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The Commission
Here’s the pipe and tamper set I made this week. Yes, “the“ set, it took me all week. That’s not bragging, certainly there are faster...
jwh784
Feb 17, 20215 min read
Wish Book
Anybody else spend hours as a kid poring over the Sears catalog? Now, I’m not what you'd call old, but sometimes I catch myself telling...
jwh784
Feb 10, 20216 min read
Drawer Space
Carl Jung wrote: “Every adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.” Shop corollary: "Every new machine is a crisis in drawer space." While it...
jwh784
Feb 3, 20215 min read
Kinda Daney
As I stood at my bench sanding this week’s pipe, I heard a voice out of the past: “Ehhhhhhhh, I dunno, it’s kinda Daney.” The voice...
jwh784
Jan 27, 20214 min read
Finally
Machinists — manual machinists, anyway — tend to fall into one of two groups: lathe-first or mill-first. There are many wonderful manual...
jwh784
Jan 20, 20215 min read
Hot Air
This post will be about pipes, honest. It has been observed that, for a pipemaker, I don’t actually write about pipes very much. That’s a...
jwh784
Jan 13, 202110 min read
Divine Proportion
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. —...
jwh784
Jan 6, 20217 min read
Happy Holidays
On Monday, I played on stage in Heinz Hall for the first time in just over nine months. Nothing for music lovers to get too excited...
jwh784
Dec 23, 20203 min read
Field Expedient
Once in a while I look at something in my shop and think, “Good thing Denny can’t see this.” Like recently when I had a batch of stems...
jwh784
Dec 16, 20206 min read
A Recipe of Twos
Are there any fried foods that are not best fresh and hot? Not coming up with anything. Nobody wants a cold French fry. Just when you...
jwh784
Dec 9, 20205 min read
A Stitch in Time
For the past few months, I’ve been sewing my own pipe bags. Which felt like a betrayal at first, but I've come to terms with that. Since...
jwh784
Dec 2, 20209 min read
The Billiard
As I sanded the stem and shank on a Billiard, keeping the taper even from bowl to button and making sure the stem fit both ways (see...
jwh784
Nov 25, 20207 min read
The Bends
A lot of people talk about pipe “engineering “ these days. It’s a word that seems descriptive and comprehensible, but I have some high...
jwh784
Nov 18, 20209 min read
Poison
About the same time that COVID shut down the orchestra and confined me to quarters, I stopped watching TV. Something I learned as...
jwh784
Nov 11, 20209 min read
In Questa Tomba!
Perhaps you’d be interested to read about one of the most impressive and beautiful demonstrations of musicianship I have ever witnessed....
jwh784
Nov 4, 20206 min read
Twice Warmed
We count it as progress that many things in life that once were obligatory are now optional, even recreational. Being transported by...
jwh784
Oct 28, 20209 min read
Humble Beginnings
People exhibit a range of reactions when they discover that I make pipes. You know, for tobacco? Sherlock Holmes? A few are visibly...
jwh784
Oct 21, 20206 min read
Rock On
Edward Van Halen, 1955-2020 There had been rumors that Eddie Van Halen wasn’t doing well so last week’s news of his passing wasn’t really...
jwh784
Oct 14, 20207 min read
Price No Object
There was a time when I had a modest collection of Scotches, the result of a lot of international flights and duty free shops and a...
jwh784
Oct 7, 20205 min read
Supply and Demand
From my college years, I kept three textbooks. Machine Tool Operation, of course. The other two are from a class called Humanistic...
jwh784
Sep 30, 20209 min read
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