Post #764025 by Bam Bam on Thu, May 19, 2016 9:47 PM

The pipe is finished!

The bowl is 1 1/8 inch across, and about an inch and a half deep. After several disastrous attempts at drilling out pipe stems for previous projects, I opted to go the Native American / bushpipe route by splitting the stem lengthwise, carving out a channel, and then binding the two halves together with a long strip of leather. The stem was then run under a hot tap to soak the leather, which with any luck will shrink slightly, binding the assembly even tighter.

It smokes reasonably well, despite getting a hot ember sucked into the back of my throat on the first big draw. Now that I've figured out how it likes to be packed, it works pretty well all things considered.

On 2016-05-19 18:13, MadDogMike wrote:
JB Weld? Hmmm... how does that blend with burning tobacco (or whatever you smoke in there)?

It's my understanding that it's been an acceptable way to fill interior cracks from a burnout - where you wouldn't want fumes from the Superglue+Sawdust combination commonly used to fill exterior cracks. Supposedly it's pretty inert.

I may not actually fill the cracks, after giving it a test drive. I can't honestly see myself filling the entire bowl (about a quarter-cup!) and there is just enough solid wood at the bottom to fill for an average sit-on-the-back-porch-and-stare-at-the-moon smoke.