The Square Wizard

Here is The Square Wizard. This a small bowl wizard freehand tobacco pipe that plays around with squares. The stem is a bamboo piece and the the tenon is reinforced with brass. The stem is not quite as long as my other churchwarden pipes but is sufficiently longer than a standard pipe stem.

I have been smoking british blend tobacco out of the "Bamboo Churchwarden" myself for several months now, testing out the the strength and quality of the bamboo as a stem material and have found it holds up well and is an enjoyable texture in the mouth.

Bamboo Churchwarden

I am experimenting with stems right now. The Bamboo Churchwarden is a fairly interesting tobacco pipe bowl with a long bamboo stem. I am smoking out of it to test how the bamboo will hold up. One thing I already have discovered is that you have to pull it straight out as the bamboo doesn't have the grain strength to twist out. The brass collar is attached to the stem and reinforces the tenon where it goes into the bowl. 

The New Dominion

The two tobacco pipes of The New Dominion were commissioned by a friend of mine (upon whose name dominion is a bit of a play) for himself and his brother. This has been the first set of pipes I have made. The two pipes are similar but with significant differences. I had given them three options to choose between and both brothers asked for the same thing but one wanted a churchwarden stem. I am thrilled  with the outcome. The shields with the initials in them came out particularly well. 

An Ordinary Churchwarden

I have just completed this ordinary Churchwarden that I am quite pleased with. It is a fairly ordinary design but there are a couple places where the briar looks spectacular. I made this pipe because I have been so caught up in odd shapes and interesting designs that I realized it had been a while since I tried my hand at an ordinary pipe. I was pleased to discover that I have improved considerably. 

On another note I just finished putting together a light box (light tent?) for shooting my photos in. The plans for the light box I got here. I still need to get a better light bulb for it and work out all the camera settings but my shots do look much cleaner this way. 

The Winding Path

The Winding Path is a marvelous churchwarden tobacco pipe inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's poem The Road Goes Ever On. I have wanted to start playing around with interior contours for a while and this piece of plateaux briar was just asking for it. The indentation and distressing of the path that winds from the top of the bowl to the bottom of the pipe with a small "y" veering off along the stem was a pleasant challenge and a rewarding effect.

I am quite satisfied with the interaction between the design and the wood especially as I was able to do away with a blemish by putting it in the distress.

Satellite

I have had this Satellite pipe in production for some time now and I am very excited to have finished it. It is loosely modeled off the Cassini Spacecraft. Although I turned the two little thruster engines into one massive engine which makes a fantastic bowl, and the Magnetometer became the Churchwarden like stem. You can take a look at the image I was using to design it here. This is my first pipe to incorporate some metal pieces into it's form. I used hollow brass rod and the mouth bit itself is Briar. The entire stem can be taken off the pipe just like any other pipe. 

I have never seen a pipe of this type before, but another friend of mine is a satellite guidance software engineer and was interested to see what I could do with the idea. I must say I rather like it. 

Gimli's Travel Pipe

Gimli's Travel pipe is a fairly simple sitter, a strong pipe with a wooden stem. The stem is maple instead of vulcanite. The bowl is straight grain plateaux briar. The briar is not stained and the stem is stained with a black stain. This is my first attempt at a wood stem and am quite satisfied with the result. It is also my first pipe with a stem I made on it. 

I call it Gimli's travel pipe, because despite what the movie would have us believe I don't really think that all the Lord of the Ring characters traveled with outrageously long Churchwardens. Sure, those are beautiful pipes but when you're walking for miles fighting with sword and ax, carrying all your own gear  you don't want to bring you churchwarden and risk breaking it. You need an old standard. something strong, pleasant to smoke and nice to look at and preferably shorter than your sword. None would have known this better than Gimli.

The Sexton's Churchwarden

It was suggested to me to try my hand again at a Churchwarden. The Sexton's Churchwarden is the result of that suggestion. On this churchwarden I played around with one of the distressing methods I'm working on. It is stained a beautiful deep red.

I have just finished a fantastic book, Lilith by George MacDonald. In it is the character of the Sexton who is Sexton to the Kingdom of Heaven and also happens to be Adam, the first man. The sexton duties is to  take the dead and makes them alive. In a small way a pipe takes dead leaves and makes them alive in a sort of ethereal manner.

The Rose

I would like to dedicate The Rose to my little sister, Christine. While I had the idea to do this pipe in my head she wrote a fairy tale for my birthday about a pipe maker who has to go on a quest to rescue a maiden. He would carve pipes for the people he met to look like the flowers he saw along his way (I will look into posting the story or a link).

 This was a wonderfully fun pipe to make. I spent a lot of time hand carving and hand sanding on top of the time I spent with the flex shaft engraver my wife gave me for my birthday. I am excited to finally complete it as I have been working on it in spurts for over a month. The Rose is my first completed Churchwarden. I spent a lot of time on the stain trying to get the green to be more green and less blue and I would consider myself to have been successful.