Part 3, Finishing
Here's where we left it last night.
The pipe is ready for finishing and fine tuning of the shape during hand
sanding.
The pipe has been sanded with 100 grit paper. The shape and stem are
being fine tuned and the grain is starting to become more visible. From this
point on, the stem will remain on the pipe.
Sanded with 150 grit. At each step, the grain is more visible.
The first coat of stain has been applied.
This helps show the scratches so that they can all be sanded out. The
extension has been taped off so that it doesn't get stained. This is
also where I may start to experiment with stain colors to find one I like.
I don't care for this, so the final staining won't be in this color.
Sanded with 220 grit. The grain is coming out even more, since it's received
one coat of stain. I've rinsed all the sawdust off and the water will also
raise the grain for the next sanding. I really like the appearance of the
pipe right now, and the coloring, so I'm not going to spend more time
looking for the perfect color of the pipe. For me, this is it.
Another coat of dark stain. This will
further help to bring the grain out.
Finished with 400 grit. The grain is
really popping out now. I like to wet sand from this point on as it
raises the grain. Since the water brings the grain out and it
subsequently is sanded back down, it's my view that this produces a smoother
pipe.
I've now bent the stem. I used the candle
pictured to very slowly heat it up and, with a fluffy pipe cleaner inserted
all the way through, bent it. The pipe cleaner keeps the airway from
collapsing during the bending. I've still got more sanding to do. I'll
use 600, 1000, and 1500 grits to finish up this phase. There won't be
any pictures of that as they all look like the picture above.
The pipe is now finished! If you look at
the bottom of the picture you'll notice some pipe cleaner pieces.
These were chucked into a hand drill and coated with red tripoli to polish
the inside of the button and the funnel. Pictured with the pipe are brown
tripoli, white, and underneath is carnauba wax. The pipe was polished with
those (in the order listed) on a buffing wheel chucked into my lathe.
These are the final pictures.
I came up with a new rustication technique and the pipe came back when the owner saw it.