Are All Pipemakers Odd People?

[foggymountain]

If they weren't a bit unusual they wouldn't be pipemakers. Reminds me of a great French film from roughly 25 years ago, "the Hairdresser's Husband". In an early scene we see a French family with a young boy, sitting at a lunch table. The father asks if his son has decided what he might want to do with his life. The boy answers that he wants to be a hairdresser's husband. The father slaps him hard. Years later, the boy, then a late middle aged man wanders into a beauty salon looking for a haircut. The hairdresser is a beautiful woman. He marries her and from then on occupies himself sweeping up and collecting the money. He is in paradise.

I would liken a pipemaker to someone like this, with a talent and work ethic.

 

[mso489]

I'm always interested to visit the pages for specific pipe carvers at the upper price levels ($750 and up, up, up)

where online retailers will leave a whole page of pipes all emblazoned with the red stamp "SOLD." It may be

that some carvers who work closely with specific retailers simply have a hard time keeping up with demand,

and would rather get a lesser cut and have the volume work. Just a guess here, but it is interesting that some

craftsman do sell out a web page of twenty or thirty pipes averaging $1K each. Someone got through the

recession with no financial problems, I'd say (I mean the buyers).

 

[smokeyweb]

Sounds like a crazy ass! What does his name rhyme with?

 

[trevert]

Just noticed this thread. Here's my FWIW...
Tire kickers will indeed drive you crazy with ongoing requests and questions. This is why I usually adopt the "maximum info" approach of just going ahead and making a catalog page for a pipe and that puts all the needed info on one page to head off any back-and-forth, back-and-forth. I can tell you that on the biz side of things, it takes me an average of about 10-15 minutes to take a set of photos and crop & prep them, and another 10 minutes maybe to do all the measuring, fill in the catalog page with the pics and notes, and make a Paypal button for it. In 20-ish minutes of time, I have a page that will:

* provide all the measurements

* provide an instant purchase button

* allow for payments plans through Paypal if desired

* provide at least 5 or more multi-angle photos of the pipe, plus a text description
Now, I've been doing this myself for 16 years so I'm probably a little faster than some. Also, I already have enough traffic and name-recognition that I can sell well through my own site direct, so there's not a lot of impetus for me to take a big price hit to sell to retailers.
This is the time & money background to this sort of decision. In my case, I was probably going to sell the pipe direct anyway, so there's no problem in quickly smacking together a catalog page for one if someone asks. In the case of someone new, it's trickier. I was just talking to a new-ish guy recently about the issue some new guys have, which is that if they do all their sales as commissions, nobody ever sees their work for sale and they don't build name recognition. This runs the risk that once that set of commission buyers dries up, gets bored, moves on, or whatever, new guy is left as Unknown Pipemaker with no sales.
If he's got a definite sale to SP, it's money in his pocket plus recognition. *Any* time he spends taking pics or swapping emails on it is just unpaid extra working time, unless he has a very good sense that the potential buyer is serious and for real (most aren't). So basically, if I were new guy, this is how I'd make my decision. If I know the guy who's inquiring and he's bought from me before and I know he's a good customer, heck yes, take the pics and send them to him. If I don't know the person who's inquiring, I'd be leery, and extra leery if he gives off the vibes of someone who's going to write back again asking for more pics from different angles, or more dimensions, or if I can change the stem from cumberland to black, or, well, on and on. In that case, *any* time I spent with him is likely to be wasted time and it's better to just pocket the cash from SP and get back into the workshop making something else. Anytime a pipemaker is not making sawdust, he's losing money. The more time he spends swapping emails, doing office work, handling pics, etc, the more his hourly wage is falling for that month.
So, maybe that helps provide some possible explanation.

 

[sablebrush52]

Artists is the qwaziest peoples!

 

[hiplainsdrifter]

Interesting insights Trever. Unless you can make a pipe in under an hour, I would think that taking 20 minutes to deal with listing/potential buyers would be worth it. I bet it does get super annoying dealing with people who are just pesky window shoppers.
About 3 weeks ago, I commissioned a pipe from a well known and respected American carver. Seamless communication, I told him what I wanted, gave him a down payment, he said "No problem, I will start on it this week." Great! A week later I checked, he still hadn't started on it. I have emailed twice more the last few weeks, no response at all. I am certainly fine with waiting months for the right pipe, but his lack of communication is concerning. Is this guy in the hospital? Jail? Will I ever see my down payment or a pipe?
Personally, I am very introverted and dislike dealing with the public, especially picky or rude people. However, THAT IS MY JOB. I suck it up and deal with it because I want a roof over my head and supper on the table. I wonder if part of it is that pipe making is a second 'hobby' business for some carvers- therefore fairly low priority to them.

 

[mso489]

Most, or all, people are odd people once you get to know them well. It's characteristic of the species.

 

[trevert]

Personally, I am very introverted and dislike dealing with the public, especially picky or rude people. However, THAT IS MY JOB. I suck it up and deal with it because I want a roof over my head and supper on the table. I wonder if part of it is that pipe making is a second 'hobby' business for some carvers- therefore fairly low priority to them.

Your situation does sound very annoying. It's a common problem I've noticed with part-timers - Tons of guys are making pipes today who do it as a retirement hobby, as a sideline to their fulltime job, for pizza & beer money, and so on. It produces a very different mentality from those of us who do it fulltime and depend on selling pipes to pay for our groceries and bills. It even produces a very different type of thinking - part timers tend to talk a lot about artistic purity and how it should not matter how long it takes to make a pipe, it must be perfect, and all that. Fulltimers talk about working hours, time investment versus results, and warranty and longterm functionality over ten year ownership projections.
Regarding your dude who has gone silent, I can guess at three possibilities. He may not be getting your emails for some reason (I switched to Gmail and their spam filters caught a few false positives from customer inquiries). Try phoning or contacting via social media. He may be totally focused on your pipe and not want to deal with any distractions. I can understand that because I get that way myself, though like you said, I still write back to people because it's a business and you can't just leave people hanging. Or, something may be wrong- He may be sick or something. Again, though, if I'm going to be incommunicado personally I always try to post a notice on my website homepage and/or via FB and Twitter stating that I'm unable to work for some reason.
I always urge newer pipemakers, when they ask me for advice at all, not to ever take deposits or downpayments on pipes if they can possibly avoid it. I only take them in very specific circumstances, namely, if I'm really unsure about a buyer and want to see if they're serious, AND if I am able to start work on their pipe immediately. Nothing is more frustrating and annoying than having a downpayment hanging around for a couple of months on a pipe you haven't been able to schedule working time on yet. Also, frankly, there are occasionally buyers that want to use downpayments as a cudgel - "I sent you a cash advance so you need to make my pipe NOW", and that's not any fun as a working arrangement either. By and large, though, I don't mess with downpayments.
Instead, I find it works best to just only take commissions that I will enjoy making, from buyers I know and like working with, and on pipes that I'm confident I can easily resell if the buyer backs out. That way, no one loses. I have a good time, the buyer gets my best work, and I know I'm making something I can sell either way. Also, creative leeway.
Good luck with your project. I hope you will hear back from your guy soon.