Kabik: Difference between revisions

''At this point, I’d like to talk about what, by my definition, a freehand pipe is. This technique was pioneered, I believe, by the Danes, and the techniques we used were adapted from them. Freehand means that the block is held freely in the hands and, in our case, pressed up against a spinning wooden disk, about 10” across, with a heavy grit sandpaper, cutting usually along the edge, to achieve the shape desired. The pipe is basically sculpted as opposed to turned on a lathe, using the same principles as pottery making. There is a big difference. Try drawing a perfect circle with your hand as opposed to a compass, and I think you will get the drift. I feel strongly that this distinction is not stressed enough in the collectible trade. Pipes phrased, or machine made like a house key, are machine made. Pipes turned on a lathe should be termed handmade. Pipes cut with a carving knife should be called sculptures. Those held freely in the hand and pressed against a cutting device are freehands. Understand that I have great respect for turned pipes. It requires a different skill set and can be every bit as glorious in its final design, but a distinction should be made.''

''It was my understanding that we acquired very generous tips from the distinguished Danish freehand pipe designer I consider the best there is: [[Anne Julie]]. She was kind enough and impressed enough with our work to visit the studio just prior to my arrival. She was generous enough to share her formula for carbon lining bowls, a formula I used throughout my career.''

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The CHP-X studio, though struggling, made a large enough impact on the industry to attract the attention of [[Savinelli]] Pipes, which precipitated a visit from Marco Savinelli, son of Achilles (to spy?), while I was there.

We decided on the name '''Sven-Lar'''. Why ? Well, when I bought out CHP-X, I also got a small drawer full of metal stamps that were created for private-label work. The Sven-Lar name was conceived but never realized. Aside from having the stamp already made, there were other reasons we chose Sven-Lar. First, we were making a line of pipes in the Danish freehand tradition and also, sadly, we knew the difficulty American pipe makers had breaking the foreign market mystique barrier. The latter certainly played a big part in the demise of CHP-X.

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The first year I had assembled a crew of three full-timers working out of fairly cramped quarters. By the second year, Mel had built a large warehouse with a lot of extra space for our studio. I had found pipe heaven.

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.

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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.

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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.