Post #651389 by White Devil on Sun, Sep 9, 2012 7:58 PM

On 2012-09-08 11:26, MadDogMike wrote:
A few years back I looked into casting some ceramic tiki pipes. It seems like there would be a small market for them but I just can't seem to get motivated :D The carvers and the casters here have tikified practically every other object in the world, I'm not sure why no is doing pipes? White Devil, I look forward to see what you're working on.

I have a German ceramic pipe which seems to be Delftware I received as a gift in 1983, but I rarely use it because the bowl gets extremely hot. Too hot to hold for very long, in fact, so that might be one drawback to ceramic tobacco pipes (perhaps not for smaller bowls for other substances). The same is true for clay pipes: it takes much more clay or ceramic to insulate the heat from the fingers than briar or calabash. In fact, on most clay pipes you'll see a nib at the bottom of the bowl which dispenses the heat much faster, and is just large enough to use as a support for the lower end of the pipe. It may be that a stoneware bowl could be designed which is either much thicker, or has some sort of handle to dissipate heat.

I guess I should clarify that I'm not personally making the tiki pipes: I have been thinking about it for several years, but before investing a lot of money in tools I decided to try to enlist the real carvers who actually know what they're doing. I don't think they'll mind that I reveal the artisans ahead of time. Benzart is working on a Marquesan design, which he's modifying from a design I sent him. Also, I am determined to drag Basement Kahuna back into the tiki carving field, and so I figured the best way would be to start small. So BK is working up a variation on a Rarotongan pipe for me, and I hope these will be the first of many more.

[ Edited by: White Devil 2012-09-09 20:08 ]