Pipe Spotting

This is a capture from an Australia tv show Spicks and Specks.

This weeks tobacco

Macbaren HH Highland Blend 100 gram tin vintage 2011.

I read some bad reviews about Macbaren tobacco's
But so far i have smoked 6 types and the only
one i disliked was Plumcake.
It has a good taste and strong nicotine.

This is tenth tin so far every week i order a new tin and
every week like clockwork a new tin appears on my letterbox.
My tin collection  will be enormous.
After a couple of years i will need a room for them. 

First pipe tampers

Tobacco mixing bowl

I turned this out of Silky Oak Grevillea robusta a native to Queensland.

Amazing grain.

This weeks tobacco

MacBaren Stockton Roll Cake
Aged 2006

100 grams

They look like little scabs.
Straight Virginia flavor and a dash of Cavendish.
Mid nicotine.
A good smoke. 

Hobo Hoot's Lathe

With out a doubt the coolest lathe ever.

Tobacco tin colection

At a can a week soon i will run out of room.

This weeks Tobacco

Mac Baren Roll cake spun cut 2007.

Nicely aged 5/07

Nice coins

Full bottle 100g

A great smoke full of tobacco flavor and strong nicotine.
As all ways take that "The Man"

Pottering around

Pottered around in the shed today, got a few things up and running. Got the bench grinder hooked up and installed an arbor. Wow, the carnauba now goes on so easily it's crazy. All those pipe I thought I had shiny ..nope, they were still matte compared to the glass-like surface left by carnauba. Check out the Lorenzo Spitfire, Olroth's Import and pre-WWII GBD!

I also got the scroll saw up and running and trimmed some excess from the HD pipe. That little blade doesn't run right away, takes few seconds for it to swing around... almost scarred the bowl on the first cut! But after that all went well, all a learning curve. I've seen lots of people say that scroll saws are not powerful enough/ are too fragile for briar. Rubbish, hot knife through butter (and it's good briar as well).

I also did the initial shaping on a tobacco chamber drill bit. It goes from 20mm to 14mm over about 23mm. A pretty nice looking cone shape, although I'm still looking at what kind of edge to put on it. Regardless of how I go it will need a substantial pilot hole to allow for the large chisel point on the bit, such is life.

Pipe spotting

Running with scissors.

I was watching Storage wars.

I wanted to see more but this was it.

Tobacco's i have smoked update.

1 Hoots black Flake mid to strong nicotine Good taste **** finished

2 A small sample from Italy HH gave me mid nicotine Great taste *** finished

3 Peterson's Sunset breeze. mild nicotine Good taste *** finished

4 Borkum Riff Cherry Urinal cake. low nicotine No stars finished

5 Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey tongue bite low nicotine No Stars finished

6 Borkum Riff Vanilla Cavendish smokable if desprate Low nicotine No Stars finished

7 Mac Baren Plumcake never again tongue bite bad flavor No Stars finished

8 Erinmore Flake mid to strong nicotine ok taste *** finished

9 Gallagher's irish cake hard plug very strong nicotine strong flavor ***

10 Samuel Gawith Chocolate Flake mid to strong nicotine great flavor ***** finished

11 Peterson's 3P plug mid nicotine ok flavor ***

12 Wessex Gold Brick plug mid to strong nicotine pure tobacco taste ***

13 Rattray's Black Mallory mid nicotine nice flavor **** finished

14 Blakeney"s Best Latakia Flake strong nicotine strong flavor ****

15 MacBaren Honey & Chocolate mid to strong nicotine good flavor ****

16 CAO Eileen's Dream  2008 Mild Mild Mild ** finished

17 MacBaren 7 Seas 2010 ok taste mid nicotine *** finished

18 McClelland No 22 2008 Vintage Ok taste good nicotine ***

19 Villiger 1888 Mid-Day 2010 Ok taste mid nicotine ***

20 Mac Baren Roll cake spun cut Good taste strong nicotine ****

21 Mac Baren Stockton Good taste mid nicotine ****

This weeks 2nd tobacco

Villiger 1888 Mid-Day vintage 2010
Tastes better than you would think nicotine is mid strength.

I think that this tobacco has taught me that i like English blends best.

This weeks Tobacco

McClelland No 22 2008 Vintage

Rubbed out easy and burned well.

Nicely aged,

A fine smoking tobacco.

Good nicotine hit.

Flavor of pure tobacco nice.

Coarse broken flakes to rub out.

But the tin note is not good smells like tomato sauce [Ketchup] Huh ?

But it's not there when you smoke it ?  

And best of all take that "The Man"

This is my 18th different tobacco so far.

Stanwell Straight Grain - Selected Briar

This is a registration era Stanwell Straight Grain, also stamped Selected Briar. Is is a chimney (shape 95), with the bowl being just over 2" high and the entire pipe being just over 5.5" long. I got it from the same person who had the GBD WWII issue detailed earlier in the blog. I have in fact posted a few photo's of this one before, but this time I tried some more detailed processes for defining grain. Enjoy!

More Peterson's De Luxe 11s

Well, I need to dust the pipes more...but today's efforts were aimed at photographing grain in detail. I'm reasonably happy with the results, but there is still a long way to go.

Smoking the new unfinished pipe

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Well it still needs a lot of work but it smokes.
happy with the tobacco bowl a nice taper
The smoke hole enters at the bottom of the bowl nice.
The bit an old p lip fits well.
There are 1 or 2 rough spots but i have learnt a lot.
Hopefully the next 1 will be better.
I so need a better chuck.
Yo HH 1 almost down 49 to go Hahahaha.

Peterson's De Luxe 11s

Just a couple of teaser images, hoping to polish this over the weekend and to photograph it properly. You'll have to wait for the incredible birdseye :) Fresh from the rack.

Pipe progress

Drilling a pilot hole.

Think i will hand turn the inside of the bowl.
My Hobo chuck is working remarkably well.
Holding nice and tight.
Looks a bit scary.

Decided to work on the bowl first.
Roughed out the stem first just to get an idea of what it might look like..

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Arbor for Drill chuck

I used the chuck from the hand drill press.
Now i can drill on the lathe and it's also a variable speed polisher as it fits the head stock.