Hedelson
In 1973 Michael Kabik followed the invitation of Mel Baker, the owner of a chain in Virginia Beach called Tobak Ltd., to shift his CHP-X pipe workshop from Phoenix, Maryland to Virginia. The CHP-X brand was given up, and they decided on the new label Sven-Lar.
The first year Kabik had assembled a crew of three full-timers working out of fairly cramped quarters. By the second year, Mel Baker had built a large warehouse with a lot of extra space for our studio. Things picked-up considerably with the acquisition of one of the biggest distributors in the United States, Associated Imports, and the distributor for GBD pipes. Demand grew so much that, for the first time, I had to consider hiring another “cutter” or designer to handle the demand. In this situation Kabik obtained a young man named Glen Hedelson who was on a Navy work program for those about to finish their stint.
Glen and I became fast friends, and he learned quickly. He brought fresh ideas to the design work and devoted himself to learning the craft. Some of my best memories are of bass fishing with Glen in the Dismal Swamp of South Carolina on weekends and occasionally camping out. Glen very quickly became one of the freshest and best pipe cutter / designers in the world. So tight was our relationship that I insisted that the pipes Glen cut have his name stamped on them
With Glen’s help, we improved pipe production to 200 pipes per week along with perhaps 20 sets, nearly double the CHP-X pipe production. When I look back, the aspect of my career I take the most pride in is that I was able to make substantial improvements in output while improving the quality of the finished product. I never wanted to make a pipe that didn’t look or smoke great at a price only folks in six figures could afford. After a few years, Tobak’s vision, in my opinion, got too broad, and Mel brought in a father and son from New York to set up a machine-made line of pipes. I was very upset with the move and saw trouble down the line. After a lot of soul searching, I decided to leave, and I’m very happy to say that my new partner, Glen, came with me. We moved back to Maryland to a farm house in Glen Rock and converted an old chicken slaughtering shed into our studio. Fond memories. Tobak contracted us to continue making Sven-Lar freehands. This lasted about a year and a half before, as I had sadly foreseen, Tobak closed up the pipe-making facility. Shortly thereafter, Wenhall Pipes out of New York approached us to create a line of freehands called Wenhall. Glen and I got a bank loan and set up a studio of 2000 square feet in a fairly new industrial park in Bel Air, Maryland. Wenhall initially wanted 500 pipes a week! Glen and I had doubts that they could move that much product and told them we would produce 250 pipes per week. Happily, some of the old crew from Sven-Lar joined us at Vajra Briar Works (don’t ask me to explain the name), and we rather quickly met production demands. During this time, Wenhall requested that we create a line of pipes consisting of, I think, 12 different shapes. The line was called the Presidential, and, while we repeated the same 12 shapes for this series, each one was freehand cut. Although we came up with interesting designs, I was never really happy with the line or the concept, but, by this time, we had nine people on full-time payroll. We were a very happy family, and I wanted to keep it together. Our stint with Wenhall lasted a couple years, at which time they asked us to join them in a move to Miami, Florida. Glen and I by this time felt very uncomfortable with the owners of Wenhall and decided that we would rather close shop than make the move. Time proved our decision very wise, as Wenhall folded shortly after the move. Sadly, Glen and I had to close Vajra, but we scaled down to the two of us and moved the operation to another farm house Glen was currently living in. By this time, tobacco pipes had suffered greatly due to the anti-smoking campaigns and the huge rise in popularity of cigar smoking. Glen went back to school and became a damned fine high school science teacher in Bel Air. As for me, I managed to keep earning a living making pipes, in large part due to the return of Associated Imports as a distributor. I also re-acquired the Sven-Lar name from Mel Baker at Tobak Ltd. Associated stuck with me as long as they could, but the market by this time had all but evaporated. Pipe repair and selling pipes, mostly to local shops in Baltimore, kept me alive for many years. I stopped making pipes around 1989-90.
Hedelson
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