Another pipe rack project.

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Blackhorse

Blackhorse

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Here's the latest one. The base is a fine piece of Maple Burl a friend gave me...the antler is Columbia Blacktail.

The antler sits on a very heavy piece of black leather to give it a little cushion and is held in place by two monster screws...the bottom will eventually be covered with green felt. The placement of the indents in the base are done so as to correspond with the odd angles of the antler and how the stems have to lean in order to be even somewhat stable.

Oh...and there's an incised Reindeer at the base of the antler.


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Wow Blackhorse, the maple burl is gorgeous, and the reindeer incised at the base is a nice touch. Certainly a nice conversation piece in anyone's home. Congrats on another nice piece of craftsmanship! :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
 
I like the whole thing! Execution is flawless !! I really like the riendeer you seem to have adopted as your "signature" on your work! Keep using it, it looks GOOD !!
 
Superb work as always, BH! I love the idea of asymmetric racks for unmatched sets of pipes, but I never see them.
 
I guess I should have mentioned that it was done with a double stain...like the last pipe I did. Fiebings's leather dye...first dark brown and then Mahogany. After that it was rubbed with about 5 coats of Pure Tung Oil and the last coat applied with 0000 steel wool. The antler is another story entirely...having been subjected to the Super Glue routine and then buffed with white emery til it pretty much glows!
 
I love the stain job on the maple, and the reindeer etching is really cool! Well done sir! :D
 
Good thing all you guys that are gushing on about craftsmanship can't REALLY see it (he chuckles) as there are flaws indeed. But if you look at the leading edge of the curve...look at the wormwood. It LOOKS cool, in a natural, organic kind of way...but finding a clean place to slice the chunk of burl was 'interesting'. And yes, it really is a beautiful piece of wood. I still have a few small chunks in my scrap bin. It's almost as good as the guy that gave it to me.

BUT: monbla wrote:
I really like the riendeer you seem to have adopted as your "signature" on your work! Keep using it, it looks GOOD !!
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Oh sure...pick the thing that takes a few hours or more to do! Fine!
 
Blackhorse":8r6kl1hk said:
...there are flaws indeed. But if you look at the leading edge of the curve...look at the wormwood.
Click to expand...
And here I thought you were emulating the Nording-style rustication. ;)
 
So how long did it take you to train the worm to bore in just the right spots like that?
 
i know this is an older post but i was just curious about how you accomplished the indents for the bowls? by hand? or router?etc...

great work, spectacular wood.
 
The circles had to be positioned 'just so' as the grooves in the antler were...well, you know, they had to be filed out according to how the antler grew. Lots of eyeballing and trying different pipes on it to find the perfect center points. The circles were then drawn with a small compass that I've had since taking drafting class in high school...um, OMG...close to 50 years ago. And to answer your question, the concave recesses were hand carved using four different gouges. All the work on this piece and most everything else I make is done with hand tools...with the exception of a Dremel and my beloved DeWalt compact Li-Ion drill). Oh yeah...and I have a belt sander...and a $15 buffer. So...MOSTLY by hand.

Sure wish I had a nice band saw. And a drill press. Plasma arc cutter would be handy too! lol

And yeah, that really was a great piece of Maple Burl. Thanks to Lesath.

Note: the base of the antler sits on a fairly heavy piece of leather, There are two large screws through the wood up into the antler and the leather cushioned the whole assembly so it sits a little easier, I think.
 
I see, I was thinking gouges. You can see that lots of thought had to go into for it to have turned out as great as it did. I just made a pipe rack a few weeks ago and tried using a bowl router bit in a drill press, (because i don't own any carving chisels yet) which ended disastrously for my sacrificial piece of wood. The way I worked around it was taking some corks and cutting them in half and epoxying them to my purple heart base.

I've seen a lot of the work you've done throughout the forums. I especially love the antler tampers. I'm really impressed that you do it all by hand. I would've thought alot of the pieces were turned in a lathe.

 
Lathes scare me. 8)


You know, I used to use a lot of nice equipment...took lots of university level classes in metalsmithing and sculpture/bronze casting and many others. The most important thing I learned was that to do the best work I could do, I had to do it by hand...slowed me down. Everybody works best in a different way. I work best when I work slowly. I work with a pipe clamped between my teeth and often find myself sitting there, just staring at the piece I'm making...thinking. All the good things I've done have been done that way. Big ol' tools are kind of an end in themselves for me. I end up thinking about the tool and not the piece. That, plus just today I got a good burn on cutting up a bunch of heavy brass stock with a hack saw (boron steel blade...wonderful thing) good exercise - and I need as much as I can get!



 
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