More fill than briar???

[paulbookbinder]

Reading an older post about Petersons on this forum, and at least one person made the above comment in the title of this post. I have a few Petes, some high end and some lower end like Arans. Can't honestly say I see much in the way of fill in the lower end pipes, but then again maybe I don't know what to look for. I see, on the Aran 01 I have in my hands right now, three areas each the size of half a grain of rice, maybe 1/8 - 3/16 inch, that have obviously been filled with putty that is softer than the wood and has no grain effect. Is this all there is ??? If so, no big deal in my opinion. Am I missing dime sized or nickel sized defects filled with putty then cleverely stained to look like wood? I am seriously considering sacrificing one of my pipes to sand it down past the stain to get a real look at what is wood and what is filler. Am I missing something that should look really obvious???


thanks,



Paul

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Largest fills I've ever seen in my recent experience has been about lentil-sized, or split-pea sized. Some are wood-grained in nature, others are putty. I sent back a Nording I bought recently because the left side of it looked like someone went after it with a shotgun and filled in a dozen or more spots. I wouldn't have cared if it was one or two, but I can't imagine someone working that hard to make a cheap, flawed pipe workable. In that case, I'm shocked it wasn't just rusticated, which I prefer as a finish in more-flawed pipes.

Nickel or dime-sized? Likely not. I could be wrong, though. Flaws that big usually influence an area far larger than the pipe's structure can handle, I think.

You would definitely notice a fill, unless the pipe was painted or blackened out. Probably no need to screw up one of your pipes to go looking.

 

[plumbernater]

Dont do that. I have a few Pets and they have very small fills such as you described. Any thing eles someone might say, its bull. Peterson makes seconds that dont have a dime size fill. If there is one its some odd ball.

AS you cane see the fills on these arnt so bad for great smoking pipes.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

See, Plumb's pipes show what a majority of fills look like, and in proper frequency.

In the case of the second pipe he's showing, the birdseye grain FAR outweighs the very small fill toward the heel.

Little flaws like this are of no consequence to me, in fact, a mole on a supermodel can be quite endearing. 8) "Beauty mark," I think they call it. :lol:

 

[paulbookbinder]

Yes, that is exactly what I see on some of mine. As long as there isn't a defect in the chamber that can cause a burnthrough, I simply cant see what all the fuss is about. I agree Kyle, that birdseye would make me overloook half a dozen small fills.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

No pipe should leave the factory/carver that has an obvious flaw in the bowl. I know it happens, but with name-brand stuff, it's a rarity. It's more likely to have a defect in the bowl just below the surface that rears its ugly head later, but if you bought it from a B&M they'll usually work with you on making it right.

 

[paulbookbinder]

ummm. what I meant to say plumbernator is that the defect on that 303 is so awful, so horrible, so unsightly that I simply can not allow a person of your stature to smoke it. I will, therefore, take it off your hands :lol!:

That is some of the nicest birdseye I have seen on a system pipe, just wow.

 

[Zeno Marx]

No pipe should leave the factory/carver that has an obvious flaw in the bowl.

cosigned. I'm not one to chase straight-grains or birdseye. I greatly appreciate them, but they aren't necessarily high on my priority list. However, I won't stand for fills in the pipes I buy. With all the options available to makers, it's simply unacceptable.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

No pipe should leave the factory/carver that has an obvious flaw in the bowl.

cosigned. I'm not one to chase straight-grains or birdseye. I greatly appreciate them, but they aren't necessarily high on my priority list. However, I won't stand for fills in the pipes I buy. With all the options available to makers, it's simply unacceptable.

Well, that sentiment (to clarify) was specifically for flaws IN bowls... the outside, provided the price is okay, can have a fill or two. Not the 17 I counted on a $50 Nording. I have a Nording sitter from Tinder Box I paid $25 more dollars for that has no fills whatsoever. I prefer no fills, but in the right circumstance, I'll not pass up a pipe that the only thing that might be an issue is a fill or two. Straight grain consistency or birdseye is just a bonus.

Pipe carvers/factories have to do something with their almost-perfects, or else the price of everything else goes up to cover the cost of them throwing them away. Some companies do this, others don't. Thank goodness for both schools of thought, or some of us would never get into pipes at all.

 

[Zeno Marx]

Thank goodness for both schools of thought, or some of us would never get into pipes at all.

I've never had any problem finding very affordable pipes, both new and estate, that are fill-less. I get your gist, but I do believe there are plenty of options, both to the carvers and the bean counters, that indicate fills are a matter of more than just business necessity. I don't have much respect for companies that sell their 1sts with fills. In the past, I would have extended that to 2nds, too. I instantly downgrade them to 2nd or 3rd tier makers. I will admit that I see it A LOT more these days than I once did. For me, fills are right up there with ill-fitting stems and poorly drilled drawholes. And $100 pipes with putty? Where's the pride? Where's the craft?

