What's In, What's Out

Biz News - One new Morta Classic is posted. I've got another one in process of the same shape, so check back in a day or two if you like (and miss) this current one. It's another in the same design as the #100 pipe.


Folks in the pipe hobby like to think of themselves as non-trendy, timeless sorts who aren't swayed by passing fads, but truth be told, we're just as fickle in our tastes as the rest of humanity. Case in point - There seems to be a current burning trend of fascination for ultra-short "noseburner" pipes. I've had more requests for, and interest in, these funky little stubby beasts in this past year than I have had in my previous ten years of professional pipemaking. I don't mind at all, because they're lots of fun to make, but it does seem odd that only a few years ago, most folks I know would have balked at paying a high grade pipe price for something that was just a few inches long. They take just as long to make as a full-sized pipe, yet the value perception tends to be "small = must be cheaper", so there just didn't seem to be much demand for me to be carving 300 €+ Talbert noseburners. Now, heck, I seem to get a regular stream of requests for the little buggers - the one in today's picture was done for a Japanese collector, and is a really excellent bit of sandblasting if I do say so (The briar gods were smiling).

Contrast this with bamboo-shank pipes today, which seem to be largely dead. Back in the late 90's, I had seen a few of these and loved them dearly, and I began to make my own. Every one sold, most nearly instantly, and they were impossible to keep in stock. Lots of makers began doing them, and suddenly it seemed half the pipes on the market were bamboo-shanked... to the point that I actually stopped making them for a very long time, just to avoid being part of the trend. Somewhere along the way, however, it seems to have died out cold - The only two mortas we've had unsold were both bamboo-shanks, retailers I talk with report that bamboo-shanks are slow to sell, and they're just not as omnipresent as they were only five or six years ago. A shame, because bamboo-shank pipes remain my all-time favorite pipes, for their light weight, their exotic "Adventurer's Club" aura, and the wonderful smoking and seasoning flavor that the bamboo imparts to the tobacco as the pipe is smoked (It isn't a flavor alteration, like morta, but rather more of a richening and deepening that I quite like).

Perhaps it's a sign of our economically-stressed times, with "obvious extravagance" being out and "minimalist frugality" being in. Alternatively, I could just be mad...

Oh, and my apologies for the very slow blog updates. We've had some big increases in our business taxes this year and it's forced us to pretty much devote all our waking hours to workshop, money-producing work. It's annoying because I've got several good ideas for blog posts, but just can't find the time to write them up. Ahh, well... This too shall pass, as the saying goes.

Emily has a side project

No pipe news today, but news of a related sort. My wife Emily has been working diligently for a while now to learn the art of pencrafting, and she in turn has been teaching me what she's picking up. When we first purchased this house and workshop back in 2002, the previous owner had divided his work equally between pipes and pens, and we got a huge quantity of pen parts and pen stock with the purchase. It put us in an odd position, since we'd had no previous experience in penmaking. We did, however, have a lot of basic, roughed-out and partly finished pens built around one of the previous owner's designs, and for some time after we arrived here, we did a steady business in finishing and selling those existing pens in our shop. However, we never really considered them "ours".

Once the semi-ready parts were used up, we suspended penmaking for several years and just focused on pipes, since we had enough pipe demand to occupy all our workshop time anyway. But I've always had in the back of my mind a desire to branch out a little, and work on creating some other high quality (and distinctively "Talbert") handmade items, and pens are a natural project. So, Em has been learning what she could in her spare time, and we ordered some basic pen kits to help us get a good feel for how a pen is put together, how to get use from our existing stock, and how to essentially produce a series of pens that were all ours.

What you see in the photos here are the first couple of results that Emily has produced in her spare time. As artisan pens go, these are just starter items, done to learn-as-we-go and built around common pen kit plans - the equivalent of the typical hobbyist's first pipes built off of pre-drilled block kits with attached molded stems. But still, I'm quite happy with them, like any craftsperson who suddenly sees something new appear fully finished out of a collection of parts and raw supplies.

These pens bring our pipe experience into the craft in two ways - They're made from French morta, for starters (the 3000 year old petrified bog oak found in our local parkland), and Emily had the bright idea to sandblast them. I've looked around a few pen sites and this sort of finish seems uncommon if not unknown, so I'll be interested to see what sort of results we can get from different woods... especially briar. Imagine a pen girdled with growth rings! She used a larger grit media than we normally use for pipes, to give the blast surface a smoother, more undulating texture rather than making it sharp and edgy - not an appealing goal for a pen surface. I wasn't sure how they would turn out, but so far I find them excellent - smooth enough to be comfortable to hold, yet textured enough to feel interesting and to offer a lot of "grip" in the hand.

We're currently going to be beating on these and future creations, to see what breaks, how the finish holds up, etc, in regular use. This is a fair way from being a commercial project, but don't be surprised if eventually the website gains a "Talbert Pens" section where Emily can go wild (and me too, of course - I already have some quirky ideas for a Halloween pen). In the meantime, as I did with my early pipes so long ago, we'll be turning out a lot of Christmas gifts for family and friends! ;)

Need Spackle

So, this block looked perfectly fine from the outside - no visible flaws, cracks, or splits. Then I made the first bandsaw cuts.

!!!

No worries, though. A little putty and no one will ever know... :D

On the serious side, I realize this is the first blog post I've made here for ages, but I've been abominably busy. I've got several topics kicking around in my head, including one on drilling, drilling angles, why airholes are drilled in certain ways, etc, but have not at all had the sort of time to assemble such an article (with accompanying sketches and such). I'll be back eventually, please bear with us. Rumors of the blog's demise are highly exaggerated!