In the pipe
repair world, the output of shops is viewed as a consumer commodity in the same way as tires, toasters, or cameras. Meaning the only difference is who sells the item to you and for how much. The quality of the same make & model is the same for everyone.
In the artisan pipe
making world, though, the output of carvers is unique, and each piece is considered individually and priced accordingly.
That difference is the main reason why carvers outnumber repairmen by fifty (or more) to one in our hobby.
Also, there is:
1) The shop equipment and inventory requirement. While a carver needs only what's required to create the pipes he likes, a full-service repairman needs the tools and materials to replicate the work of
all carvers and brands, both new and old (some go back a century or more), and in every style.
and
2) The stress of working on someone else's property is enormous. There are no "do-overs". Tossing a project into the fireplace when a fatal mistake is made is not an option.
The fixed price model is especially deadly when it comes to replacement stems. No matter the quality or price of the original pipe, there's an expectation that a new stem for it should cost a fixed, nominal amount.
What pipe repairmen do however, is not the same as being a retailer of tires, toasters, or cameras. They sell
labor, not
merchandise.
In fact, it's not even equivalent labor. Most pipe makers agree that the stem takes as much time to shape---sometimes more---than the rest of the pipe... but making a replacement stem after the stummel is complete and its shape cannot be further modified requires the stem to be made "in a vacuum" to fit that stummel exactly. A situation that adds to the difficulty considerably. Then, the labor/time demand is often increased still again by requiring the replacement to exactly match the original in
external dimensions. (The original maker didn't have to follow any pattern or meet any particular set of dimensions... whatever simply "looked right" to them became the finished product.) Such dimension matching is unforgiving and slow-going.
For the record, and to be 100% clear, I am emphatically NOT criticizing or trying to minimize what "whole" pipe makers do in any way---being truly good at it is insanely difficult and requires having ALL of MANY uncommon skills rolled into a single person. I know many professional carvers personally, and respect what they do---and am occasionally in awe of what they do---more every day. That their work and business model is more linear and streamlined isn't something they are responsible for creating, it's simply how things are.
It's the combination of those three main things---high financial barrier to entry, the stress of working on other people's property, and the laborious nature of matching the work of others as opposed to creating whatever suits your fancy---that keeps people from entering the repair field (or staying with it for long when they do).
Entire articles have been written about this situation before by highly qualified people, btw. Here's a good one:
http://talbertpipes.blogspot.com/201...pe-repair.html
So, what's my point with all this? It is to take a swing at raising awareness, and thereby, eventually, make the specialty field of pipe repair more attractive to newcomers by encouraging them to adopt a tradesman model of business instead of a fixed-price-task one. In short, price their work according to time spent instead of by simplified categories. That's how it has always been for other tradesmen, from plumbers to machinists to welders. Try getting a fixed-price/categorical quote from one of those guys for repairing a leaking water pipe, machining an antique motorcycle engine part from billet, or replacing a flange on an oil pipeline.
Their pricing is, and has always been, based on labor and (when applicable) materials.
I think that such an approach would not only help to attract more repairmen, but, over the long term, would benefit their customers. First, since there would be more repairmen, turnaround times would improve. Second, because the quality of everything in life varies, workmanship included, after a while skill would correspond with cost---demand would make it so---and getting a pipe fixed wouldn't be such a crapshoot.
