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Back to Work
Tomorrow, Thursday, September 24, will be the first day I have played live with other musicians in over six months. The measures that...
jwh784
Sep 23, 20205 min read
Bare Naked
Sometimes less is more, amirite? Most of the time, at least a bit of cosmetic art boosts visual appeal, accentuating the positive and...
jwh784
Sep 16, 20204 min read
Details
My college freshman English teacher said, “You don’t know what you think until you see what you say.” Which I guess explains why some of...
jwh784
Sep 9, 20207 min read
Pipe of the Year
You probably are familiar with the Pipe of the Year as a concept, maybe even have a few in the rack. Some makers offer them — Mark...
jwh784
Sep 2, 20206 min read
Red October
When astronomers and physicists started adding up masses in the universe, they couldn’t figure out why galaxies don’t fly apart. If what...
jwh784
Aug 26, 20204 min read
Picture Perfect
Blatant tease: about two-thirds of the way down, there is a link — an Easter egg that is far more interesting and informative than this...
jwh784
Aug 19, 20205 min read
Dream On
Someday, I will have a shop with daylight. Some of my friends have enviable shops. Daryll Whitehead’s bamboo rod shop and Denny Turk’s...
jwh784
Aug 12, 20205 min read
First Light
It’s a pretty cool trick, when you think about it; containing combustion within a combustible material. More than one non-pipe-smoker has...
jwh784
Aug 5, 20206 min read
The Nightmare
Chicago Pipe Show, ca. 2005. The gentleman at the table next to mine had been fuming and muttering to himself since returning a few...
jwh784
Jul 29, 20205 min read
Blue Yonder
The mind is its own place, as Milton noted. Wix, my website host, has new analytics. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with analytics on...
jwh784
Jul 22, 20204 min read
Bully Dog
Interesting, in the Wikipedia age, how an idle question about a pipe shape name can sprout tangents and lead one afield. Take the Bulldog...
jwh784
Jul 15, 20206 min read
Plan B
New pipe, 7/8/20: https://www.howellhandmade.com/product-page/thin-acorn It would have been sometime in the early 1990s, when I was...
jwh784
Jul 8, 20204 min read
What The Market Will Bear
Yes, I’m recycling. This is something I wrote years ago, had it up on the old howellhandmade website and on www.thelovelyreed.com so if...
jwh784
Jul 1, 20208 min read
Unicorn
“Never complain, never explain,” is how Henry Ford II famously brushed off reporters after his arrest for drunken driving while...
jwh784
Jun 24, 20208 min read
Dad’s Day
This is the day when everybody posts about his father. I’ve never done that before, maybe because I’ve never had a blog before. FaceBook...
jwh784
Jun 21, 20207 min read
Grinding Lines
Many years ago I walked into Lou’s Barber Shop in Squirrel Hill. My friend Dick Holland had a great head of hair and always spoke highly...
jwh784
Jun 17, 20206 min read
The Return
To be honest, when I wrote “I’ll let you know where it was” that was a literary device, I needed a punch line. And when I wrote “The most...
jwh784
Jun 16, 20202 min read
Missing
Some of you have watched my progress through FaceBook and/or my email newsletter as I have cleaned up my act. If there’s a bright side to...
jwh784
Jun 10, 20207 min read
The Briar Imp
This week I finished up my first two commissions in a while. They were my favorite type of commissions, the type where the customer says,...
jwh784
Jun 4, 20205 min read
A New(ish) Bandsaw
The bandsaw is to the pipemaker as the power hammer is to the blacksmith, the circular saw to the carpenter. I’ve always said that the...
jwh784
May 24, 20206 min read
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