162. Engineering the NAP Mouthpiece: Roundtable Discussion, Part 2
During the second half of the NAP Roundtable discussion at the West Coast Pipe Show in Las Vegas, Silver Gray (middle) and Brad Pohlmann (left) fielded questions from the vetting group about the engineering of Charles Peterson’s 2nd production Patent, the NAP. Silver Gray: It took me about a month to make sure the mechanics were proper on it, which I could do because I had Gary Malmberg’s original. Getting the measurements and making sure they were going to work and making prototypes and looking at how long it’s going to be, how deep does it go. The whole shebang was meticulously thought out [by Charles Peterson], and because it is such an important piece of history to recreate, I wanted to make sure it was spot-on. The first issue I ran across was the fitting of the stem into the stummel, into the mortise, because System pipes don’t have a standard two degree taper. I put a couple on the lathe, made them two degrees, went to put them in and they wouldn’t work. I had to enlist Brad’s help, “Mister Master Tool and Die.” He fit each one of these stems because it was a trick—not only do they come in at the mortise, then they flare out and then they flare back. It was a masterful piece of artwork for Brad to fit. Brad Pullman: We were trying to recreate the heft of that iconic Peterson look. And with their new mortise hole, the way they’re making them now, it’s much smaller [than on the IFS mortise from the 1920s]. Even this 314 [from the Early Republic era]—it’s got to be an older pipe because the well is really well done. These are almost like a second drill-down, as an after-thought almost. And consequently, this hole on my pipe is a much larger diameter to start with, so I was able to get a lot more heft on my pipe’s stem than I was able to get on your new production bowls. What I did is I fit the mortise as best I could, whatever angle it was, and then at the end of that angle, immediately where it ended, I tried to flare it out as much as I possibly could without making it look corny. Andy Camire: Like they do with a space-fitting DeLuxe step. You’ve got to flight a taper so he can work it. Brad: Right. Silver: And on the new System bowls, the well isn’t as deep as it used to be. To accommodate the chimney on the end of the stem, it had to only go in so far. Each pipe had to be customized in length because some of the wells were deep and some were shallow. Each pipe had to be customized for not only the fit but the depth that it went into the mortise. Brad: After you cut the blank out of the ebonite, then you’ve got to calculate those measurements and what is left to make…