| |
 |
Please, select from the category:
|
|
ABOUT MY PIPES...
My pipes are mostly made of briar. Although I don't use other materials as much, there
are several pipes made of bog oak (morta), olivewood, strawberry
tree, or some other wood in my collection. Most
of my pipes are smoothly finished with glossy shine
from carnauba wax. I use all kinds of exotic materials
for pipe decorations, mostly deer antlers, horns,
boxwood, karelian birch, cocobolo, bocote or some other type of
hardwood. Bamboo is also a great material, and
I use it often, when pipe design allows such
an intervention.
Briar,
being a well known material, by its beauty and
other features takes the first place among pipe
making materials. The briar I use comes mostly
from Italy, and then I also have a certain amount
of blocks from Spain and a few blocks of Croatian
briar, excavated from the Croatian islands. Croatian
briar is much sweeter in taste than the other
ones I work with.
Bog Oak (Morta) has become a popular material
in pipe making in the last few years. Basically,
Morta is fossilized wood, excavated from riverbeds
or swamps where it has been lying for thousands
of years. Here in Croatia we have a lot of sites
where fossilized wood has been dug out. It has
mostly been used for furniture and house furnishing.
Morta pipes are beautifully black with interesting
smoking capabilities and a great durability.
Olive is the other very important material that
I use in pipe making. I have several olive pipes
in my personal collection and I smoke them very
often. Balkan mixtures together with Virginia
tobaccos blend beautifully with olivewood, creating
softer and milder smoke than having been smoked
in briar, for example. The blocks of olivewood
that I work with, come from Greece or Italy,
and I have a certain amount of Croatian olivewood
blocks, harvested in the coastal region of the
Adriatic Sea.
50 year old
pipes are a limited series, drilled
and roughly shaped over 50 years ago in a famous
Cellini pipe factory in Chicago. The Cellini
brand was known as Victory Pipe Craftsmen Association
(which was their corporative name). The Cellini
pipes were sold exclusively in the shop in front
of the Cellini factory. Cellini pipes were famous
all over the world, and can still be bought nowadays
on the estate market at fairly decent prices.
Those pipes are also very valuable to collectors.
Store and factory were closed in the late 80's,
shortly after the death of their founder Elliot
Silber, and what was left were thousands of half
finished stummels in many various shapes. The
small amount of those stummels ended up in my
workshop.
So, I do final drillings and shaping, sanding,
staining, polishing. I make stems for them and
the final result is amazing! The wood is beautifully
dry and almost light red in colour, and they
smoke wonderfully sweet. It would be a real shame
thet they go to waste, after all - they are
a part of history!
Tampers are well known tools, used for tamping
tobacco while smoking. Sometimes I make batch
of tampers just for the fun of it, and sometimes
they come as a gift with some of my pipes. Usually
the pipe and the tamper are made of the same
material (for example if the pipe is made of
briar and has a ring made of a deer antler, then
the tamper will also be made of briar and deer
antler). I make them freehanded and each of them
is a unique piece, just as my pipes are. They
come in all possible combinations, sizes and
styles. If a pipe has a tamper that goes with
it, then it is customary in the photo together
with the pipe.
|
|
|
|
|
|
