Value Of A Blast

After discovering last month that the airway in the stems of virtually every pipe I've ever held were not designed "optimally", and the hand made pipes I bought were just as guilty as the factory made ones, I started to look at my three mid grade ($300ish) pipes with a bit of contempt. The makers didn't particularly pay attention to the consistency of airflow through the button in the stem. My experience is with British makers thus far but at this point I have no reason to believe price is any indication of quality in this particular aspect of a pipe.

So after a period of disillusionment and going back and forth on whether to sell my pipes at a steep discount (sorry for not committing guys), I had to go back and ask "if it's not the complete package, what is it that makes these pipes valuable?"
Obviously Ashton (two of my three handmade pipes) is mostly known for their blasts, so a bit of reading on sandblasting in general was in order.

One of the names most commonly mentioned now is James T Cooke. Hearing about this guy probably gives some of the best perspective on sandblasting you can get (sandblasting and the rest of the pipe, I'd say he's the closest thing I've seen to "the complete package").
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYr2F15moGc
http://tobaccodays.com/interviews/j-t-cooke-in-a-class-all-his-own/
And don't forget the Radio Show interviews.
http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/radio-talk-show/the-pipes-magazine-radio-show-episode-101/#more-8266
http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/radio-talk-show/the-pipes-magazine-radio-show-episode-103/#

(Unfortunately his backorder of pipes is many years at this point)
I'm not certain if Ashton is in the business of "sand carving", but Smokingpipes.com describes a process where the block is steamed and the softer wood between rings expands and is removed by hand.

It's hard to say if they're still doing that, but even if it only takes them a quarter as long as Jim Cooke to achieve a finished pipe it's still a fair bit of labor.
Another helpful reminder from reading about J.T. Cooke was the similarities in his treatment of Briar, namely curing, cleaning the sap out of the block and reducing its weight by as much as 9%. Ashton does basically the same thing, which is a process pioneered by Mr. Dunhill almost a century ago.
After immersing myself in sandblasting for a few days I've grown to respect a good blast a bit more, and I have to say, the pipe I happen to have isn't that far off some of the stuff Cooke has been making. Not in the same league, but it's darn nice.

I've read some comments that people get bored with "plain ring grain", but for a guy who is never going to have a collection of these I'm plenty happy with the piece I've got, and maybe it's just bias but I don't think you see too many like it.




Now if only they could get their stems in order.

When I talk about consistency of airflow, I'm saying that ideally the airway should have the same surface area at any point, but the cut of the slot on almost all of my pipes ends at the same point as the drilled round portion of the stem, leaving a square cap on a round hole and causing constriction.

James Cooke loosely describes the problem in the video interview. It would be very interesting to see exactly how he gets around the issue. Briarworks is another example of a maker doing it right, on most of their pipes the slot is cut very deep and has plenty of overlap.

Obviously it's not absolutely critical, but you're getting less airflow for any given thickness of stem if you have a choke point like that. The draft hole in this particular Ashton (just under 4mm) was flowing worse than a 3mm hole in other pipes without the problem.

I think I've hit 75% of my pipes with the needle file by now, obviously the Briarworks didn't need it, but basically nothing I have is in original condition anymore.

It seems like I was born with a very "anti-collector" sentiment built in. As soon as something leaves the box my first instinct is to take it apart, find out how it works, change everything, and then hope I can get it working again.

It's really up to users to categorize their pipes from experience.

Even if Cooke knew I doubt he would say, I don't think the industry is going to blackball anyone for talking about other makers but we have a lot of tradition and generally it's not one makers' place to criticize others (in any industry). I guess pointing out who you like isn't a criticism but eventually omission effectively leads to the same thing.

Same goes for anyone who sells pipes, you don't dare try to categorize the people you rely on.
Theoreticallly we could start adding pipe reviews to tobaccoreviews.com right now, I'm not sure that's a good idea without the admin making that distinction but as valuable as that resource has been with tobacco, I'm sure the same would apply to pipes.

On the subject of reviews, I've seen other forums that place every user review into an alphabetical listing by product name. It's kind of the same idea though that setup requires a moderator to curate.

The nice thing about that is people browsing aren't faced with a useless "star" system and actually have to read reviews of any given item they're interested in.