How to Make a Hammer Pipe

What is a hammer pipe?

The hammer's T-shaped profile sets it apart from almost every other handheld pipe form. When you rest a hammer on a flat surface it sits stable and level, with the bowl standing upright and the mouthpiece extending out to one side — exactly like the head of a hammer resting on a workbench. In the hand it feels balanced and ergonomic, the weight distributed evenly across the horizontal body rather than concentrated at a bowl end.

For a working glass artist, the hammer is a natural next step after the spoon. You already know how to gather glass, shape a bowl, open a carb, and control heat across a piece. The hammer introduces two new technical challenges — a true 90-degree tube bend and the geometry of attaching a bowl perpendicular to the main body — that push your skills into genuinely intermediate territory. Master the hammer and the mechanics of multi-section water pipes start to make a lot more sense.

What glass and tools do you need to make a hammer pipe?

The tube sizing is where the hammer differs most from the spoon. Because you're building a T-shaped form rather than pulling a single piece of tubing into shape, you're working with two distinct tube diameters and joining them — a skill more similar to water pipe construction than to basic spoon work. Here's what you need at the bench:

• Body tubing — 25mm or 32mm borosilicate tubing for the main body and bowl section. Wider tube reads better as a hammer and gives you more working mass for the bowl.
• Mouthpiece tubing — 12–16mm tubing for the stem. The size difference between body and mouthpiece is what creates the classic hammer head silhouette.
• Graphite mandrel — sized to fit snugly inside the mouthpiece tube. This is the critical tool for the 90-degree bend — without it the tube collapses at the bend point.
• Graphite paddle and marver — for shaping the body and keeping the piece flat and level as you work.
• Tungsten picks — for opening the bowl, working the carb, and fine detail work at the junction point.
• Surface-mix torch — a Bethlehem Alpha, GTT Bobcat, or comparable oxygen-propane torch capable of working wider tube sections evenly.
• Annealing kiln — essential; the combined mass of a hammer holds significant stress after all the joining and bending work.

For a full breakdown of torch choices and kiln options, see our borosilicate glassblowing equipment guide. For tube sizing across different pipe forms, see our guide to borosilicate glass sizes.

How do you build the body of a hammer pipe?

The body is the foundation the entire form is built from, so spend time getting it right before you commit to the other stages. Work with a length of your wider tubing — typically 4–6 inches is enough for a standard hammer body. Flame the midsection to even out the wall thickness and get a feel for how the tube responds at this diameter; wider tube moves more slowly and holds heat longer than narrow rod.

Close one end cleanly to form the bottom of the body. This is the underside of the hammer — the surface that will eventually sit flat on a table — so take care to close it evenly and without distorting the tube's roundness. Pull the closed end back into shape on the marver while it's still workable, checking that the bottom is flat and the tube walls are consistent thickness all the way around.

Before you start on the bowl or mouthpiece, decide on your body length and proportions. A hammer body that's too long relative to the mouthpiece looks awkward; too short and it's difficult to attach a proper bowl. A body length of 2–3 inches with a mouthpiece extending 3–4 inches to one side is a good starting proportion. Mark your working points in your mind now — once you start the bowl and the mouthpiece bend, it becomes much harder to reshape the body.

How do you form and attach the bowl?

There are two schools on hammer bowl construction, and both produce excellent results — the right choice depends on the look you're after and your current skill level with joints.

Integral bowl: Heat the top center of the body tube until it's fully molten, then use a tungsten pick to open an aperture and work it upward and outward into a bowl shape. This is the simpler approach for beginners — there's no joint to manage and the flow of glass is continuous. The limitation is that the bowl diameter is constrained by the body tube diameter, so integral bowls on narrower bodies can look pinched.

Attached bowl: Make a separate bowl piece — either pulled from wider tubing or worked from a pre-formed bowl blank — and fuse it to the top of the body. This takes more skill because the joint must be clean and fully sealed without distorting either piece, but it gives you complete freedom over bowl size and shape. Heat both surfaces evenly, bring them together while both are soft, and work the joint closed with a pick.

The carb goes on the side of the body section, below and slightly forward of the bowl. On a hammer, the carb sits on the side facing the thumb when the piece is held normally — position it to feel natural in the hand. Open it with a tungsten pick while the glass is soft, then ream it clean and flame-polish the edge.

How do you bend the mouthpiece on a hammer pipe?

The 90-degree mouthpiece bend is the move that defines the hammer form and the one that takes the most practice to execute cleanly. The challenge is threefold: getting the glass hot enough to bend without overheating it, maintaining the tube's roundness through the bend, and hitting the right angle without distortion.

Start by inserting the graphite mandrel into the mouthpiece tube before you apply any heat. The mandrel should fit snugly without binding — too loose and it won't support the tube wall; too tight and you'll have trouble removing it once the bend is set. Position the tube so the section you want to bend is centered in your working flame.

