"...they have a soul and smoke impossibly well..."

[Kyle Weiss]

Usually I'm on top of a new piece of writ by Greg Pease, but recent events have made my normal searching doldrums of Internet gems take longer than usual.

I love GLP's writing--it's balanced and gilded the right way, with the right information (if you ask me...). It's the kind of thoughtful writing that stands out amongst those who would rather prattle on about nothing (*cough* ...me...), and in a world where everyone has an opinion (as entitled), there's novices and masters. Take Pease's flu-riddled words, acerbic stance and wisdom here. For me, anyway, his writing gives me something to aspire to, and his thoughts something to consider while I'm in the mere beginnings of my adventure with these whimsical little wooden smoking devices:

http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/out-of-the-ashes/mind-the-credibility-gap/

I only reference this for newer pipesters like myself, who awash in 1,000 different mentioned ways of saying the 1,001st way Greg says it best right there. We're drowning in advice, which in some aspects is a good thing, but like the rest of our information-fueled world, we gotta sort through the ore to get to the gold. Even if that means making a few mistakes along the way, which in all good intentions of any opinionated advice-giver, somehow retards on a large scale. We might as well just pick up a pipe and decide for ourselves--more unsolicited Internet advice. Par for the course.

I apologize if I'm just parroting already-been-said stuff, but even we here are guilty. :lol: It's just me, sitting here being humbled by concise thought in the face of all that there is at my lazy little fingertips.

8)

 

[idbowman]

Definitely a great piece. I don't think anyone would look at any of the pipes in my collection and say "I have to get one like it." And I don't really care - I respect the work high-end pipemakers are doing, and there are a few that I'd like to add to my collection for my own personal reasons; I think what I like most about the pipe hobby is that it's honest (if that makes any sense at all) - getting caught up in the jargon and turning it into a sort of status symbol among a relatively small community is exactlty what I'm NOT looking for. The last paragraph really says it all...what's wrong with smoking what you like, in the pipe you want, and just enjoying it for what it is?

Still...if I ever see a "razor-grained pierced-elephant-blowfoot-squashed-fishdog," I'll probably have to buy it.


GLP also gets bonus points for the article's title.

 

[Wet Dottle]

Nice article, even if a bit too long. Much of what is said in the article, I learned from Ashton's pipes in the early 2000's: many could be found with all sorts of crooked drilling and terrible stem fitting, but I could never find one that didn't smoke exceptionally well. In fact, many of those Ashtons smoked better than perfectly drilled and fitted pipes from other makers. What it is not said in the article is that paying premium prices for poorly drilled pipes (no matter how well they smoke) is a different story; and makers asking for premium pipes must produce premium quality.

Good read, thanks for the link.

 

[Jers]

Thanks Kyle,

I enjoyed the article - a good read.

Fraternally

Jers

 

[dshpipes]

Nice article there, Kyle. Thanks for sharing. I always enjoy reading just about anything that Greg writes down.

 

[Sloppy Joe Hemingway]

Great article. Thanks for posting it for those of us that may have missed it. Much of my meager pipe knowledge comes from reading Greg's various pieces. Just reminds me how much I have to learn! Man, but am I gonna have a good time doing it...

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Greg is one of the people both qualified and tactful enough to properly tackle subject matter that's been truly beaten into the ground (or the heads of many). The thing is, a concise piece to send people to that are overwhelmed with the notion of something as simple as smoking a pipe (I say that somewhat laughingly) is never a bad idea. Greg's often my "last word" in subject matters of the pipe. At some point, some of this stuff has to start making sense, else we'll all go mad. :lol:

8)

 

[Anonymous]

Pipes are female. :lol:

There's beautiful garbage, and there's plain-looking gold.

Choose wisely.

:face:

 

[Anonymous]

I've noticed this : there is no such thing as a topic that's been talked into the ground. As we saw in the case of Dunhill pipes. There are always additional angles, and unconnected dots to connect.

