Darth Pipemaker

Is this thing not hilarious? I've been suffering from an annoying chronic cough for a while, and after various checks and x-rays pronounced that my throat and lungs were perfectly healthy, my doc has narrowed it down to an allergic reaction, possibly to either a new stain or a new type of ebonite we've been working with. The treatment is dual - I'm now on anti-allergy meds and will be making much more use of a respirator in the workshop. I had to find one that was rated for gases, just in case, and the search turned up this thing at Maison du Tournage. It was so ridiculous looking that I had to buy it immediately. Weird though it may appear, it's actually quite light and decently comfortable to wear, enough so that I'm tempted to wear it around the house just for shock effect. It's going to be fun greeting visitors at the door in this thing. Hannibal Lector meets Darth Vader, that's me!

Other than that, nothing much newsworthy today. We've finished a beautiful, bird's-eye-covered pencil-shanked Ligne Bretagne billiard here, but I just haven't had the free time to photo and post it yet. The blowfishies have been keeping me too busy! Here's a "Monster" blowfish being done for one request - It's as big as my three jaw chuck!

Fantasy Blowfish

Biz News - Three more new Ligne Bretagnes are up, these three all being unstained panel designs in squat, wide shapes. I finally have a decent stock of Ligne Bretagnes on the site! That will probably be all of them for now, as I need to work full-time on these blowfish requests in-house. If anyone out there has a specific desire for a Talbert blowfish, please email me now while I'm working on a bunch of them together, and I should be able to do one for you fairly quickly.

To finish off the "Making of" photos from the last blog post, here are some pics of the finished pipe, my "Fantasy Blowfish". I'm pleased with the shape, and the blasted portion looks pretty terrific. It is, yet again, a new effect in sandblast finishes for me - or rather a modification of some previous techniques to produce a better result. I was really pleased to be able to achieve such color contrast on the sandblasted side without having to resort to buffing or otherwise compounding smooth the outer edges of the surface. I have no idea if this pipe will turn up in the catalog or not - It's being made as one of a few blowfish variants for a request, so it will depend on whether the collector picks this one or not.


The unusual stem styling is a visual cue I've used on several pipes before. Now I'm off to make a couple rather more conventional blowfish, but here are some more pics of the unusual one to sign off with:

Blowfish Madness

Biz News - I've been continuing to post new Ligne Bretagnes to the catalog for the past week. I can't remember if I even announced the last update or not, but have a look, as there are probably new pipes there. I've got two more of these pear shapes finished and sitting here waiting to be posted, but that will have to wait till I get this blowfish done.

I've been working on a pile of blowfish shapes lately, and as one of the buyers asked for pics of the process, I thought I might as well post them here, just for general entertainment value to see the steps a pipe goes through from start to finish.

So, like all pipes, it starts off as a block of wood and some drilling measurements:



Once the piece is successfully drilled, the shaping starts. I'm working on several variations of blowfish shapes, from the mild to the wild, as one of the orders asked for a "distinctly Talbert blowfish". That's what we're looking at here. It's actually going to share some visual characteristics with a Fantasy Bulldog shape I made a couple years ago.



Granted, it looks pretty ordinary so far, but that will change. I wanted a block where the grain flowed across at an angle, to work well with the combination of smooth and sandblasted elements I'm envisioning. Here it is with a stand-in stem to serve as a visual balance guide:



Now it's time to start the real stem for the pipe, made from black ebonite:




One can already see that it isn't going to be a very traditional blowfish. I particularly want my Fantasy Blowfish to be organic, as blowfish shapes have the unique ability to look spectacularly ugly if done too symmetrical and constrained (Flashbacks of Princess Leia headbuns!). Here's the first of what will be multiple stages of black staining for the contrast on the smooth part of the pipe:



And most of it already sanded back off:




And finally, the pipe in its last photo, showing a lot more of the shape detail. Everything will get refined but most of the remaining work is "slog work" - ie, many hours of sanding and bit filing and sandblasting. I'll post more pics as it (and the others) progress.