Operation Clay Pipe

Making a clay tobacco pipe

Text not yet fully proofread...

     While reading a discussion on clay tobacco pipes, I decided, for no very good reason, to try my hand at making one myself. Ceramics, having been an occasional hobby for the last 20 years means that I has some of the basic knowledge and tools to make an attempt -or at least get myself into trouble. This post chronicles my effort.

     Historically clay pipes have been cast in a mold; this seemed like the best approach, with the advantage that once the mold is constructed multiple copies of the pipe can be easily made. Two videos available on the internet (here, and here), and many photos of historic pipes, were helpful starting points.

Be careful of clay pipes, don't do this to your teeth!  

Photo from the Smithsonian Institution, link here.

     Pictured below are my first attempts at getting a usable "master pipe" to construct the mold. It quickly became clear that I was not going to be able to produce a smooth and round stem without having it mangled while refining the bowl. The stems were therefore extruded, in what amounts to a large caulk gun with replaceable dies.

First batch of prototypes, extruded stems on the left.

Selected prototypes and protopipes with extruded stems attached to the bowls. Note the spurs have not yet been added.

The final four prototypes with spurs attached. The pipe on the bottom will be used to make the master mold.

Not having enough soft modeling clay to make the mold base, I used a block of foam insulation, roughly doug to fit the pipe. I wanted the stem to be parallel to the mold to aid, if necessary, inserting at metal wire to form the airway. The notch in the insulation, seen in the upper right, is to allow access to the bowl, either to pour in liquid clay, or to for the chamber opening if filled with malleable clay.

Oil based modeling clay is then packed around the pipe to form a smooth and tight juncture where the mold halves will meet. In retrospect, making the proto-pipe out of the oil based clay, and the mold base out of regular clay, would have been easer as the oil based clay did not adhere well to the foam insulation making it hard to keep in place while smoothing.

The sides of the mold are formed with cardboard, sealed with clay, and finally all surfaces coated with diluted Murphy Oil soap to act as an a release agent.

The first half of the mold has just been poured with No. 1 Pottery plaster.

After the plaster sets the base can be removed.

The surface of the mold should have been nice and smooth, clearly mine was not, so the next step was to smooth it out and add mold keys to keep the two halves of the mold aligned. Also, apparent in other photos, the mold seam, which should have bisected the pipe is not really in the middle, I was rushing....

The mold cleaned up with mold "keys" carved into the plaster.

Same procedure as pouring the the first half.

Opening the mold for the first time!

I cleaned up the mold top with a scraper, more for cosmetic than practical purposes.

     Traditionally moist clay is roughly formed, placed in the mold, and the two mold halves forced together. The bowl is then hollowed and the airway formed with a metal wire. I thought I would try slip casting instead. Slip, is basically liquid clay that can be poured into a plaster mold, the mold absorbs the moisture leaving behind a film of leather hard clay, the thickness of which is proportional to the time left in the mold. If not left in the mold too long, which I did once or twice (forming a sold pipe), the airway and chamber of the pipe will be left open. This is not the historically accurate process, but I have heard that the technique has been used in some reproduction pipes.

The box of liquid clay, or slip.

As a first test of the slip, I poured some into a clay tile mold I had previously made.

Here is the Labrador Retriever tile cast with slip.

The mold after the slip was poured, left to adhere for about 6 minutes, and excess drained. A drinking straw was used to blow any remaining liquid slip out of the pipe stem (sounded like snot).

The excess on the mold platform is cut away with a metal spatula.

Opening the mold after the first casting. Note the slip did not make it to all parts of the mold leaving a large section of the stem without clay (upper right half of pipe stem).

The same pipe pictured above. When removed from the mold the clay is still soft enough that the stem can be bent if desired.

Stem airway.

Pipe cross section, note that the pipe is shaped like a funnel. The internals of the pipe would resemble a briar pipe if the clay had been pressed into the mold with the chamber and airway being formed mechanically.

The first "pour" with a complete stem.

The pipe needs to be smoothed after removal from the mold, here the mold lines are obvious. Note that the mold seam is not centered on the pipe (my mistake), this also made the pipe more difficult to remove because a slight overhang is created in the mold

The "first" pipe with no air bubbles, not yet fired, with dog hair (Australian Shepherd) stuck in the middle part of the stem.

     Time for firing. Although this clay is rated at cone 5/6, clay pipes are traditionally "under-fired" so that they remain absorbent. I started at cone 06.

Pipes in the kiln for the first firing. The other things are mugs getting glazed.

Looking in the "peep" hole of the kiln, very hot... note my reflection on the kilns metal jacket.

     The first batch of pipes were fired at cone 06, I smoked one, and got a earthy wet chimney smell/taste at points. Guess that this may have been too low a temperature, the first pipes, plus some new ones were fired at cone 04 (hotter than 06).

     The kiln did not shut itself off when it was supposed to (the kiln sitter had an issue), below is an 04 witness cone that is obviously over bent. I'm guessing by a cone or two, so this firing may have been around 03 or 02.

