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American Smoking Pipe Co.: Difference between revisions
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→American Smoking Pipe Co./ The Early Days:
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With what money we had left from our trip we purchased a bandsaw and drill press from Sears and commissioned a machinist to make sanding discs and shafts to mount polishing wheels on. We used the lumber from the barns and old motors we found around the property to make tables and sanding and polishing set ups. It was a cold winter though. The tool shed was uninsulated and the stove inefficient. The farm house wasn't a lot better either! I guess we suffered a bit for our art that year. Some time that Spring our first wood order came in. We were so excited. Using the wood we had gotten from Vic, we had our first pipes ready for sale in July of 1979. Our first thought was to call on customers we knew from Jack's. Not many were as accepting as we expected. By then JHW was a name in pipe making and an easily salable pipe. By this time the quality had slipped as Jack had gone back to hiring high school students and he himself was incapable of making them himself. We found out that a recognizable name is a very important in selling pipes. | With what money we had left from our trip we purchased a bandsaw and drill press from Sears and commissioned a machinist to make sanding discs and shafts to mount polishing wheels on. We used the lumber from the barns and old motors we found around the property to make tables and sanding and polishing set ups. It was a cold winter though. The tool shed was uninsulated and the stove inefficient. The farm house wasn't a lot better either! I guess we suffered a bit for our art that year. Some time that Spring our first wood order came in. We were so excited. Using the wood we had gotten from Vic, we had our first pipes ready for sale in July of 1979. Our first thought was to call on customers we knew from Jack's. Not many were as accepting as we expected. By then JHW was a name in pipe making and an easily salable pipe. By this time the quality had slipped as Jack had gone back to hiring high school students and he himself was incapable of making them himself. We found out that a recognizable name is a very important in selling pipes. | ||
<center><gallery widths=300px heights=200px caption="An early example and nomenclature, courtesy Doug Valitchka"> | |||
File:AmericanHex01.jpg | |||
File:AmericanHex11.jpg | |||
</gallery></center> | |||
A few stores that knew us did want to see what we had made. In an effort to separate ourselves from JHW style pipes we made more classical shapes than the wild freehands that were the JHW repertoire. We slowly built our inventory and did a lot of knocking on doors to gain recognition in the industry. I'd like to say our pipes immediately took off like wildfire and there was no looking back from there. What really happened was that we went through a very slow building process and we were able to take advantages of breaks when we got them. | A few stores that knew us did want to see what we had made. In an effort to separate ourselves from JHW style pipes we made more classical shapes than the wild freehands that were the JHW repertoire. We slowly built our inventory and did a lot of knocking on doors to gain recognition in the industry. I'd like to say our pipes immediately took off like wildfire and there was no looking back from there. What really happened was that we went through a very slow building process and we were able to take advantages of breaks when we got them. | ||
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File:AmericanFreehand01.jpg | File:AmericanFreehand01.jpg | ||
File:AmericanFreehand07.jpg | File:AmericanFreehand07.jpg | ||
File:AmericanMT09.jpg | File:AmericanMT09.jpg | ||
File:AmericanMT10.jpg | File:AmericanMT10.jpg | ||