Not far removed from a furniture factory I worked at when I was a kid. Still appears more cookie cutter than traditional artisan.
Advantages of Factory Pipes
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That How it's made show is great! I watch a lot of it on the weekends.
That's a good video. I agree, that some parts of the process may be a little more cookie cutter than the traditional artisan who might use more hand files, etc. for very fine finishing work, but I think a lot of artisans use very similar tools in their process. Just a smaller scale.
It's all still very much 'hands on' in the Dunhill factory and not at all like blocks of briar going into machines that spit out pipes at the end for people to collect in a push button sort of way.
The only advantage of a factory pipe is that they are usually cheaper and you care less what happens to it compared to an artisan pipe. This doesn’t mean factory pipes are bad though.
It's even more misleading if you look at what it meant over the various decades, and what it means now. But it's the same with most products that we look back on nostalgically, that were higher quality because of cheaper labor;e.g-Brunswick pool cues, Stetson hats.
From an article about Savinelli linked below:
"As Giancarlo leads the way through the factory, he points out that there is a misunderstanding in many people’s minds about factory-made pipes. Although Savinelli may use some machines to remove unwanted wood at the earliest stages, so do most artisans working out of their homes. However, more than 80 percent of each pipe is produced by hand, he points out, involving many steps. For this reason each pipe is subtly different from every other pipe, he says, and not the result of assembly line production, which most people think of when they hear the word “factory.” “This makes our people and their skills our greatest resource.”
I find this topic interesting. And relatedly, I’ve been a musician my whole life and worked some in the music biz on the independent-ish side of things. (Independent vs industry — those lines have been quite blurred in the last 10-20 years, but I digress.) I’ve often seen this discussion come up in regards to custom guitars vs handmade non-customs vs factory pressed ones.
There is something incredibly special about picking your wood, knowing the craftsman, collaborating on the design, picking your hardware, electricals, etc. for a custom piece. I have never personally had a guitar built. I have come close, but never followed through. However, my guitarist has had multiple wonderful pieces built by a man in WV names Bill Crook. You may have heard his name. He builds guitars for Brad Paisley. He does absolutely stellar work. And yes, you pay for it.
And there’s also something special about playing a guitar you know was handmade. Over the years I’ve had several of these, and I still have 2. I currently have a 2010 Custom Shop Breedlove that was handmade, a Martin HD 35, and my 2001 Limited Edition Taylor 714. I love these guitars for a variety of reasons that are too many to list here.
It was a few years after the early 2000s that Taylor began manufacturing “factory” guitars as their popularity exploded. Rightly so, bc they make excellent instruments. I’ve never owned one of their factory pieces, but I’ve played plenty of them. The consistency is unmatched. And there’s certainly something to be said for that!
There is something incredibly special about picking your wood, knowing the craftsman, collaborating on the design, picking your hardware, electricals, etc. for a custom piece. I have never personally had a guitar built. I have come close, but never followed through. However, my guitarist has had multiple wonderful pieces built by a man in WV names Bill Crook. You may have heard his name. He builds guitars for Brad Paisley. He does absolutely stellar work. And yes, you pay for it.
And there’s also something special about playing a guitar you know was handmade. Over the years I’ve had several of these, and I still have 2. I currently have a 2010 Custom Shop Breedlove that was handmade, a Martin HD 35, and my 2001 Limited Edition Taylor 714. I love these guitars for a variety of reasons that are too many to list here.
It was a few years after the early 2000s that Taylor began manufacturing “factory” guitars as their popularity exploded. Rightly so, bc they make excellent instruments. I’ve never owned one of their factory pieces, but I’ve played plenty of them. The consistency is unmatched. And there’s certainly something to be said for that!
There are clearly people who spend a heckuva lot of money on pipes, who have only a vague idea of how they are made. We tend to encourage anyone who makes pipes by telling them how great their pipes are, often failing to offer needed criticism, and that's all great; however, there are crappy artisan pipe-makers out there, and some may never reach the quality of a good factory pipe.
Very little of that process seemed 'hand crafted' to me in the old sense of hand crafting. My Dad was a licensed tool maker before WWII. At the beginning of his course they gave him a two inch square block of metal and a file. He had to hand file a perfect one inch ball bearing by the end of the semester. Those who didn't do it didn't proceed in the course. That's hand crafted under the old definition.
Your post is a good one, but the ideas have been lost due to the Dunhill video, as the anti-factory guys now have something to latch onto and run with.