Overheated 04 cone ... 

Batch of finished clay tobacco pipes. First from the right has wax on the tip, second from the right has clear glaze.

Cracked clear glaze on the stem. I think the glaze needed a lower temp....

Pipe rim; note, that I didn't get it perfectly round....

Orlik Golden Sliced packed in the pipe.

I smoked one of the pipes fired at the higher temperature and didn't get as much of the "earthy" smell/taste, so I think the higher temperature firing may be the trick.

My work area, and my two helper dogs!

Replacing a pipe stem

     This is a Wally Frank pipe that belonged to my uncle. I got it without a stem (or maybe I lost it.....) I had another pipe that also needed a stem, so I decided I should learn how to replace pipe stems rather then send them out for repair, which would have been the smart thing to do. 

     It ends up, you don't just order a new stem and slap it on; they have to be fitted to the pipe using a lathe, or a "pipe stem tenon turner". I happen to have a small Taig metal lathe which I got a few years ago for another project/obsession (after woodworking and before ceramics in the hobby timeline). With the help of Woody and Sasquatch from the Pipe Smokers Forum (a very nice and helpful group of folks), I got enough encouragement and advice to proceed.

     If you own a lathe, you probably know much more than I do. The first stem I tried went flying across the room, from the dining room table to the living room where my wife was sitting (I was not using a dead center and had the lathe running too fast). Remember safety first! I can't tell you not to try this at home, especially if you don't know what your doing, because that what I did, but if you hurt yourself I told you so!

Don't let this happen to you! I wasn't using that part of brain anyway, but you might!

Wally Frank pipe with the replacement stem blank. The first pencil mark (hard to see) is the end/beginning point for the new tenon, the second pencil mark is where the new shoulder will begin and the last mark is where the headstock jaws will grip the bit. 

I got the stem blanks from Tim West (owner of J. H. Lowe & Co.). Tim was very helpful on the phone and helped me pick the correct blanks, offered some advice on turning and fitting the stems, and even threw in a few old stems for me to practice on. I assumed that I didn't need to practice, but after the first good stem flew across the house and broke, I chucked up one of the practice stems Tim astutely sent. I needed two stems, but ordered three figuring there would be some mishaps along the way (I thank Woody for suggesting that I order extras).

The stem blanks are fairly smooth but have some mold lines that need to be sanded off.

I used a 3-jaw self-centering chuck to grip the bit end. The taper on the stem did not provide enough surface area for the jaws so I ended up wrapping some electrical tape on the bit end. This was not ideal, Woody and Sasquatch offered some better solutions to chucking up stems (my cat chucks of stems sometimes too) which I will try next time...

To get the new bit positioned I placed a drill bit in the tailstock chuck that had the same diameter as the airway, the tenon end could then be inserted onto the bit and held parallel to the lathe bed in the correct and advanced into the 3-jaw chuck.

Drill bit in tailstock chuck to align stem.

Getting ready to place the stem blank into the 3-jaw chuck of the headstock.

Drill bit used for alignment is removed after chucking the stem and replaced with a dead center on the tenon end.

Turning the stem shoulder.

Getting ready 'part' the stem.

First fitting of the stem, note that I misaligned the stem in the chuck so that the center line of the bit is below the center of the pipe shank.

At this point there was much filing and sanding to finish shaping the bit. This including trying to re-taper the bottom of the stem shoulder to match the top (had I properly centered the bit in the lathe it would have remained symmetric). After getting a rough fit I lightly sanded the pipe shank to make a smooth transition with the stem and finally gave the whole pipe a light sanding. I didn't get a picture, but sanding the pipe shank removed some of the wood stain so it was now time for a dye job.

Evidently leather dyes are the "recommend" pipe stains. One of my dogs who shall remain nameless to protect his identity (Jake) had chewed a bit off one of my shoes. Being cheap, and believing things should be fixed not trashed, I took the mauled shoe to our local cobbler. "let the cobbler stick to his last" hey, I should follow that advice. Actually I the shoe took it there over a year ago and have been feeling guilty about not picking it up; I'm glad he still had it. The urgent need for leather dye was the catalyst for geting back to the shop, thanks Jake! just don't chew anymore shoes! The repair and the leather dye were about the same price for a total of 10 and change.

Leather dye and repaired shoe (The repair was on the area where the "tongue" meets the opening).

The dye comes with a dauber, I just spread the dye around and wiped it off with a paper towel.

After applying the dye and giving it some time to dry I applied a coat of carnauba wax, All done! OK, the fit is not perfect and there are some slight asymmetries to the stem, but it was my first attempt...

Finished stem and pipe sitting next to the broken stem termed missile.

The second pipe I fitted a stem to is a Comoy's Guildhall Modern 603. There were some issues when bending the stem, I think I got it too hot and bubbled some of the vulcanite.... if you look at the bend you can see some pitting, hopefully it will sand out.

Guildhall Modern 603 by Comoy's, note the pitting at the bend.