Hi from a keen carver & new tobaco grower from NZ

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Frozenthunderbolt

Frozenthunderbolt

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Hi guys and Gals,

I lucked onto your site via howtogrowtobacco.com and thought that it would complement nicely!

I'm from New Zealand and enjoy learning new skills - love home distilling and home fermentation of tea and vegetables, i'm not a smoker but love the smell of tobacco and think i might like the odd pipe or cigar now and again (love dark chocolate and black coffee!)

I've got golden Virginia growing - seed from trade me originally, and saved and grown out again this year.

I would love some other varieties of seeds to grow if any local members have seeds of other varieties to give away - i'm happy to pay postage :D

I've been picking the dirt leaves at the bottom to practice drying - got them turning a loverly buff/tan brown and crispy.
I'm going to use them to experiment with fermenting the leaves to get more cigar/pipe type tobacco.

I'm also a woodcarver and love the idea of making myself a long 'Gandalf' style pipe to smoke.

Any suggestions of good alternatives to briar's (which I now realize are not made of bits of rose! This sucks as i had some nice thick bits of rose pruning drying out :roll: )

I hope to finish my preliminary reading on the other forum this weekend and be able to start vacuuming up your accumulated knowledge here next weekend.

Many thanks in advance for you wisdom, time and patience.

Jed.
 
welcome

Briar is by far the best wood for pipes, but you can also use cherry wood, olive wood, or apparently african blackwood. you can also get some meerschaum online probably which might make a great gandalf pipe

rev
 
the rev":f6vsjc7k said:
welcome

Briar is by far the best wood for pipes, but you can also use cherry wood, olive wood, or apparently african blackwood. you can also get some meerschaum online probably which might make a great gandalf pipe

rev
Click to expand...
Thanks Rev!

That make my day - i have nearly unlimited amounts of 3 year old olive wood to choose from - i've turned some and love the character it has.

get my lathe running again and we're in business - might have to buy some better quality hand tools (awesome - an excuse :cheers: ) in order to carve it though - it is both very hard and has a tendency to tear if your chisels are not very sharp.

To make a long curved stem I would assume that i would bore it and then steam bend it, then shape it appropriately?
 
Frozenthunderbolt":zlb3sssu said:
the rev":zlb3sssu said:
welcome

Briar is by far the best wood for pipes, but you can also use cherry wood, olive wood, or apparently african blackwood. you can also get some meerschaum online probably which might make a great gandalf pipe

rev
Click to expand...
Thanks Rev!

That make my day - i have nearly unlimited amounts of 3 year old olive wood to choose from - i've turned some and love the character it has.

get my lathe running again and we're in business - might have to buy some better quality hand tools (awesome - an excuse :cheers: ) in order to carve it though - it is both very hard and has a tendency to tear if your chisels are not very sharp.

To make a long curved stem I would assume that i would bore it and then steam bend it, then shape it appropriately?
Click to expand...
I would guess that is how to do it, not sure how well it would hold the bend when smoking though, possibly fine. I only work with lucite and vulcanite stems so those are much different.

please post what you come up with

rev
 
Welcome, Jed. Lovely country you come from. A few on this forum have grown their own, but mostly we're at the "consuming" end of the production line. :lol: Which Island you on? My roommate in graduate school is in Wellington, and I may take a few students there this summer.

Natch
 
Natch":guagbrfz said:
Welcome, Jed. Lovely country you come from. A few on this forum have grown their own, but mostly we're at the "consuming" end of the production line. :lol: Which Island you on? My roommate in graduate school is in Wellington, and I may take a few students there this summer.

Natch
Click to expand...
Hi Natch,

I'm in the north island nw of Auckland.

What do you teach - i'm a primary teacher 10-13 year olds :pirat:
 
Welcome Jed. I worked with some of your SAS mates in Afghanistan. Great guys.
Good luck with the olivewood, should be a beauty.

Bill
 
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