Tale of 2 3 knuckle bamboo shanks

Brothers of Briar

Help Support Brothers of Briar:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

fishnbanjo

Broken Pipe
Joined
Jan 11, 2013
Messages
1,714
Reaction score
2
Not the best of days today with some backlash from my Neurological disorder giving me episodes so getting out to keep it smokey was pretty minimal.

I thought this would be a good time to show the differences in the spacing of the nodes (pipers call them knuckles) of the bamboo used for pipe shanks. Not only are there over 14,000 varieties of bamboo only several are and have been used in making bamboo fly rods, I’ve seen a couple of dozen used in pipe shanks thus far, of course there’s a huge difference in what would make a good bamboo fly rod and what would be a good material for the bamboo shank of a pipe.

So the first pipe I smoked is a different variety than most bamboo shanks are made from, it’s much thicker than the normal ones we generally see and much smaller than the variety used for the Buddha bamboo shanks be they conventional or Reverse Calabash style. The pipe is from Bruce Weaver and has a beautiful flame grain brandy bowl with a slanted top, married to the 3 knuckle bamboo shank and lightly bent black stem, if it were a knuckle shorter it would have been a nose warmer, keeping it smokey with more of the 23 y/o Grey Havens from Mac Baren.

44630515362_c7d3ab5bcc_z_d.jpg


The second is what we normally have seen used for bamboo shanks since Sixten Ivarsson was putting out pipes. It’s also a 3 knuckle but you can see the diameter is smaller and the distance between the nodes, or knuckles if you prefer, are further apart.

This pipe also sports a brandy style bowl that is canted and had the grain been oriented slightly it would have made a fabulous Ring Grain pipe but it’s damn nice as it is. It was made by Brian Ruthenberg and the stem is dark maroon Cumberland, and I too kept it smokey with the same 23 y/o Grey Havens from Mac Baren, cheers.
banjo

44679511881_807a78819c_z_d.jpg

 
Either of those two could make one a Believer in bamboo shanks. Great looking pipes.
 
I love the bowl on the smooth one and the stem on the rustic one.

Could you make that change? Heh, heh. Not likely. Here’s where a Falcon or Army Stem design application would be welcome.
 
Top