I rarely see any complaints from others about how well balanced a pipe is, but it turns out that's the most important criteria regarding my enjoyment of a pipe.
I don't expect perfection, which is why I've been rather surprised that 85% of all the pipes I've ordered have been, to me, so overtly unsatisfactory that I've had to return them.
I don't care about most of the parameters you can find out about a pipe before buying. I couldn't care less about flashy colors, don't much care about finish, don't care about shape or style, and am flexible about the length and weight. Generally the more bare bones and simple a design, the more I like it.
What I can't tolerate in a pipe though, is a stem or shank that veers off to the side, or is otherwise obviously skewed or bent out of shape, ruining the alignment and balance in my hand, and making it wobbly and unstable in my teeth. Likewise for a badly lopsided stummel. If a pipe requires me to bite down on it hard to keep it stable in a clench, I basically cannot stand it. This unfortunately is something you can only find out after you've made the purchase.
The way I see it, a pipe is a tool. The only true purpose of a tool is to function well. Decoration is fine, but ultimately doesn't really matter.
I can't think of any other tool, handmade or otherwise, that anybody would tolerate being so wonky and mishapen, as most pipes apparently are. Imagine if you bought a hammer, a saw, a knife, or whatever, and the head/blade was lopsided and the handle curved off to the side in an uneven way. This just wouldn't be acceptable.
I am a musician, and have owned countless handmade instruments over the years. I've had upright basses, fretless basses, guitars, clarinets, you name it I've had it. These are instruments often 100% handmade from start to finish, made out of wood, and are PERFECTLY straight, even, balanced, and precisely shaped down to the millimeter, and these luthiers seem to have no trouble living up to that standard of excellence time and time again. A fretless bass with a misaligned neck is basically fit for firewood or the garbage bin.
For these reasons, I don't believe it's beyond the capability of a good craftsman to make tools out of wood that are at least generally evenly shaped and balanced. And to prove it, I do have a handful of briars that are balanced well enough that I'm happy with them.
But for every one I've been happy with, I've had to send back 8 or 9, for having appallingly crude shaping deformities (that are often conveniently not well captured in the listing's photo angles) like shanks that jut out way off center, stems that are bent out to the left or the right, and stummels that look like a middle school woodshop project. They give the impression of obviously defective items that should be listed as B-stock. This is in pipes at any price range from $100 - $300+.
As an aside, I've also found a wild variance in how well stems fit. Pipe makers seem to consider stems that are nearly falling out of the shank, to stems that require Herculean strength to remove all within the range of acceptability. This particular thing just seems so fixable that I don't understand why nobody cares to do it before a pipe leaves a workshop.
What bothers me about this lack of quality control is that pipes are not cheap, and not priced like something you'd expect to be made in a slapdash way. In other industries of handmade tools, the barest minimum expectation is generally that they should be straight, balanced enough, work well, and feel good in the hand. The bells and whistles are extra. With pipes, it seems like the bells and whistles are the main thing, and the actual craftsmanship is often an afterthought.
I'm hoping someone can help explain why this is the case. Is it simply that pipemakers don't care, or that consumers don't care, or something else? Do they not use rulers or take measurements? Help me understand! Thanks
I don't expect perfection, which is why I've been rather surprised that 85% of all the pipes I've ordered have been, to me, so overtly unsatisfactory that I've had to return them.
I don't care about most of the parameters you can find out about a pipe before buying. I couldn't care less about flashy colors, don't much care about finish, don't care about shape or style, and am flexible about the length and weight. Generally the more bare bones and simple a design, the more I like it.
What I can't tolerate in a pipe though, is a stem or shank that veers off to the side, or is otherwise obviously skewed or bent out of shape, ruining the alignment and balance in my hand, and making it wobbly and unstable in my teeth. Likewise for a badly lopsided stummel. If a pipe requires me to bite down on it hard to keep it stable in a clench, I basically cannot stand it. This unfortunately is something you can only find out after you've made the purchase.
The way I see it, a pipe is a tool. The only true purpose of a tool is to function well. Decoration is fine, but ultimately doesn't really matter.
I can't think of any other tool, handmade or otherwise, that anybody would tolerate being so wonky and mishapen, as most pipes apparently are. Imagine if you bought a hammer, a saw, a knife, or whatever, and the head/blade was lopsided and the handle curved off to the side in an uneven way. This just wouldn't be acceptable.
I am a musician, and have owned countless handmade instruments over the years. I've had upright basses, fretless basses, guitars, clarinets, you name it I've had it. These are instruments often 100% handmade from start to finish, made out of wood, and are PERFECTLY straight, even, balanced, and precisely shaped down to the millimeter, and these luthiers seem to have no trouble living up to that standard of excellence time and time again. A fretless bass with a misaligned neck is basically fit for firewood or the garbage bin.
For these reasons, I don't believe it's beyond the capability of a good craftsman to make tools out of wood that are at least generally evenly shaped and balanced. And to prove it, I do have a handful of briars that are balanced well enough that I'm happy with them.
But for every one I've been happy with, I've had to send back 8 or 9, for having appallingly crude shaping deformities (that are often conveniently not well captured in the listing's photo angles) like shanks that jut out way off center, stems that are bent out to the left or the right, and stummels that look like a middle school woodshop project. They give the impression of obviously defective items that should be listed as B-stock. This is in pipes at any price range from $100 - $300+.
As an aside, I've also found a wild variance in how well stems fit. Pipe makers seem to consider stems that are nearly falling out of the shank, to stems that require Herculean strength to remove all within the range of acceptability. This particular thing just seems so fixable that I don't understand why nobody cares to do it before a pipe leaves a workshop.
What bothers me about this lack of quality control is that pipes are not cheap, and not priced like something you'd expect to be made in a slapdash way. In other industries of handmade tools, the barest minimum expectation is generally that they should be straight, balanced enough, work well, and feel good in the hand. The bells and whistles are extra. With pipes, it seems like the bells and whistles are the main thing, and the actual craftsmanship is often an afterthought.
I'm hoping someone can help explain why this is the case. Is it simply that pipemakers don't care, or that consumers don't care, or something else? Do they not use rulers or take measurements? Help me understand! Thanks
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