A Tsuge Ikebana by Fukuda-san
A Tsuge Ikebana bent egg by Asami Kikuchi
A Tsuge Ikebana bent egg by Asami Kikuchi
Chasing Grain
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A Holbek Polonius
And for something different - an olive wood
And for something different - an olive wood
In theory the freehand Danish style produced the best smokers.
Those enormous plateaux briar cuts had to be centuries old, to be that size. They only used the straight grain portion, the best kind for smoking. Chambers were huge and surrounded by the maximum possible thickness of briar.
Bob Marx claimed credit for first selling lots of freehands.
Artisans like the late Ted Laird still keep the faith.
But of them all Preben Holm was likely the master.
Ben Wade
Unless noted in the nomenclature, it's unlikely Preben made that one. He had many carvers in his workshop such as Poul Winslow.
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I’m not sure, but I think it’s just waxed.
It has seen less than a dozen smokes, and has started to darken noticeably
The background is another piece of olive wood for comparison
I didn’t know a freehand Ben Wade Preben Holm was signed by Preben Holm.
He’s sort of the Lefty Frizzell of Danish pipe makers. The others are master Preben Holm imitators, which is a supreme complement.
Merle Haggard sometimes did a better Lefty song than Lefty.
How do we know which ones Preben himself carved? What was his mark?
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Great blocks make great pipes, you just gotta have some idea what you're doing.
Gotta see the other side or it didn't happen.
you want to see the good side TOO? Jeez your fussy George.
For reference, this is a block I've held for ten years or so, one picked out of a bag of 100 XX quality plateau. If there's a XXX it looks like this. And this one had the unusual non-volcano shaped grain, more of a fist, so a ballish pipe was going to be great.
Have an example of the block pre-cut? I see what you mean with the grain rounding in, so that is why you went ballish shape? I’m curious what that looks like to your eye when you had the block. Or if it was “upside down” and cut, would it not round in, or is that not doable? Know very little about the beginning process.
I might have, I'll have a look. I can find an example anyhow, there's more than a few blocks here.
So a "plain jane" briar block is boring, you can't pull a masterpiece of grain out of this, because it isn't "grainful".
That looks like it'll make a decent pipe, it's not showing cracks or pepperspots, it's nice clean wood, but not exciting, not "high grade" wood really, save that it looks like a good "quality" piece.
A better piece shows more promise, more obvious grain and more consistent (and on both sides of the block, it's good wood, well cut).
So that's a X or maybe XX grade piece, with some care a pretty flashy pipe will come out of that. And it's quite radial, very straight lines coming from some imagined central point in the plant.
Digging around, here's another block of similar or slightly better grain quality maybe, but the SHAPE of the grain is different, a big curl up the front of the block:
So to lay out a pipe on both of these, the natural "straight grain (eg grain following shape) is going to be a dublin or if used upside down a volcano sort of shape on the right, but the left block, that's got some belge or apple thing going on, and this is the kind of block that crazy stripey thing came out of.
That looks like it'll make a decent pipe, it's not showing cracks or pepperspots, it's nice clean wood, but not exciting, not "high grade" wood really, save that it looks like a good "quality" piece.
A better piece shows more promise, more obvious grain and more consistent (and on both sides of the block, it's good wood, well cut).
So that's a X or maybe XX grade piece, with some care a pretty flashy pipe will come out of that. And it's quite radial, very straight lines coming from some imagined central point in the plant.
Digging around, here's another block of similar or slightly better grain quality maybe, but the SHAPE of the grain is different, a big curl up the front of the block:
So to lay out a pipe on both of these, the natural "straight grain (eg grain following shape) is going to be a dublin or if used upside down a volcano sort of shape on the right, but the left block, that's got some belge or apple thing going on, and this is the kind of block that crazy stripey thing came out of.
So if you go back through this thread, there's pipes that have crazy good briar used with crazy good skill, there's pipes with crazy good briar used with much less skill, and there's pipes with reasonably good briar used with crazy good skill, and pipes with reasonably good briar used with much less skill. That perfect matching of shape and grain is what high-grade pipes are all about, but that's very much a razor edge, most blocks just aren't capable of producing the best pipe anyone's ever seen.
When the wood speaks, you listen.
But it doesn't always speak.
When the wood speaks, you listen.
But it doesn't always speak.
This Grecian Briar grade E pre Sven Lar pipe by M. Kabik for Tobak’s with the initials MK will be my last pipe for the foreseeable future. It is a big pipe with beautiful grain chased around the bowl and stem.
