Made my first pipe!!!!!

I am truly happy for you mate :)

You seem very pleased, and enjoying yourself, with such joy I am sure the pipe is great :)

Looking forward for the pics

Excellent Olivier!

I'm far too concerned about my fingers, so I'm going to leave the carving of my next puffer in the capable hands of people such as yourself. Glad to hear your first pipe was a roaring success.

I too look forward to seeing some pictures of the briar wonder.

to say that was pretty quick for someone that didn't have the time.

Congradulations and may the Briar god find favor with your offering.

Congrats!! Looking forward to seeing some pics as well.

Stop teasing!

Post your pics!

I can't figure out how to post a pic. Please help! I'm a bit technologically retarded.

Check your mail.

Sorry to dissapoint you. The wood is Wild Olive and not Brair as everyone expected. The rest is bronze and I really can't tell what the stem is made of.

Thanks for the help ckr. I eventually got it right after about an hour but here we go. The pipe is shown on the block of wood I used for making it. IMO the bowl is a bit too small but I encountered a little hole in the rim of the bowl and had to shorten it to get rid of the hole. I already smoked the bowl empty 5 times without cleaning the pipe to see if the gootrap is sufficient and up to now it didn't gurgle or spit once! Surely there's a few more little mistakes but the next attempt will definitely be better.

All comment (good or bad) is most welcome.

I will get better pics next week.

Damn!

good looking pipe :)

I'm glad we didn't have that pipe-making competition! It looks great, Andre. The wood is superb - wild olive always has remarkable figure. The bowl shape is atypical with its slope towards the stem. But very pleasing to the eye. I'd love to see more detail of the metalwork - it looks like something quite special. My overall impression is Elegant. Well done!

Bet it fells good to put that in your kisser. Now get going, you got 5 orders.

Is that what I think it is under the block of wood?

Great looking pipe there!!

I'll be tyring my hand at it pretty soon, but I don't expect anywhere near the results you got. Good job!!!

No apoligy needed for using olive wood - I love the color variations in the wood. I like the transition of the curve of the stem into the reverse curved top of the shank to the bowl! Way nice job.

Now ... a question ... BRONZE! Really??? I've never seen a pipe with a bronze stem treatment. Way cool. How are you going to stop it from turing green with age?

I've never seen a pipe made of olive wood but I must say the grain is fantastic.

ckr if you're thinking "crocodile" you are spot on. I use it for sheath inlays from time to time.

Rick, I'm not too concerned about the bronze turning green. It's texturized so the high spots will remain shiny if the pipe is handled frequently and the low spots will turn green as the pipe ages and this will hopefully add to the pipe's character. I would never use brass for this as it tarnishes far to easy.

I didn't think of the nooks and crannies darkening while the high points stay shiny ... way, way cool. I love the idea of bronze on a pipe. It seems so Roman. I'm thinking Roman Legion troops marching with an olivewood pipe that has bronze on it ... so perfect. I'm likin' this pipe more and more! Way to go.

I can only hope that my first attempt at a pipe will turn out as well as yours did. I really dig the shape and the grain of that wild olive is amazing.

Congratulations. You did a very fine job.

Good Show!

talented folks around here! Nice pipe.

I could see a trekboer smoking one of those, very rustic and earthy looking. Nice job.

Now theres a word you don't see used in common parlance now-a-days.

but this time I looked it up for myself before asking!

A Trekboer would never be satisfied with such a small bowl on a pipe. It needs a refill far too often to my liking. I've been smoking it since Saturday but every now and again I grab the old Keyser for a good smoke. Number 2 is on the bench and this time I hope to do a better job.

Thanks for all the good comment.

Gootrap?

Were you trying to make some sort of system pipe?

where did you get the wood?

Very nice work, Olivier. I can't help but feel that picture has been on your avatar since you've joined? That doesn't make sense but wow that looks familiar!

Do you have a link to your knife site?

Olive occurs naturally around where I stay so I get dry stumps from friends and farmers in the area. That way I get to choose the pieces I want to use and the rest are sold to other knifemakers or turns into fire wood.

Israel, I do not have a site of my own yet but here's a link to some of my earlier work.
http://kgsa.co.za/me...

I also have some pics that I could send to you if you are interrested.

Those look sharp. (pun intended) Very nice workmanship. I exspecially liker the double edge dagger.

Really nice work, graceful and elegant. What steels are you using? Stock removal or are you forging your own?

CKR, thank you, they should still be sharp. Unfortunately most of these never get used but the feedback I get from those that use them are good.

Thank you Israel, I use a lot of different steels, both stainless and carbon steels. My personal favourite is Bohler N690 but I also do a lot of work with Sandvik 12C27, RWL34 and D2. As far as carbon steel is concerned, 5160, 1075, 1095 etc. or whatever the customer prefers and bearing in mind the purpose of the knife. Lately i've been using a lot of Damascus (pattern welded) steel.

I do both stock removal and forging, but I prefer the stock removal method. Perhaps only because I broke my right wrist about 20 years ago and had to get extensive surgery to make it work again. I lost about 25% movement in the wrist and after a few hours forging it hurts like hell for about 3 days.