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Frankenpipe!
I found myself in a small Texas town antique shop, looking for some estate pipes to take home and clean. I found this bent Yello-Bole with some interesting carving on the stummel, so I decided to take her home with me. 5 minutes after arriving home, I tried to twist out the stem, and it snapped inside the mortise! I was so bummed that I threw it out. A week later, I decided to dig it out of the trash bin and save it. I couldn't let it go.
3 months later an acquaintance decided pipe smoking wasn't for him, and he gifted me his abused, cracking compressed meerschaum pipe. The thing broke on me a week later. The acrylic stem happened to be about the same width as the shank of the old Yello-Bole, so I tried fitting the tenon into the YB mortise, with the help of the old meerschaum's plastic screw-in mortise hole fitting. It just wouldn't fit because the tenon from the old YB stem was still broken off inside. I tried to drill it out, but ended up widening the mortise to the point where the screw-in fitting did not fit.
I was upset, so I decided to fit it with a stem made from a piece of bamboo that grows on my property. Frankenpipe was born! But then I tried to bend the bamboo stem (improperly) and kinked it to hell. Finally it hit me, and I cut the bamboo to the length of the mortise and fitted it into the YB.
VICTORY! The acrylic stem's tenon fit snuggly into the bamboo mortise fitting, and Frankenpipe was complete!
Bamboo Mortise Fitting in Yello-Bole Stummel
Yello-Bole Stummel with Acrylic Stem from Broken Meerschaum
One happy camper!
3 months later an acquaintance decided pipe smoking wasn't for him, and he gifted me his abused, cracking compressed meerschaum pipe. The thing broke on me a week later. The acrylic stem happened to be about the same width as the shank of the old Yello-Bole, so I tried fitting the tenon into the YB mortise, with the help of the old meerschaum's plastic screw-in mortise hole fitting. It just wouldn't fit because the tenon from the old YB stem was still broken off inside. I tried to drill it out, but ended up widening the mortise to the point where the screw-in fitting did not fit.
I was upset, so I decided to fit it with a stem made from a piece of bamboo that grows on my property. Frankenpipe was born! But then I tried to bend the bamboo stem (improperly) and kinked it to hell. Finally it hit me, and I cut the bamboo to the length of the mortise and fitted it into the YB.
VICTORY! The acrylic stem's tenon fit snuggly into the bamboo mortise fitting, and Frankenpipe was complete!
Bamboo Mortise Fitting in Yello-Bole Stummel
Yello-Bole Stummel with Acrylic Stem from Broken Meerschaum
One happy camper!
Comments
@LumberjackWizardQuoting a line from Young Frankenstein ... "Give my creation LIFE".
Congrats. Nice job. Now if you can keep from dropping it in the wood chipper you should be alright. But if you should ... I'd sure like to see the end result of that restoration.
Great job, Very nice.