Since getting back from Paul's shop on Monday, I ve been trying to tie up loose ends before the start of our vacation on Feb 23. Due to bad weather our flight was cancelled and I m able to write this. Probably the most interesting sequence of pipes were three large Hawkbills that I made for Buzz Ruppelt. We had been discussing a number of design possibilities,one, which included a spiral shank. However, in the end, we decided to go with a group 6 rounded apple bowl.
After I made the first one ( middle pipe in the picture ) I posted it on my site under special orders for Buzz to see it due to incompatabilities in our e mail programs. He liked it so much he immediately asked me if I d make a twin except with a longer and chunkier shank. ( top pipe ) This became known as Monster hawk and was a "B" size designation.
The next morning I noticed that I had "sold" the original Hawk off the web catalog, to someone other than Buzz. It really wasn t for sale and I wrote Buzz about it and we had an on line LOL . I wrote the second fellow and told him the pipe wasn t for sale and I d make him another like it. Well the third one had really nice grain and I din t want to carve it. I contacted Buzz to see if he was interested in it. He was delighted with having two walnut smooths; so it was a win /win situation for all!
While at Pauls I picked up a rod of faux horn. really nice material for ferrules! Last week I had been playing with intregal ferrules in shanks. One problem I was having was that they were longer than I had wanted them to be. The ferrule has to be long enough to accomodate the tenon from the stem . I figured out a way around this by having one piece of delrin link the ferrule to the shank and also to serve as a tenon for the stem, similar to a Jobey type link. Here s the design as I want it to look for future pipes.
This pipe is in the web catalog as Special Design 16
Dan Merriman has been after me to make him another Lovat. I made him in 1996. This pipe had an extremely dense birdseye. He suggested I use Castello shape 75 as a model for this pipe. Well luckily Paul Bonaquisti had a few in his collection and I was able to study them. It s a very asymmetic shape tho it doesn t appear to be. The sides are almost a tenth of an inch flatter than the front or back. Also the back of the bowl tilts inward to the top of the bowl. But somehow it all works well together. I made a stab at it but didnt quite get the odd tilt on the back of the bowl.( This is available as Longshank 89 )
My last project for the week was copying some Teddy Knudsen shapes out of P&T magaziine. I think I came pretty close on the Octagon Poker and just eyeballing his four panel I didn t get enough height or width, but still a nice shape that I can improve next time.This pipes are shown unfinished. The Poker needs to be blasted and the 4 panel is available as Unique Bent 212
Weather permitting I ll be in Fla for the next week. Hope to have some new ideas on my return.
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