"The last word" is never said.

(IMHO)

:face:

 

[Sasquatch]

I wasn't sure just what that article's purpose was. Greg wrote some stuff in there that I don't even think he believes, particularly in his ranting about "finest briar" and "finest ebonite" etc that pipe makers use. Fact is though, artisan pipe makers DO seek out better briar, and pay for it. And Greg knows darn well that bad briar makes bad pipes no matter what.

So what he's really saying is "some ugly pipes smoke good, at least some of the time"? Not much of a revelation.

 

[Anonymous]

as Mr. Sasquatch is graciously demonstrating

:face:

 

[glpease]

I wasn't sure just what that article's purpose was. Greg wrote some stuff in there that I don't even think he believes, particularly in his ranting about "finest briar" and "finest ebonite" etc that pipe makers use. Fact is though, artisan pipe makers DO seek out better briar, and pay for it. And Greg knows darn well that bad briar makes bad pipes no matter what.

So what he's really saying is "some ugly pipes smoke good, at least some of the time"? Not much of a revelation.

Yes, and some very attractive pipes "smoke bad," at least some of the time. I've had more than a few experiences with highly hyped "artisan" pipes that tasted like crap. And, that’s only part of what I’m saying. And, yes, it’s pretty obvious that bad briar makes bad pipes. I've never said otherwise.

Intellectual dishonesty is not in my bag of tricks. If I don't believe it, I don't write it. There's plenty of that to be found elsewhere, and that's precisely the point.

Most pipe makers buy the same briar from the same few sources. They do not travel to the briar patch and hand-select their burls, nor to they visit the cutter to hand-select cut and boiled blocks, but rely on the cutter to do that for them. And, the cutters do a pretty good job of selecting for size, shape, grain and so on. Yes, pipe makers pay more for better blocks, but they're paying for grain, size, weight and shape, not predicted smoking characteristics, which has little to do with the source of the briar, its grain, or other visible characteristics. Some makers have developed the ability to tell whether or not a piece of briar will taste good by its smell when it's worked. There may be some validity to this, but I've only talked to a couple of makers who have developed this skill.

Some makers do go to great lengths to process their briar in ways that do influence its taste. They age it for years, or perform some form of “secondary curing.” One maker I know has done significant experimentation along these lines, developing an interesting, and lengthy curing process that, in my limited experience with what he's doing, makes a huge difference in the way the pipe breaks-in. After tasting a cheap pipe, made from pedestrian briar, that he had put through only part of his process, I will say that it appears promising. One data point doesn't define a line, so I'm not prepared to say, "It works."

Bill Taylor performed his oil-curing magic to produce pipes that seem to smoke quite consistently. Alberto Bonfiglioli ages his wood for a decade or longer to produce pipes that smoke quite consistently. Castello, ditto. Roush applies his secret "secondary cure" to do the same thing. The list goes on. As long as the briar is of good quality, is boiled and dried properly, it's what the pipe make does to it that matters, and many veteran pipe makers have told me the same thing.

Makers should work to differentiate their work from one another, but to attempt to do so using empty rhetoric like "finest briar," is a pretty meaningless distinction, and certainly does not impress.

Pipe makers don't grow the heath shrubs, harvest the burls, process them or cut them. What they do after they get the wood is the only thing that's under their control, and that's what should be focused on if it's going to have any traction or convey any information to the consumer.

If two winemakers use the same grapes, harvested at the same time from the same vineyard, they will each start with the same juice. It's what they do after the crush that makes the difference in the finished product. Yes, the type and source of the grapes matters, and if they are inferior, there’s no way a great wine will pour out of the bottle at the other end of the process, but what competent winemaker would use junk grapes? And, what competent pipe maker would use junk briar?

 

[Rob_In_MO]

Nice Article, Greg. And thanks to Kyle for posting this.



Regarding the 'Bad Briar makes bad pipes' statement. I'm not 100% convinced of that.

