I recently came across a lot of plain pot and bulldog pipes from a local shop. All were unused, cheap, and uninteresting. So I decided to use these cheap pipes as a way to practice sanding, staining, and rusticating pipes to make them look a lot better. My second attempt was on one of the pots.

I sanded off all the original to find reasonable grain and a few pits that the dark stain was hiding. Since I had already to go fairly organic with this particular pipe and make it look more like a flowing freehand, I decided to let the rustication “drip” down the sides of the pipe. I used a dremel with a couple different engraving bits to do the rustication. Here’s the result:

I went for a “blood red” stain instead of the dark almost-black brown stain that was previously covering the pipe, and many many layers of jet black stain for the rusticated portions. I was happy with the color combination as soon as my carnauba wax buffing wheel stopped.

My next pipe will be a full rustication of a bulldog.  A few more of these and I’ll be ready to start ordering kits and making my own designs!