Previews

My apologies for the desolate silence on the blog lately, but the preparation for the Rheinbach show has really devoured all of my working time. Most months have me spending about 70% of my working time in the shop and 30% in the office, but so far this month it's about 85% workshop. I've gotten some nice stuff done, though. Which is a good thing, since our standing inventory has been gradually depleting to virtually nothing, with only one Talbert Briar left on the web catalog.

I'm not quite sure what to expect of the Rheinbach show, but I do think there are likely to be a lot of smooth Danish shapes there, so my focus (if any) is on pipes outside that sphere - Really nice sandblasts in rugged, classical English shapes, and rather bizarre and fantastical freehand creations. I'm keeping the wilder stuff under wraps until the show, but here are a couple pics of some of the more conservative pipes I'll be taking along. The unstained Dublin above is a beautiful piece - Big, meaty, thick-walled, with an incredibly tight pattern of grain rings. It's the sort of pipe that American collectors would swarm for, but what European collectors will think of such stuff remains to be seen.



Only the two pipes in the foreground of this photo will be at the show. The latter pipe, modeled on a bird's nest on a branch, is a 9mm filter piece done for a special order for a German buyer, and is already gone. I'm also trying to bring at least some examples of every line we make here. Currently I've got 2 Ligne Bretagne Collectors (One is green, which should be amusing), a couple of mortas in progress, a couple of standard Ligne Bretagnes in progress, and all the rest are Talbert Briars.... Seven at current count, plus whatever I can finish between now and show date. I don't plan on leaving the workshop for anything but food between now and Rheinbach!