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Kevin Godbee - Nov 19, 2010
- 5 min read
The 2nd Annual West Coast Pipe Show was held during the first weekend in November in Las Vegas, Nevada, and PipesMagazine.com was there covering this unique event for pipe enthusiasts on the west coast. Bob Swanson, the pipe maker behind Perry White Pipes presented the first seminar of the show, which was informative, entertaining, and even slightly provocative depending on your opinions of what the "rules" are for pipe smoking. PipesMagazine.com’s Cynthia Sargent spoke to Bob for a few minutes on camera, so please enjoy our brief video interview with pipe maker and collector, Bob Swanson.
See Bob Swanson’s pipes at PerryWhitePipes.com
Interview with Gary B. Schrier, Pipeman, Author & Publisher
Interview with Tobacco Blender Russ Ouellette
Marty Pulvers Interview from the West Coast Pipe Show
Bob’s seminar covered some interesting areas for all pipe smokers, experienced and new alike. It’s always a fun conversation when you are discussing the "rules" of pipe smoking. At PipesMagazine.com, we’ve always said, "if you are enjoying it, you’re doing it right".
However, Bob is an experienced pipe maker, pipe smoker, and pipe collector – for 43 years.
He’s learned a lot of things that years of experience can bring. Whether we do things the way Bob does or not, it is interesting to consider trying some new methods, learning new things, or just confirming what you already knew.
Here are some of the highlights from Bob Swanson’s presentation on Dispelling Rumors and Myths from the Supposed Pipe Gurus.
Bob emphasized that these are his opinions …
– Fills on pipes – Of all the pipe makers Bob knows (in the Americas and Europe), including himself, that make high quality hand made pipes – no one uses fills. If he finds a flaw in the briar, he will smoke the pipe himself instead of hiding the flaw with a fill and putting it up for sale. Real pipe makers don’t use fills. However, Bob concedes that almost every piece of briar will have some type of flaw like a tiny pin hole sized sandpit. Many times a skillful pipe maker can carve or sand it out, or sandblast the pipe. However, if a blemish cannot be removed, then the pipe is removed from saleable inventory.
– Cake in your pipe – Yes or No? – The answer is yes. If you are wiping your pipes out with a paper towel after smoking you are not going to build up a proper cake and you are not realizing the best experience possible from your pipes. Bob referenced the book by Alfred Dunhill which went out of print in 1935, "The Gentle Art of Pipe Smoking", where Dunhill himself described the method of creating a cake where you don’t fill it all the way at first. You fill the pipe 1/4 and smoke all the tobacco. Next time, fill it a little more, and so on until you are finally filling it all the way. This allows the cake to build up evenly from top to bottom. Of course, you can also over-do the cake.
– Pre-coated bowls are better – the pipe will smoke better when it is new and the pre-coating will help build up a natural cake. However, Craig from the Seattle Pipe Club (in the audience) expressed that some pre-coating are "noxious" to him. "Waterglass" is a chemical coating. Food-grade coatings are preferred, with the main ingredient being activated charcoal. To make your own coating, get deactivated charcoal in a drug store and mix it with a small amount of honey.
– Whiskey or Brandy is better than Everclear – for cleaning a pipe, and for dissolving pre-coatings that you may not like. Whiskey or Brandy leaves a nice taste even if you are not a drinker.
– Packing Your Pipe Properly – As Nike would say – Just Do It! Don’t worry about all these fancy ways to pack your pipe. Some of the special methods for packing your pipe are actually counter-productive to building a good cake. You must smoke to the bottom of the bowl. It might be unpleasant in the beginning with a new pipe, but it will be the best part in time. Packing methods that have you leaving a space at the bottom of the bowl are not good for the pipe. You should pack lighter at the bottom and harder as you go up.
– Don’t fill your pipe to the top – the tobacco rises and burns the rim of the bowl. Fill it 3/4 of the way.
Here’s the author doing it wrong
– Do Pipes Breathe? – Yes, they do … or they should. Stay clear of super shiny pipes that have been shellacked or varnished. They will not breathe. The pipe won’t smoke as well. Cross-cut grain breathes better than straight grain, making for a cooler smoking pipe.
– Bowl wall thickness – a thicker bowl smokes cooler. 1/4 inch is the minimum recommended thickness.
– Hand cut bits vs. pre-cut bits – can you tell the difference? Most people can’t, and a pre-cut bit is not necessarily inferior. The main difference is that a hand cut bit will add $100 to a pipe’s price because of the extra work involved. Pre-cut bits still have work put into them with chisels and sanding so each one can be made unique, so there still is hand work done on them.
Bob also revealed what is now known as "Sand Carving" a pipe as opposed to "Sand Blasting".
