Weiner: Difference between revisions

Steve Weiner, Ohio pipe maker lives in Olmstead Falls, Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland), with his wife, Bonnie. Their Daughter graduated from Ohio University a year ago. Steve is president of his own utility bill consulting business, which performs electric, gas, and local telephone billing audits and verifications for such cliens as businesses and schools. He carves pipes in his basement workshop in the time remaining.

After smoking cigarettes for many years, Steve decided to experiment with pipes in 1979, mostly, as he says, "out of curiosity. Pipe smoking quickly turned into pipe collecting, and I was hooked on the hobby."  Then, in 1989, Steve's 89 year-old grandfather, a pattern maker by trade, died and left Steve the contents of his workshop: a drill press, two motors, had files and countless drill bits and other odds and ends. Steve had previously toyed with the idea of crafting a pipe, but this legacy helped him make uip his mind. He built a workbench, set up a shop and began producing pipes-- "or at least what I called pipes. They certainly didn't look like the Ascorti, Jacapo and Butera pipes I had been smoking, but I dept at it, and after a while they started to look like something."

In the summer of 1990, Steve got a "real break"--a visit with [[Mike Butera]] in his Houston shop. As Steve says, "During one long Saturday, I learned more about pipe making than I had in the entire previous year. When I got back home, I applied what I learned from Mike and, with some practice, began getting results that actually surprised me." Steve attended his first PCCA show as a pipe maker in 1991. He was honored as best pipe maker at the 1991 and 1994 C.O.R.P.S. shows in Richmond, VA and received an award of merit at the 1993 PCCA show in Washington, D.C.