Olive wood shank extensions - experience?

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sstodvictory

sstodvictory

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Thinking of buying a briar pipe that has an olive wood shank extension. The extension starts well away from the briar bowl, so, I'm not concerned about heat but I am wondering if the olive wood will stay tight with the tenon of the stem.

Can anyone enlighten me about this?

Thanks!

Steve
 
Shank extensions made of any material are a categorically a bad idea from a "likely to become a problem in the future" perspective---dissimilar materials react to heat and moisture to different extents and at different rates. The only exception I've seen are those that are pinned in place (as opposed to only glued), and made from bamboo. Pinning is rarely done anymore for aesthetic reasons, though.

Olive wood is tough stuff, but rarely used in pipemaking (except as an alternative wood for entire pipes) because of its drab in appearance, so I have no specific experience with it as an extension. I'd guess it's no different than any other durable wood when used that way.
 
About olive, there are any number of species, from the softer european ones to the very hard and dense wild african olive. There are olive woods which I would NOT use for a shank extension, and there are some which would probably be okay. But how to tell....
 
Thanks for the insight. I decided to pass on this pipe. The look was marginal for me. It might have looked good as a decorative band, though.

Steve
 
I have an old Hendergard pipe that has an olive wood stem extention. Now this is a $400 pipe and is a very reputal carver ect.... Well the humidity over the summer caused it to expand cracking the epoxy conaction cheering the brier splice incert inside and swelling to over 1/8 all the way around i had to put it next to a dehumidifyer for a year and let it contract. I am a woodworker by trad and fixed it in a night after it shrunk back to size but it was still a mess. Smokes greate though.
 
LL":kbtuq8td said:
Shank extensions made of any material are a categorically a bad idea from a "likely to become a problem in the future" perspective---dissimilar materials react to heat and moisture to different extents and at different rates. The only exception I've seen are those that are pinned in place (as opposed to only glued), and made from bamboo. Pinning is rarely done anymore for aesthetic reasons, though.
Click to expand...
This is why the Danish artisan carvers for the most part make shank extensions part of the stem rather than integrating them with the Shank. Here is a W.O. Larsen Pearl Volcano made by Teddy Knudsen. It has what looks like an olive wood shank extension, except the olive wood is attached to the stem rather than the briar. This pipe must be at least 20 years old and still is perfectly aligned and looks/smokes great...less filling too!!



 
FWIW, I own two Jobert olive wood pipes without extentions-the entire pipe is made from that wood. Had them for about 5 years and no problems.
 
My Balleby bent apple has a olive wood shank cap and there have been no problems with it during the 5 + years I've had it.

Here's a link to it if you want to take a look- Balleby Bent Apple

Jim
 
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