Jim Cooke is a well-known, award winning pipe maker that uses "sand carving". Bob considers Jim to be the "Picasso of Pipe Makers". Many of his pipes have very intricate, deep carvings. He had been doing this for years before it was revealed how he did it. No one could figure it out. Part of the secret is that he uses a special type of sandblaster that has a much smaller hole for the particles to exit. Think of sandblasting as a course process, and sand carving as a very fine intricate process. There was a lot of speculation of how Jim achieved the look of his pipes until he actually went to Chicago and showed a bunch of other pipe makers how he did it. This special process was not given a name until recently. It is now referred to as Sand Carving.
Jim Cooke Pipe
Bob Swanson and Andrew Marks will be having a regular column in the NASPC (North American Society of Pipe Collectors) Newsletter, "The Pipe Collector". You can read more of Bob’s and Andrew’s thoughts and ideas on how to best enjoy your pipes there. The name of their column is "The Pipe Maker’s Opinion".
See Bob Swanson’s pipes at PerryWhitePipes.com
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, à la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blend’s description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marques—the small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I haven’t had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. While it rates as a solid, fairly mild smoke, particularly to lovers of the genre, it does not surprise with any exceptional flavors. To be fair, all the boxes have been checked for the blend to benefit from some real aging, and it would be worth checking in on this after a couple of years sealed away. I’ve set half my tin aside to sample again in a month or two, in case I’m merely suffering from the lingering effects of parosmia, and will amend this review in that case. Maple Shadows II, on the other hand, made up for the weeks of sniffling and sneezing I’d endured. Offered in a full 8 ounce tin with delightfully spooky Halloween art, it’s (hopefully) enough to last through the season. Somehow I had missed this last year, so it’s a real pleasure to get some in my candy bucket this year. As the chilling winds of autumn draw eerie prattle from contorted, deciduous limbs, we find ourselves possessed by the spirit of the season. Bewitched by a dissonant charm, we’ve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, we’ve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliff’s ever made—and they make a ton of them. First off, it’s not overbearing in the least—quite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics they’ve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearth—a perfect invocation of Herbstdüfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 632. Our featured guest on tonight’s show is the host of the Pipe & Tamper Podcast, Mike Murphy. Brian and Mike will have an extended chat revolving around the days before, during and after the Las Vegas International Pipe Show. We will hear about their travels to the show and the anxiety of Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida at the same time while running a show and not knowing if your house is going to be there when you get home. In the end, the show went great and our homes survived, although many others in Florida were not so lucky. We’ll have clips from the show, and shoutouts to other podcasts and vlogs that were broadcasting from the pipe show.
Vegas Baby The show started out strong on the 14th floor hospitality suites hosted by the Vegas Pipe Show and Smoking Pipes as well as room hopping to carvers, estate sellers, and vendors to pre-game for the festivities. If you’re interested in what that looks like I’ll refer you to last years pipe show round up. I circled with Brian Levine to get the totals in comparison to last year: This year’s show numbers: 108 Exhibitor tables, 445 attendees, 3,250 Raffle Tickets, 100ish dinners, 172 Rooms in the Hotel. Last year, by comparison, 107 exhibitor tables, 425 attendees, 2,200 raffle tickets, 104 dinners, and 175 rooms on Friday and Saturday nights. We were at capacity, basically, when it came to vendor tables and the dinner, so there is no physical room for growth at this point except for attendees. That said, we filled that smoking lounge to the brim. New Carvers Spotlight Garret Woo (Pipes by Woo) How long have you been carving? Garret: I’ve been carving since 2021, and I’m guessing your next question is probably how’d you get started carving? James: Yes. Garret: In 2021 I took a break from my full time job – that included machining and assembly work and I thought maybe it was time I made something that I would like and I started looking at youtube and Instagram and putting together my shop. I did struggle on the stems to start and there was a lot of failure at the beginning. James: How many pipes have you made so far? Garret: I number my pipes, so I just finished up 186. James: What is your favorite shape you’ve been making? Garret: I really dig Canadians and pipes with longer shanks and lovat Canadian blends. I like to play with different shapes of stems on the longer shanked pipes. The billiard would be my go-to shape but I want to learn more techniques on freehanded shapes. I like to put brass and copper adornments on my pipes with my machining background it helps. James: What is the craziest thing you’ve seen at this show? Garret: The first thing that comes to mind is the table over there with C-Pipes with the shapes and the size and petiteness and the intricate details they did. You can check out what Garret is working on by going to his Instagram. Stefan Cashwell James: how long have you been carving? Stefan: about 3 years. James: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at the show? Stefan: The Adam Davidson pipe with the clear shape and the bamboo—I don’t know if it’s 3D printed or what, but it’s amazing. James: What’s your favorite shape to do? Stefan: That’s a tough question. I think they’re all the same shape, but what’s fascinating is that Dublin, volcano, and blowfish are all the same depending on how you turn them. Playing with that, with all its variations, is a lot