I began working wood because I needed sturdy furniture—mostly bookshelves—that I could not afford to buy new. I took a couple classes in traditional joinery, learning how to cut dovetails, dadoes, and mortise & tenon joints with a few simple hand tools. Over the next few years, I built small items like boxes, stools, chests, and shelves for my family and a few friends. I also taught myself how to carve wooden spoons and spatulas, and I have now made well over a hundred of them. Although I use a few machines in my work these days, I continue to use hand tools as much as is practical.

A few years ago, a colleague at work dropped a package on my desk. Inside was a pipe kit consisting of a pre-drilled briar block and a stem. My friend challenged me to make a pipe for myself (never mind that I didn’t smoke at all). Eventually I managed to turn the block into something pipe-shaped. I was unsatisfied with my work, but acquaintances began asking me to make pipes for them, so I set out to learn to make a proper tobacco pipe.

There are a few classic texts on briar pipes, which I am gathering and reading as time allows, but they are leaving me with a lot of unanswered questions about many of the details of the work.  The internet has helped fill in some of the gaps, but I’m still having to figure out a lot of the details on my own.  I have no lathe, so my work thus far has technically been “freehand.”  I am currently working with a lot of chisels, rasps, files, and card scrapers, improvising work-holding techniques as I go.  I don’t like the way most “freehand” pipes look, so I’ve been experimenting with a more traditional look, yet without the mechanized shaping techniques.

I hope you will follow me on this pipe-making odyssey.