Heat the full section you're bending — typically 1.5 to 2 inches of tube centered on the bend point. This is the single most important technique point: if you concentrate the heat in too tight a spot, the tube will kink rather than curve, creating a weak pinch point that will crack under use. A long, evenly heated section bends smoothly in a clean arc.

Once the section is uniformly soft — you'll see the glass start to sag slightly under its own weight — apply gentle, steady pressure to bring it to 90 degrees. Move slowly. The glass is more responsive than you expect when it's properly hot, and overcorrecting past 90 degrees means reheating and trying to open it back up, which is far harder than the initial bend. Check the angle as you go: hold the piece up and sight along it to confirm the mouthpiece is perpendicular to the body before the glass stiffens.

Let the bend cool until the glass holds its shape firmly — it should feel rigid, not springy — before sliding the mandrel out. Remove it with a straight, even pull. If the tube has gripped the mandrel, give it a gentle twist as you pull; graphite releases cleanly from boro once cooled. Flame-polish the interior of the mouthpiece opening after the mandrel is out to clean up any slight roughness at the tip.

How do you get the balance and stance right?

Balance is what separates a well-made hammer from a frustrating one. A hammer that tips, rolls, or leans is technically functional but practically annoying — and it signals to anyone handling it that the maker didn't finish the job. Getting the stance right is mostly a matter of checking early and checking often.

The primary balance check is simple: set the piece on a flat graphite marver or a clean, level surface while it's still warm enough to adjust. What you're looking for: the body sits flat and doesn't rock, the mouthpiece extends horizontally at roughly table height, and the bowl stands straight up without the piece leaning to either side. If any of these are off, you still have time to correct.

The most common issue is a body that rocks because the closed bottom end isn't quite flat. Reheat the base gently — you want it just soft enough to press lightly against the marver — and hold it there for a few seconds until the contact surface settles flat. Don't overheat; you just need the glass to yield slightly, not to flow.

For pieces where the body is too narrow to sit flat on its own, add a small glass foot or pair of feet to the underside. Pull two small nubs of matching clear boro, fuse them to the underside of the body symmetrically front and back, and press them flat on the marver while soft. Done well, feet are nearly invisible and give the piece rock-solid stability. Some artists add a single wider flattened foot pad under the center of the body — this is especially effective on narrower hammers where side-to-side stability is the concern.

Fuming and finishing a hammer pipe

Fuming a hammer pipe follows the same principles as fuming any borosilicate piece, but the T-shaped form creates some interesting variation in how the color develops. The body section, being wider and with more surface area, tends to take on denser fuming and richer color development with use. The narrower mouthpiece tube — especially deep inside the bend — gets a lighter deposit that shifts differently in light. This contrast can make a fumed hammer visually dynamic in ways a simple spoon isn't.

Work with .999 fine silver for the clearest, most responsive color shift. Vaporize the silver by holding a piece of fine silver wire in the outer flame, letting the vapor drift onto the interior surface of the warm glass. Keep the piece warm but not actively soft during fuming — you want the glass to accept the deposit, not be hot enough to disturb the layer once it lands. Move the piece slowly to build even coverage before the vapor density drops.

After fuming, do a final flame-polish pass over the entire piece. Pay particular attention to the carb opening, the mouthpiece tip, and any points where tube sections were joined — these areas are most likely to have small sharp edges or rough spots. A clean, polished edge on the mouthpiece opening is especially important since it contacts the user's lips directly. For a deeper dive on fuming technique and metal choices, see our silver and gold fuming guide and the guide to fuming metals.

Annealing a hammer pipe

The hammer's multi-section structure makes proper annealing more critical than it is for a simple spoon. Every join point — body-to-bowl, body-to-mouthpiece, any feet you've added — creates a potential stress concentration where poorly annealed glass will crack. The combined mass of the piece also means it retains heat longer, and the different thicknesses of the body and mouthpiece tube cool at slightly different rates, adding further stress potential.

Transfer the piece to the preheated kiln immediately after your final flame-polish pass, while the glass is still warm — ideally above 400°F. Setting a hot piece in a cold kiln, or letting it cool on the bench before annealing, is asking for a crack. Place the hammer so it rests on its flattened base without any section hanging unsupported. A piece that rests awkwardly in the kiln — with the mouthpiece cantilevered over the kiln shelf edge, for example — can develop a lean as the glass softens slightly during the anneal soak.

Soak at approximately 1050°F (560°C) for 20–30 minutes, then begin a controlled ramp-down — roughly 50–100°F per hour to around 700°F, then slower to room temperature. The full schedule for borosilicate annealing is covered in our complete borosilicate annealing guide.