Rings of irritation

Today's picture is brought to you buy the letter 'F', and the numbers 4 and 7.

F for 'frustration'.

4 for the number of attempts I made at this.

7 for the number of inches of material I used up in an attempt at making a shank adornment for a pipe I'm working on. It's supposed to be a ring, but as you can see, somewhere along the line it managed to explode.

This is the faux horn I use for stems, stem rings, and shank adornments on a few pipes, and it's actually a really nice material completely finished and and polished up. The grain and striations in the coloring look really nice, but I tell you, it's a cast iron ***** to work with on the lathe. It's incredibly prone to chipping out instead getting shaved off, especially if your tools are less than razor sharp.

Net result? It took me about an hour to complete the ring that eventually went on to the pipe. This just illustrates some of the time and effort actually involved in making pipes, and that even pipe makers can have a bad day at the office....