There are things that some factories are capable of doing, that an artisan will never do, and obviously there is a great deal of to-order stuff that an artisan can do, and a factory will not do. I have several gold band Supreme Petersons with nice stem inlays, that are among my favorite pipes. I can't imagine what an artisan would charge for such work, if they were able and willing to do it.
Getting back to Dunhills, I have quite a few shell briar Dunhills, and also several sandblasted artisan pipes. Perhaps it doesn't matter to anyone, but the Dunhills have flattened bottoms (both briar and stem), with clear legible stamps. The artisan pipes...no. Artisans go to great lengths to blast great rings or to use nice straight-grain briar, and that's fantastic. They make sure (most of the time) that their bent pipes pass a pipe-cleaner, as customers are fixated on that aspect of pipes. You will hear this talked up any time an anti-Peterson guy gets involved in a discussion. Are the artisan pipes a better value for the money? Perhaps you would be more impressed with a video showing an artisan making a pipe of similar design to a Dunhill. Would it actually be a better pipe? Would the cost be relatively the same?
Okay, back to the argument...I mean, the open-minded discussion.
It seems you might agree ... that if you find a great pipe, buy it, whether made by artisan or made by large company 'factory' ... that my open-minded take away from your comment... My guess is we generally agree.
To illustrate my point, top pipe is a Peterson Supreme gold band - pre-1965 when the 120F stopped showing up in the catalogs.
Bottom pipe is a Giacomo Penzo morta.
Originally I was looking for examples of a factory pipe that an artisan wouldn't make, and an artisan pipe that a factory couldn't make. But...
...Penzo works for Peterson, but Peterson wouldn't (couldn't? - I mean, one of their workers clearly could) make a pipe like the bottom one. In some respects this might be a bad example, in that Penzo could make a pipe like the top one, and I've seen some beautiful banded pipes by him; however, most artisans wouldn't do it.
Still, it's a fun exercise and I'll come up with more examples later.
Bottom pipe is a Giacomo Penzo morta.
Originally I was looking for examples of a factory pipe that an artisan wouldn't make, and an artisan pipe that a factory couldn't make. But...
...Penzo works for Peterson, but Peterson wouldn't (couldn't? - I mean, one of their workers clearly could) make a pipe like the bottom one. In some respects this might be a bad example, in that Penzo could make a pipe like the top one, and I've seen some beautiful banded pipes by him; however, most artisans wouldn't do it.
Still, it's a fun exercise and I'll come up with more examples later.
I think of it like my Savinelli's. The Punto Oro Line, is all hand cut stems. That's great and and quality is amazing. But with that you never know what you are going to get. All 3 of mine have a slightly different button. When with my Rossi pipes, I know what to expect every time. Both have a place in my heart.
Some excellent arguments have been presented. It’s basically the same discussion as with cars, only the subject is a pipe. Would a Bentley or a Ferrari be a superior car than a Hyundai or Toyota? Technically, it shouldn’t matter. Stylistically, it’s in the eye of the beholder.
If the factory-process for pipes at, for example Peterson, would have been optimised to perfection, there shouldn’t be off-drilling. It isn’t, because we get pipes that aren‘t properly drilled or the stem doesn’t sit flush against the shank. It perhaps happens less often with artisan pipes, because those are truly handmade.
If the factory-process for pipes at, for example Peterson, would have been optimised to perfection, there shouldn’t be off-drilling. It isn’t, because we get pipes that aren‘t properly drilled or the stem doesn’t sit flush against the shank. It perhaps happens less often with artisan pipes, because those are truly handmade.
If someone in the future does ream it and smoke it that would be a super nasty surprise.
Please do remember to crush the bowl once you feel you're done with it.
The way I maintain my pipes, there should not be any need to ream the chamber. ?
I would pump the brakes a bit on the Peterson praise. Plenty of other factory makers are turning out more consistent production pipes. One more observation, people sometimes refer to Castello and Radice as being factory pipes. This frequently is stated in a somewhat dismissive manner. I would suggest that these, and some others, might be more appropriately described as "artisan workshop" pipes. Nothing wrong, by the way, with"factory" pipes. Most all of us have some or all and frequently smoke better than pipes by vaunted artisans whose pipes cost hundreds more.
So allow me to summarize: we fail to agree on what "better" might be, and fail to agree on how important it is for any given pipe, and then argue that factory pipes are or are not that way in the first place?
Frankly, I'm shocked.
Frankly, I'm shocked.