Eclesias Pipes
Eclesias Pipes are made by Pavel Holub (b. 1988), a pipemaker from the small village of Kašava in the Czech Republic. Like many pipe smokers and pipemakers, Holub was brought to the hobby through a love of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Holub began making pipes in 2018, and was successful enough in his endeavors that people were soon buying his pipes at a rate that allowed Holub to take up the craft full-time.
Holub taught himself to make pipes in a way that has become increasingly common thanks to the technological developments of the last two decades: through observing others over social media. Holub’s ‘school’ was, as with many contemporary pipemakers (and many other contemporary professions and practices), YouTube. Through watching countless hours of videos offered by others in the craft, Holub learned the basic techniques of artisan pipemaking, before testing out the creations that followed on himself and on his pipe smoking friends.
Through other social media, Holub was also able to follow other pipemakers and become familiar with the current artisan scene. As his skills and online presence developed, Holub became friends with others in the craft. Of all of the pipemakers Holub met, Jiřík ‘Biftek’ Maczko had the greatest impact on the former’s work. Maczko, another Czech pipemaker (albeit one from the opposite side of the country, in Bor), provided invaluable help and advice to Holub concerning the making of pipes, and the two remain good friends to this day.
When approaching the making of a pipe, Holub will decide the shape of the bowl and the stem from his inspections of a given block of briar. Just like the Danish pioneers of the 1960s and 70s, Holub allows the grain patterns of this or that block to signal to him what they would best become at the end of the process, including the finish of the bowl. Speaking of finishes, we would be remiss if we did not mention one aspect of Eclesias Pipes that has attracted many pipe smokers to Holub’s creations, and that has given rise to considerable debate in the pipe community. Like Werner Mummert's or J. T. Cooke's pipes Eclesias Pipes often feature strong, crisp sandblasting, however one of Holub’s finishing techniques, which produces waves of deep, jagged rings around the bowl and shank, has led some to believe that this must be the result of a combination of sandblasting and manual rustication. Yet this is not the case; all of Holub’s sandblasted pipes are produced solely through the use of a sandblasting unit, with the exact technique used to produce deep-blasted Eclesias Pipes being something of a trade secret that Holub has shared with just a few close friends in the craft. Holub also produces pipes with a lighter, more traditional sandblasted finish, as well as smooth finishes. Along with these three finishes, contrast staining is also frequently used on Holub’s pipes, producing striking visual effects.
Eclesias Pipes are typically made from briar and hand-cut SEM ebonite. Holub also makes use of animal horn, and particularly loves working with various types of bamboo. Among the pipes produced by Holub, one finds a variety of designs; some are interpretations of staples of artisan pipemaking, such as the Eskimo, the oliphant, or the wasp; some are traditional shapes, such as the poker or the billiard; and some are totally unique. The color composition on Eclesia's Pipes ranges from simple black stains and stems, to wonderfully vibrant and experimental combinations, especially in Holub’s blasted offerings.
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Contact
Email: eledor@centrum.cz https://www.facebook.com/EclesiaPipemaker https://www.instagram.com/eclesias.pipes/