A Red Hot Poker

Blessed Christmas to all and happy feast of St. John the Evangelist. Thank you all for your support throughout my first year as a pipe maker, especially those who feed me ideas and those who purchased a pipe. Several of my pipes have sold through Tewksbury, and I am very grateful to Dave, Brian and Gwyneth of the before mentioned store for all their support and input. I don't know yet what the new year will bring but I look forward to new and refined ideas,

I decided to play around with a bit of a simpler design. This tobacco pipe has elegance in its design and fire in its heart. The red dye I found is so brilliant and striking that it leaps off the pipe and draws the eye in.

It's been a while

So it's been a couple of weeks since I posted my last pipe, but do not fear I am not totally inactive. So here is the run down.

I am currently working on three different pipes. One is a commissioned piece in the Wizard series that will be totting a stem I made. The other two are just new designs I wanted to try out. 

I accumulated a 1" wide upright belt sander. This will come in handy to finish forming some of my pipes but will be especially helpful in forming the stems I am starting to create. 

I sold the Sexton's Churchwarden through a tobacco shop. Tewksbury is where I usually go for my tobacco. It's a great little tobacco shop which also sells wine and fly fishing trips. They have several of my pipes on their shelves on commission and it is so exciting to see long time pipe smokers admiring them and now even buying them.

I have turned several cups and several stems on the lathe. It has been great to learn more about turning, as it gives me more options with stems. 

I have made a couple template pipes. These are pipes  I make out of American Hardwoods (cheap) and I smoke to try to work out particularly difficult designs. It allows me to have smoked and cleaned a pipe a customer might ask about. It also lets me sample different wood flavors. 

Here is my first cup and one of my template pipes.