Glass Sipper Corncob Pipe

**Emperor Zurg** · 02-20-2015, 02:14 PM

Disclaimer: This is a re-post of a project I did a year or so ago. Seems to have gone down the abyss so I figured I'd post it here.

This all started because these cob pipes I love do tend to waste a lot of tobacco. The burn tends to funnel toward the bottom during the last half to last third of the bowl and soon it just won't stay lit. Plus quite a bit of tobacco tends to end up along the sides of the shank where it can't possibly burn and subsequently is lost as dottle. This is worse with some MM models than others. That, and you get the burning shank taste when you do try to smoke a bowl down to ash... well, without the Zurg inner-tube you do. The inner tube prevents the shank from burning but there's still room for improvement. The inner tube also tends to plug occasionally after a tamp when a flake of tobacco falls across the draught hole. I got to thinking 'what if I could make a pipe that would draw evenly from the bottom?' 'How could I shield the draught hole...?

Well, to that end, here's what I came up with...

The first step was to make a fixture to rigidly hold the pipe for machining.
I figured the best way would be to fit a tapered post into the taper in the bowl.
Turns out MM cobs have a 7* bowl taper common to every pipe I have. That was convenient.
Holding the pipe this way keeps all my work concentric to the inside of the bowl no matter how irregular the outside is.
So here's the fixture, complete with reaction bar to keep the pipe from spinning if the cutter catches.

The next step was to fixture up a victim... er, I mean 'pipe'
I chose the MM Country Gentleman for this project because it resembles a Diplomat but doesn't have the hardwood plug.
I didn't want to have to machine out a perfectly good plug.
Here's the CG pipe with the bottom bored out to a depth just shy of the draught hole.

I was looking for an alumina ceramic disk for the bottom of the pipe but alas... I couldn't find one.
I opted for a quartz disk with a working temperature of 2000 degrees F.
I read 'Cinderella' to my daughter the other night and the name 'Glass Sipper' came to mind.
Thus the namesake. Hopefully Disney doesn't sue me for a copyright violation...
Now to drop in the glass disk and back it up with a high-temp, silicone o-ring
That glass disk cost 10 bucks. I could make these cheaper if I just used a penny instead, but I digress...

Next step is to plug the bottom, pressing it tightly against the O-ring.
I made the plug out of balsa wood to keep the weight down because the original idea would have had a white ceramic bottom.
However, since the bottom is now glass, I drilled out the center of the plug to make it see-thru. How cool is that?

Now to press the plug down tight against the O-ring until the glue sets.
With a scrap of plastic to protect the wood, the mill makes a nice arbor press.
I locked the quill and walked away for an hour till I figured the glue had set.

Now to sand the plug down flush and doll it up with a little varnish.
While the varnish dried, I attached the ceramic inner tube to the Forever Stem.
The stem's a bone nose warmer from Walter Briar Works

Now for the final assembly to check the fit and clearance of everything thus far...
Looks good if you ask me.

So there you have it folks; the Zurg Glass Sipper.
I built 3 of these. One - the ugliest one - I kept for myself.
The other two have been given to a couple of BOTL's here to play around with and review.
Let's hope theory converts seamlessly to reality and the pipes actually work like I'd hoped they would.

I'm going to go out and test mine (again) right now.

**Branzig** · 02-20-2015, 02:44 PM

This is just awesome. Really cool build Zurg

**JustTroItIn** · 02-20-2015, 03:12 PM

That really is slick. How has the pipe held up over time?

**Emperor Zurg** · 02-20-2015, 03:30 PM

Originally Posted by JustTroItIn

That really is slick. How has the pipe held up over time?

It's holding up great. Actually I made 2 of them. The first one had a flaw in the cob near the rim and that quickly burned out to the edge of the rim. Looks ugly but still smokes great. The second one I made from a much nicer pipe with a semi-churchwarden forever stem that I bought from Big Sarge on Poof. That one looks like the day I made it except for the cake that's built up in it.