I've been really, really surprised with how many Registered era Stanwells have fills. So strange, in my experience, for older pipes like that to be so riddled with putty. Now that I type that, I've seen a few older Nordings with fills (sandblasted finishes no less) as well. Putty doesn't seem to bother the Danes or the Irish. No thanks. It's a dealbreaker in my book. Plenty of pipes in the sea. I'll keep looking.

Likely sounds extreme to many, but I wasn't exaggerating when I said unacceptable.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Where's the pride? Where's the craft?

It's not outlandish at all. Demand quality. If I have the opportunity, timing and cash on hand, I'm going to go for the most perfect available to me. 8)

My pride and craft come from understanding where, how and why pipes are made, so I carve them myself to get a taste of it, and put the care and artistry I know I can put in them. I couldn't throw out my most recent pipe with the grand canyon flaw in it, so I made it work. I wouldn't imagine someone could sell pipes that way, but there was pride in my craft! 8)

 

[plumbernater]

I have noticed in the pipes that I have that the older ones, dont have fills, I even have a old peterson may be 1940-50 that has not one. It also came from england. it was not shipped to the international market.

 

[tleek]

i have three petes, a Shannon, a Mark Twain, and a Kapet.
The Kapet is rusticated so i cant tell if theres fills, the Shannon has one, but i just tried to find it to remeber the location but i couldn't, so i am not too worried about it, and the Mark Twain has no fills which i could detect.
I've looked at alot of petersons, mostly cheaper ones and i never saw real noticeable or large fills.

 

[Anonymous]

I won't stand for fills in the pipes I buy. With all the options available to makers, it's simply unacceptable.

Good luck with that. You'll need it.

At the risk of you feeling insulted, it's pretty clear on this end (no opinion involved) that you don't understand the price/volume relation you think (in a vacuum of information) you do. This is why :

Pipe makers in the Silver Age (Gold, by most accounts, was pre-1939, by and large, with some exceptions ; WWII disrupted the supply of trained-up-from-youth craftsmen and most concerns had to replace their labor force with housewives when they started back up again) adhered to the No-Fills-In-A-First standard from tradition. It was peer pressure. In the face of a steadily declining market, this did them in. With the prices they could get (Dunhill and freehand Charatans excepted) for their best-grained firsts and solid-but-nothin'-fancy lines of others held down by their own competition, they had to come out with numerous lines of seconds with fills and private label for chains & shops because this is what their briar supplies allowed them to turn out. Figures from back then were around 3% of production were Firsts (Cleans).

Some of these, like a "Drury Lane" apple in front of me as I type this, except for the kind & number of fills you guys are showing, are otherwise spectacularly nice pipes. (Drury Lane, for you bargain hunters, was the road in front of the old Comoy plant). But with everybody else doing the same thing, and some pretty tasteless attempts at "new/stylish/contemporary" not turning things around as hoped, they pretty much all went down together. Now, the old brand pipes are just names stamped on factory production from (initially) Swansea or (later) France &/or wherever else there's excess production going cheap.

Not before the fills started showing up though, out of sheer necessity. One great-tasting & smoking, later-but-not-final-production (new in 1974) Sasieni 4-Dot sandblast I traded off when I belatedly noticed that much of one whole side of it was putty under the stain. (News Flash : fills in sandblasted/rusticated pipes are much easier to hide).

Savinelli never pretended to not fill theirs, no matter what the grade (they're to be found on Autographs, Linea Pius & DeLuxes). Which is one reason why I avoided them, but that's neither here nor there. Peterson joined the parade of necessity-- now, a few specified lines of theirs are (or at least were a few years back) guaranteed fill-free ; their other lines may or may not be (and there is a luck-of-the-draw factor). Stanwell started out toeing the line (one favorite here is an old Stanwell shape with a small fill in the shank branded "Made in Denmark") but this changed, out of the same necessity : rising costs and relatively fixed retail prices. (People used to getting a nicely grained & made English "name" first for around $30 running into the next one @ $70 a few years later got angry and balked. I know I did).

When you're up against a price ceiling like that, in the face of continually rising costs, you either lower previous standards, find a niche you can get by in, or pack it in.

So who are the holdouts ? Not who you'd expect. According to Marty Pulvers (who's handled & sold more of them in 40 years than you'll ever see if you go to shows the rest of your life), Danish pipes are no strangers to fills -- and sandblasts especially. (Yes, Virginia, it's true -- even Bo Nordh did it). They just do it very, very well. And the same is true of some high-ranking American, Italian (&c.) makers.

The bottom line is that when you're doing it for a living, when you spend hours making a pipe and a void shows up that you can't improvise around, you can either pitch it and lose the time you have in it, or you can disguise it and make enough to eat that day. Same problem if you (were) a factory depending on quality volume.

(Stanwells from Denmark, RIP ).

