A Pipemaker's Odyssey
Every journey has a beginning- mine started just out of college as a woodworker at Opryland USA in Nashville, TN. One of the most fascinating parts of that for me was making pipes- over the years, I made many pipes, primarily freehands in the Danish style. Fast forward thirty years- After almost three decades of raising a family and taking the typical corporate track, I ran across some equipment for sale from an old pipe repair shop. Bought it...carved a couple of pipes...spent a small fortune on tooling....and a larger fortune on briar...and now I'm on track to carve seventy pipes or so this year.
My approach is a simple one- produce the best pipe I can with the finest materials that I buy directly from the source. My wife Greta and I just returned from three weeks in Italy where we visited our briar supplier in Calabria- a third generation cutter. The stems for my pipes are all hand-cut from only SEM Ebonite or Cumberland. My bamboo is ordered directly from China.
You can find us in 2015 at the Chicago Pipe Show, the New Orleans Pipe Show, and the Nashville Pipe Show. If you happen to be near Sarasota, please drop by- you just might end up with a home-cooked Italian meal, the chance to smoke a good bowl, and some new friends along the way....ZHP929