I have worked on pipes of all makes and models over the years, and I've enjoyed them all, but every now and again I am given the opportunity to work on truly vintage pipes. I find these projects particularly exciting, as I get to restore pieces of pipe history. Such was the pipe on the… Continue reading Crafting a Vintage Replica Stem for a 1901 Salmon & Gluckstein Ltd Diamond Shank Bent Billiard
Regular readers of this blog will know that I've worked on countless Brigham pipes over the years, both those belonging to clients and those in my own rack and rotation. Brigham celebrates its 120th birthday this year - a remarkable achievement for any company, but especially for a Canadian pipe house in 2026. Unsurprisingly, Brigham… Continue reading Recreating a Stem for a Vintage 1980 Brigham Crossover Valhalla/President Freehand
Ah, the broken tenon - bane to pipe smokers everywhere and a bread-and-butter repair for any pipe shop! For such a small piece, the stem tenon is a crucial part of any pipe. After all, it's the part that attaches the stem to the shank. Without a sound tenon, a pipe is reduced to an… Continue reading Tenon Replacement for a 1966 Dunhill Tanshell Prince
If you smoke enough pipes for long enough, chances are that eventually you break one. After all, many pipes are not really that robust in construction, with features like pencil shanks, delicate carvings or questionably sized stem tenons. The pipe on the bench in today's post is one such unfortunate briar, but one that can… Continue reading Splicing a Broken Shank on a 1967 Dunhill 475 Poker
The Brigham Experimental line of pipes was officially introduced in the early 1960s and featured some rather fantastical shapes and carving styles. Brochures from the period illustrate five such shapes, as seen in the image below, but other shapes and styles are known to have been produced. But how did Brigham land on the styles… Continue reading Refreshing an Early Brigham Experimental circa 1955
The Connoisseur Pipe Shop in New York City (purchased by Ed Burak in 1968 and closed in 2009) is famous in the pipe community as the home and gallery for Burak's pipe designs. For more on Burak and the shop, I direct you to this article on Pipedia.org. I've worked on a number of Burak… Continue reading Crafting a Hand Cut Resin Stem for a Burak Connoisseur Oval Shanked Pot
Filtered pipes have been around for a long time. The first rudimentary filters, primarily aimed at preventing bits of tobacco from entering the mouth, were introduced to the pipe smoking community in the middle of the 19th Century but filtered pipes didn't really catch on commercially until the 1930s with the launch of Medico's 6mm… Continue reading Let’s Talk About Filter Conversions
Amber has been prized for its beauty and workability for thousands of years. Used in the creation of jewelry, trade goods and once believed to have magical and medicinal properties, Amber also made its way into the pipe making world as a stem material. Unfortunately, Amber, while beautiful to look at, isn't a really good… Continue reading Crafting an Acrylic Amber Stem for a 1924 K&P Meerschaum
In somewhat startling contrast to today's pipe collecting and preserving mindset, there was a generation of pipe smokers who saw their briars as mere utility objects, tools for capturing and delivering the smoke from all-days blends. Bowls were cleared of dottle and ash by knocking them against the closest convenient surface, chambers were rarely, if… Continue reading Salvaging the Rim of a Very Knocked About Brigham 1-Dot
A client from the Greater Toronto Area sent me a few pipes for work not too long ago. Among them was a very large JM Boswell Jumbo Bent pipe that the client really enjoyed smoking but was a rather imposing pipe visually. As this first series of images illustrates, Jim Boswell wasn't kidding when he… Continue reading Lightening a Heavy Looking JM Boswell Jumbo Bent
