Took a stab at making my own wood pipe.

So I was a canoeing with a buddy of mine one day and while we were just floating there his nephew took out his chillum and after the festivities ended I got to thinking how I would like to make my own wood pipe (this came about due to all the trees and drift wood we passed, however I didn't use any of that wood).

All said and done, started to work on one a few days ago, it's not quite done yet but I am somewhat happy with the way it's turned out so far.

Still need to do a little more finishing touches to it, but here it is.
What do you think?

 

Poplar

Not the best choice of wood I know, but I wanted something a little softer to work with first to practice with instead of using a nice piece of oak or cherry and running the risk of wasting the wood.

I have a nice piece of oak I am going to use tomorrow.

Yeah I am going to do some more to it, just need to get an idea of what exactly.
Nah didn't stab myself thankfully, ha

 

I actually got the wood from Home Depot. I got two dowels, the Poplar was a 1 3/4" squared dowel 36" long and the Oak was a 1 1/2" squared dowel 36" long. They had shorter pieces of the Oak, but I only saw one length of the Poplar.

If you end up making your own, good luck. I recommend buying at least one 36" piece, this way you have plenty to work with... as my first attempt ended up with the drill bit for the stem punching through the top when I tried to make the hole slightly larger .

 

I don't see why you would have to varnish it, I imagine if you did though it would in fact be bad for you especially if you got it in the bowl and burnt it and inhaled the fumes.

Only thing I really did to it though was what seemed to be recommended a through past threads, of charring the bowl and rubbing some honey in with a bit of ash to "fire proof" it.

Which so far has worked quite well, I can hold a flame to it for about 20 seconds and nothing burns.