Yes, if you're a high-end guy, the very most select blocks will have fewer voids and sandpits than the Pretty-Good-to-Excellent grade that Stanwell was famous for for years. Making it less likely that your Bo Ivarsson or your Nina Chonowich has a little disguised booger in it somewhere. But if you think it's a guarantee, I'm here as your friend(ly) to tell you that

1) it's not one. And that

2) Given the current realities of "the market," unless you're a well established maker who's good at rusticating/blasting away problems and getting by on the lower prices you can get for them, that's about the only way it can be. For some this is viable. Others figure what people don't know won't hurt them. And some of them seem to be doing rather well, as a rule. Possibly better than not a few of the straight-arrows.

Then again, I may be full of shit.

FWIW

:face:

 

[riff raff]

I've had a smooth Aran and Killarney, neither which had any noticeable fills. I just didn't like the p-lip on either.
I have a rusticated Rocky Donegal at the moment, who knows what that finish hides, but it has a fishtail and smokes great.

 

[Anonymous]

I even have a old peterson may be 1940-50 that has not one . . . it was not shipped to the international market.

Actually, go back and look at the old Peterson offerings by the various importers back in the day. They were only importing the cheap-ass Petersons to sell to people who couldn't afford much else. The higher end ones either stayed there or went someplace else than the good ol' USA. This gave Peterson itself a bad name here it -- largely -- didn't deserve. (In fairness, at times they could be, like Charatan after a two-pint lunch, a drinking institution with a pipe-making problem).

(Looking on the bright side of this, one of the nicest things about old Petersons, IMHO, is that they were not obsessed with the High Standard of Standardness the English were).

I ween you will not find a fill in any Peterson (so branded) much before 1970. Their "cosmetically-enhanced" production went out as "Killarny," "Kildare," &c. &c. &c. Strangely enough, "Shamrocks" were once fairly (today, surprisingly) almost clean ; later ones can be riddled with fills.



FWIW

:face:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

I doubt very much you're full of shit at all, Yak--in this instance, anyway... :lol:

From the historical research and book reading I have done, this seems to be the case, with WWII being a HUGE upset to the briar collection, importation and manufacture... well, Europe was kind of in a bind, and pipemaking was likely a necessity of simple pleasures rather than a high-achieved artform of the time. Much of the Western world was making do with what it had on all levels. I think some quality started to go up around the end of the 1950's and early 1960's, but then again, some manufacturers also learned from the cheap-out tricks of times of yore, when it went from necessity to "market share." This is just my understanding. A lot of pipe manufacturers did it, it seems.

I think it's a sheer joy to try and find the most flawless pipes possible, but shape, weight and grain will win out over a small fill or two. Especially knowing very personally what it's like to work really hard on a pipe to find out it's a stinker. What do you do with it? Throw it out and waste your effort, or work with what you have.

 

[Anonymous]

I doubt very much you're full of shit at all, Yak--in this instance, anyway... :lol: :tongue:

Opinions on that have varied since day one here.

All in a day's work.

:face:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

I doubt very much you're full of shit at all, Yak--in this instance, anyway... :lol: :tongue:

Opinions on that have varied since day one here.

All in a day's work.

:face:

You do keep us on our toes and thinking. I'll give you that. 8) Hell, it drove Mark to smoke cigarettes again, in a round-about way... :lol: (...can't say you shoulder the blame solely though--I've done my part...)

 

[Zeno Marx]

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

I won't stand for fills in the pipes I buy. With all the options available to makers, it's simply unacceptable.

Good luck with that. You'll need it.

It's not a big problem for me because I don't have any dfficulty walking by a pipe. If I was under the impression that the supply of pipes I like would run dry, or if I was so picky that I almost never ran into a pipe I like, things might be different. I'm not impulsive, nor obsessive. I could love everything about a pipe, notice a fill in the final moment before pulling the purchase trigger, put it down, and walk away from it never thinking about it again. There's really no luck involved. I find it is more a matter of patience that allows me to hold to such a strict standard. If a maker has snuck a fill by me, then I applaud them.

<cite> wrote:</cite>What do you do with it? Throw it out and waste your effort, or work with what you have.

I believe I covered this, or at least I tried to do so. If you're a hobbyist making only a few pipes a year, then I would hope you wouldn't ask $100-300 for a pipe with fills. If you do, I would feel your price exorbitant and your craftsmanship to be questionable. I wouldn't go out of my way to say that to them, but it is what I'd be thinking after looking at their pipes. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt you're going to find a Tinsky, Roush, Cooke, etc selling a pipe with fills. If you're stuck in that crack between a hobbyist and a full-time pipe maker, I guess you're kind of screwed if everyone thinks like me. Sorry. I'm not budging on this. I'm not trying to sell anyone on my view. It's merely part of my own process of buying a pipe. Some people buy Mario Grandi pipes with crooked stems and weird, haphazard finishing because they're priced right. I don't begrudge that choice, but for me, I'm not at all interested in them. Giant. Light. Perfect flame grain. But then a fill or a stem that doesn't sit flush? That pipe would provide me little joy if it was even priced at $25.