I never made a pipe, but I did make a good bong bowl out of stuff from the hardware store
Mine didn’t look quite like that, but I made one back in the 70s. It had a genuine bowl, not an improvised one. I used it for smoking old school hash (Lebanese, Moroccan, etc.). Where I lived weed was uncommon but hash was not.
We pooled our money together and took a trip to Menards when I was 15 to make one.
I remember going to another hardware store first and the employee told us to leave, but the guy at Menards gave us advice - telling us to use brass instead of copper
Thank god for Menards!
Mine was all brass. I got the parts from a “general” store run by a hippie couple. They sold incense, roling papers, that sort of legal stuff. If they got to know you they’d show you the under-the-counter bongs. The pipe parts were out in the open, though. I can still the remember the smell in that place, it was… groovy.
I put one of these together for a coworker from the supplies in the maintenance shop. Personally I was already a vapor snob so I never tried it, but he reported that it worked well.
I definitely didn’t take advantage of having a key to the shop during off shifts. 