For Example, let's look at MM Cobs. They're by no means made of 'FINE' materials, but yet some of them smoke wonderfully. Naturally, some smoke poorly and most are good smokers, but you can't say they're all bad because Cobs aren't the quality of higher-end pipes made with nothing but the best materials.


Despite everything I've read, I believe there's still more going on here than just the quality of Briar.

 

[KevinM]

There's the thing, and there's talking about the thing. Sometimes they're only tenuously connected. Sometimes everything that needs to be said has been said, but new sets of ears enter the room, some folks are persistent speakers, and others are tolerant listeners. In the end, everything inexorably drifts toward entropy. I thought of that while smoking a bowl of Revelation in my newish Sav and noticed how similar my efforts to nurse along the embers in the lower half of my chamber mirrored efforts to prolong and enhance the downward slope in the great Bell curve of life.

 

[Rob_In_MO]

I thought of that while smoking a bowl of Revelation in my newish Sav and noticed how similar my efforts to nurse along the embers in the lower half of my chamber mirrored efforts to prolong and enhance the downward slope in the great Bell curve of life.

"Age is just a state of mind, and if you'll overlook the state of my mind, I'll overlook the state of yours." - Red Green. :mrgreen:

 

[monbla256]

I thought of that while smoking a bowl of Revelation in my newish Sav and noticed how similar my efforts to nurse along the embers in the lower half of my chamber mirrored efforts to prolong and enhance the downward slope in the great Bell curve of life.

"Age is just a state of mind, and if you'll overlook the state of my mind, I'll overlook the state of yours." - Red Green. :mrgreen:

AAAHHHHH! A RED GREEN fan !!! Probably the BEST philosopher of life !!

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Yak, I'll leave you with this:

Subjects can in fact, be talked into the ground--there's just a lot of ground to accommodate those who speak (as if you and I weren't proof of that enough :lol: ). There certainly is a last word--it's spoken as the first repetition.

Sas, I don't understand generalities like "bad briar," myself. I own a few nose-turning "bad briar" and they seem to do okay. Physically intact, functional and ugly. Maybe it's my novice nature.

8)

 

[Sasquatch]

Greg, all fair points, and I wasn't intending to accuse you of lacking intellectual honesty. But I found the article in question to be an unsettling mix of gentle, whistful simplifying and slightly acidic remarks about, well, credibility and particularly credibility of pipe makers.

I'll judo this: right now I think the average production pipe smokes less well than it could if a few extra minutes were taken in the factory to apply a few tweaks. Assume all else is equal and that their briar is as good as mine for smoking purposes. I think almost every pipe coming out of Peterson, Savinelli, Stanwell, etc could use some engineering tweaks.

The fact that a guy gets a decent, or even a transcendent smoke out of a certain pipe once in awhile is not, in my opinion, an indicator that the pipe is good. Most pipes under some specific set of conditions will do this.

Get me a pipe that does it no matter what, or 9 times in 10, and we have something special. This is what I attempt to build, this is the goal of SOME artisan pipe makers. I honestly think some guys get more out of how the pipe looks than how it smokes. That's fine for them.

So I guess I naturally bridle because I do in fact have a vested interest in making claims about how good my pipes smoke. I try not to use the "harvested by moonlight" approach too often, but damn, there's only so many ways to say the same thing. Next pipe gets the "regular briar and a black stem" sales pitch, I promise. :cheers:

 

[Anonymous]

Kyle :

There certainly is a last word--it's spoken as the first repetition.

True enough.

But how many times do you have to say the same thing before it gets across ?

Going by how long it took the Embarcadero raves to start gaining general traction, a lot. A lot of repetitions and over a long time.

We aren't who (or how) we imagine we are.

:face:
BOZO

 

[J Soshae]

Next pipe gets the "regular briar and a black stem" sales pitch, I promise.

Sas, the size you made the last couple, it should be "regular briar and a black stem with deluxe, padded carrying strap".