Found in a closet --- my literal first pipe (made in 1978)

[LatakiaLover]

I posted a cutty this past Spring that was my first complete pipe---meaning I made both the stem and stummel---but in literal terms, it was my second.

This is the literal first one. I just now re-found it after my move to KC a couple years ago (I thought it was lost), and thought you might get a kick out of it.

It was made in 1978 from a block given to me by Art Englander at that time. (If you've ever seen Carl Ehwa's The Complete Book of Pipes and Tobaccos, most of the antiques in it came from Art's shop.) It was a virtual museum, and the cluttered back room had some briar blocks in an old chest, saved from when Art tried carving in his youth (he was 90 years old in 1978).

Anyway, I hadn't the slightest idea what I was doing, and used kitchen table tools. A small Sears drill press for the holes, a sanding disk chucked in a cheap electric drill clamped in a bench vise for rough shaping, and knives, sticks, and paper for the finer shaping. The finish is simply wax over raw wood. No sealants, no color coat, no nothing. I had no idea what type of stain to use, so left it natural rather than risk wrecking it.

The stem was stolen outright from a Ban Wade table pipe I sacrificed, and simply plugged in. If I'd had to make a stem I'm not sure what I'd have done for a tenon.

But it smoked well, as I recall, and the wood was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Bookmatched grain, and zero flaws. Not so much as a tiny sand speck anywhere. Tad Gage saw it at a show in 1991 and loved the bizarre backstory, so ran an article about the pipe in The Compleat Smoker that I still get questions about from old timers. (Please excuse the top's condition in the photo... I can't even remember what I was trying to do that left it less than pristine. I'll have to restore it properly now that I re-found the pipe, I guess.)

Anyway, there you go. Everybody's gotta start somewhere.

[W.Pastuch]

Wow, that's ugly...
Now I get why you didn't become a pipemaker

[LatakiaLover]

Keilwerth ---

Somehow I missed visiting your website before now. There's some pretty cool stuff in your gallery.

None of the pics enlarged for me when clicked, though. Is there some way to do that, as well as get more angles of a given pipe?

Also, do you ship to the US from Poland, or do you serve only Europe?

[W.Pastuch]

You should be able to enlarge the photos by clicking on the "view gallery" button next to each pipe, it should open in a new window The last ten or so pipes in the gallery only have a couple shots each, the others have several angles. Thanks I ship wherever the customer needs me to.

And seriously, that's a ridiculous block. I think you just painted the grain on once you were done with the shape I really like the bottom view!

[LatakiaLover]

You should be able to enlarge the photos by clicking on the "view gallery" button next to each pipe, it should open in a new window The last ten or so pipes in the gallery only have a couple shots each, the others have several angles. Thanks I ship wherever the customer needs me to.

Got it. Thanks.

And seriously, that's a ridiculous block. I think you just painted the grain on once you were done with the shape I really like the bottom view!

I've often wondered if wood like that was more common back then. Art was 90 in '79, and said it was saved from when he was "a young dreamer" which probably meant in his 20's. Which would date the block to between 1900 and 1910. No idea how long it sat around before he got it, either. But the odds of something like that turning up at all, never mind in the hands of TWO successive newbies, are astronomical... unless there was simply more of it available at the time.

As for the bottom view, the wood is nice, but the shape is asymmetrical. I cringe looking at it now, and have to actively suppress the urge to cut on it some more to fix it. Having a "personal time capsule" sort of thing lying about is nice in its own way, though.

PS -- "Table" pipes were all the rage in the 1970's. (Along with leisure suits, wide ties, and mustaches). So please don't laugh too hard at the shape. It was a decade of bad taste.