of fun. My favorite accent to use is also horn; it’s finicky, but it’s a great accent on pipes. You can check out Stefan’s work on his Instagram. Science: Meet Pipes I chatted with Chris from the San Diego Pipe Club; he started off doing stem replacements for estate pipes but also improved the airflow. James: How are you doing 3d printing? What is the thought process? Chris: It’s a 3D-printed pipe with a briar insert. The design is a calabash meets a Peterson system meets a metal Falcon/Kirsten radiator style. It is a bottom draft smoking bowl like a radiator like those metal pipes. The inside chamber is a calabash. The stummel and accent rings in the stems are all 3d printed. The insert is briar, olive wood, or I have the potential to use meerschaum as well. This idea came about through the San Diego Pipe Club, wanting to see if we could 3D print a pipe and being curious about the technology; I have a printer and design ability, so here we are. James: What’s the type of plastic you’re using? Chris: It’s all PLA plastic, a renewable potato starch plastic that is food-safe. The stummels are printed with a plastic that has wood in it 40% wood fiber, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, redwood, and walnut are the woods I’m printing. For the accent rings I just got a new material that I’m printing that has 40% copper, so its real metal that you can sand, and polish the same as wood filament. The stems are 3d printed as well. The concept is renewable and cheap from a production standpoint, with the ability to make a very high quality smoking pipe based on the experience. By combining the calabash system pipe and bottom draft hole and using 3d simulations to see airflow, I can see where I’m having eddies and ripples in my current, and see where my moisture and all the particles are dropping back out from a vapor to a liquid. Most people who have tried these say the stems are clean, and they don’t even have to run a pipe cleaner afterward because everything collects at the bottom. Chris has also been experimenting with color-changing plastics so you can see the hotspots. Chris said he was able to use this to slow down his cadence, which, of course, could mean you could get a slow-smoke training pipe to teach yourself to perform better. If you’re interested in learning more or want to check one out, you can contact him on Instagram: Copper Beard Pipe Works The Negative Space The show was buzzing about one specific pipe, which had everyone guessing how it was made. I chatted with Adam Davidson briefly about it. James: How did this idea come to fruition? Adam Davidson: Smokingpipes.com had an expo back in August open to all of the makers they carry. The theme was to make a pipe utilizing bamboo. Given that the last time we had the expo I made a smooth Almond with three bamboo shanks, […]
Super article….especially liked the cake building 101..I like cake in my pipes and other than a Meer never wipe them out with a paper towel… I know some do..and of course that is A_okay… after all pipe smoking is about making YOU happy!
Well, I agree and disagree, LOL. That’s what makes the pastime, and sharing opinions about it so much fun. The interest in such issues never ceases; usually it just changes its focus.
I noticed a sand carved pipe or two a while back, and was both amazed and stymied by what processing might have been applied. Thanks to PM.com, now I know!
ps. I think Mrs. Bubba might have another career. It must take a lot of courage to get in front of a camera with microphone.
Cynthia was awesome. This was her first one. We did it with no rehearsal in one take, on the very first take.
I know there were some imperfections that could’ve been fixed with multiple takes, but we were already holding up the next seminar and had to keep moving.
There will be more videos going up very soon, and each one just gets better.
I am looking forward to working with Cynthia again.
What part do you disagree with Cortez? All of it? LOL.
Sand blasting vs. sand carving has been a subject in the pipe world for a long time. I would be very interested in JT’s reaction to being call a sand carver. I was under the impression that he was a natural sand blaster as opposed to a sand carver who might help mother nature along with “grain” patterns not natural to the wood.
Great article and interview Kevin!
Lots of good info and things to think about and discuss in regards to the pipes myths that he talked about.
Kevin asks, “What part do you disagree with Cortez? All of it? LOL”
No, not all of it. Just the part advising not to wipe the bowl with a paper towel. On the break-in, I always wipe the bowl aggressively with a paper towel for the first 25 smokes or so. I follow the old Dunhill incremental fill principle, with anal-retentive persistence; usually 100 partial bowls building up to a full load. (When you’re retired it’s easy to do. LOL)
I get an amazing cake build-up: it resembles a “carbon cup” sitting at the bottom of the bowl, and tapers off in thickness as it goes up the sides. And it’s a hard, fine grained cake too! No lumps or chunks breaking off — well, hardly ever (P.A. creates a softer, sootier cake than my Va’s and Vapers.)
I’m not a big fan of whiskey or brandy as a cleaning agent, but I use extra dry gin or Everclear.
On always smoking to the bottom of the bowl, well, I try to as a matter of personal practice. But in reality, I believe in Russ Ouellette’s theory, or point of view. He observes that you don’t need a good cake at the heel of your pipe if you never smoke the tobacco completely to ash.
After I break in a pipe, I rarely concern myself with burning up every last bit of dottle; mostly because when I try to, I suck more ash than smoke! LOL! Like Russ, I don’t think it’s an issue that a newbie should lose sleep over. If there’s a little lump of unsmoked tobacco, dump it and hope for better next time. It’s not worth the matches and futzing around needed to completely consume it.
On coating a new bowl, I don’t let the pre-coat or its absence influence my purchase decision. Actually I prefer an uncoated bowl because I like to see the cake develop; but there’s no practical difference in my opinion.
ROTF LOL … but I agree with everything else Swanson said!