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=== Bo Nordhs Pipes Reach Japan ===
=== Bo Nordhs Pipes Reach Japan ===
[[File:BoNord2.jpg|thumb|left|Courtesy, J. Rex Poggenpohl]]‎[[Image:Bo Nordh Pipe05.jpg|right|thumb]]Sixten Ivarsson's workshop is conveniently situated next to Ströget in Copenhagen. Here there was (and is) a steady trickle of all sorts of pipe enthusiasts from interested tourists to buyers from all over the world. Sixten Ivarsson has never been able to meet the demand for his pipes so he had to have a rationing system for the buyers. One day a Japanese saw Bo's pipes, became enthusiastc and bought them all. Not long after he contacted Bo and wanted to buy more.
[[Image:Bo Nordh Pipe05.jpg|right|thumb]]Sixten Ivarsson's workshop is conveniently situated next to Ströget in Copenhagen. Here there was (and is) a steady trickle of all sorts of pipe enthusiasts from interested tourists to buyers from all over the world. Sixten Ivarsson has never been able to meet the demand for his pipes so he had to have a rationing system for the buyers. One day a Japanese saw Bo's pipes, became enthusiastc and bought them all. Not long after he contacted Bo and wanted to buy more.


Bo now started to realize that this might be something for the future for him. It might even be possible to make a living by making pipes.
Bo now started to realize that this might be something for the future for him. It might even be possible to make a living by making pipes.
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=== To "Read" Wood ===
=== To "Read" Wood ===
[[File:Bo Nordh Oliphant.jpg|thumb|left|Oliphant, courtesy J. Rex Poggenpohl]]Bo takes down one briar block after another. To me they all look perfect, but Bo points and explains: "Here you see a failed annual ring which will have brought with it lots of faults," he says. On another block he shows me lines and areas on the knotty side which conceal bad areas or sections with thin graining inside the block. Nothing is shown on the outside that I can see, but Bo knows what he will find when he starts grinding. You could say that he reads the blocks like I read a book. It is of course based on long experience, but I also believe that it requires quite a bit of inborn talent.
Bo takes down one briar block after another. To me they all look perfect, but Bo points and explains: "Here you see a failed annual ring which will have brought with it lots of faults," he says. On another block he shows me lines and areas on the knotty side which conceal bad areas or sections with thin graining inside the block. Nothing is shown on the outside that I can see, but Bo knows what he will find when he starts grinding. You could say that he reads the blocks like I read a book. It is of course based on long experience, but I also believe that it requires quite a bit of inborn talent.


Of course it is not that simple even for Bo. He does not know everything that is concealed in a block. He is subjected to surprises as well and about every second block will never become a pipe. Briar is indeed a difficult material.
Of course it is not that simple even for Bo. He does not know everything that is concealed in a block. He is subjected to surprises as well and about every second block will never become a pipe. Briar is indeed a difficult material.
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== A wonderful remembrance ==
'''''By J. Rex Poggenpohl'''''


[[File:Bo Nordh Oliphant.jpg|thumb|left|Oliphant Collaboration, courtesy J. Rex Poggenpohl]][[File:BoRex.jpg|thumb|right|''REX BO 06'' Oliphant Collaboration, courtesy J. Rex Poggenpohl]]I think the pipe in the picture is a pipe both Bo and I worked on! Here is the story behind it.


Per Billhall and Tom Eltang had taken me to visit Bo several times in the early 2000's. Since then Bo and I had corresponded often about Jazz musicians and recordings, a favorite interest for both of us. We were about the same age and each had gotten interested in Jazz in our 20's.


On my first visit to see Bo by myself, I stopped in Malmö, Sweden, buying a couple of very expensive bottles of red wine as he had promised to grill a Duck for us from his wheelchair on his treasured Weber grill from the U.S. When I arrived and presented the wine he complained that they were not very good vintages! After a wonderful meal in the rose garden, another of his treasures, we were listening to some of his new Jazz CD's and I mentioned that I still had not been able to buy a pipe of his, even though I had been looking for an estate piece almost two years. I told him that I had saved up $1500, but kept getting outbid on the eBay pieces. I asked him how much more would I need to save in order to have him make me a pipe. He put his hand on my shoulder and said "Rex, you are now a friend of mine. For $1500 I will make you a stem!"
On the next visit I brought my fist Bo Nordh pipe it was the estate Oliphant mentioned above and I had traded 13 of some of my best Danish pieces for it. And I brought a couple of pipes I had been making for the next Chicago Show silent auction. I was in the middle of my almost 10 year stint as the pipesmith for the famous Iwan Ries & Co. in Chicago and had set up a pipe making and repair area in my rented furniture making studio. Bo was surprisingly complimentary on my choice of his pipe and even my own workmanship, although he had some salient comments about my designs, in spite of my training and career in Architecture and design.
My next visit to Bo was to convince him to attend the Chicago Show as the Show Officers had decided to offer assistance with the cost of his flights while Per, Tom and I volunteered to show him around Chicago and the Jazz and Blues joints there (another story). During that visit he presented me with a drilled and roughed out Oliphant Horn like the estate piece I owned. He said he stopped working on it when he uncovered a sand pit in the Birdseye on the face, so he told me to take it home and finish it to his standards!
I worked on it periodically for many months and since I had the perfect model, I even came close to duplicating the contrast stain color, but not totally disguising the flaw. At our next meeting I surprised him by giving him the finished pipe and asked him to smoke it for us, as he was notorious for only smoking his rejects, never one of his expensive saleable pieces.
At our last meeting before he passed away, he gave the pipe back to me unsmoked with "Bo" and "Rex" stamped over the flaw in the face. Then we both smoked a bowl in it! Even looking at a photo of it, I still miss him.


== Ramses by Jan Andersson ==
== Ramses by Jan Andersson ==

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