot of craft and knowhow to carve it. Despite that, it has a lot of traditional aspects and a certain amount of formality to it, the big sedate bowl, and the deep bent shank and stem.

 

[georged]

...and the deep bent shank and stem.

Doug nailed the stem bend for sure.

It's an absolutely spot-on "swan neck" curve. The same as what appeared for several years during the 1920s on Dunhill LC, CK, 120, and couple other shapes. (The aesthetic bloomed into a full-on architecture and design movement called Streamline Moderne by the 1930s.)

How popular is the look? True swan neck Dunhills routinely bring a 50% to 100% higher price than non-swan-necked pipes that are equally good in every other way.

Why are they rare, then, you ask? As in, if people for the past century have liked the look why not just make more? Because the guy who did it (apparently) left the company in 1928, and no one else was up to the task.

Or has been since.

Trust me... getting that shape right is NOT just a matter of knowing how to manipulate heat-softened material. That alone will NOT do the job. The stem must be carved, then bent, then carved some more, then bent some more, then carved some more.

And difficulty goes up exponentially as diameter increases and as length decreases.

It's really quite insane.

Way to go, Doug.

 

[hawky454]

Very impressive! Just getting that shape down would be extremely hard, not to mention the drilling.

I’m curious, how would you describe peck drilling? I googled it but from what I read, I don’t really understand how that can be done on a shank of a pipe and why does it make the sides shaggy and rough? I imagine that could cause issues on the smoke stream?