Peecis

[Peecis]

Real name: Pēteris L.
Age: 31
Location: Rīga (Zaļenieki on weekends) Latvia.
Years a pipe smoker: I`ve been smoking for about 4 years. Took up pipe smoking for pipe making purposes - to know if my pipes where any good. I`ve since fallen in love with pipe smoking.
How you got into pipe making: 5 or 6 years ago I got into bushcraft and camping. All the cool bushcraft dudes had these cool knifes and I wanted one too. Being me who likes to do things the hard way I started making one. I thought maybe I coud even sell some and make a buck or two. I sourced an old sawblade from my work ( Im a cabinet maker) and cut out a profile of a knife. Shaping came natural to me but hardening, tempering and all that other stuff.. not so much. I made a polished turd, meaning it wass pretty but useless. Also I lacked a lot of knife making equipment. One day Jeff Gracik popped on my youtube feed an I was hooked. I actually had everything you need for pipe making in my workshop/garage. And I mean everything (metal lathe, drill press, workbench with a vice, collection of files including tiny needle files, drill bits, dentists drill, old school dremel ancestor, etc. I even had a bunch of vulcanite rods) except briar. I inherited it from my grandpa. My grandpa also was a pipe smoker. One of my first memories with him is him letting me puff his pipe and me almost couhing my lungs out (I was 5 years old). My granpa was what I call an oganised hoarder, he kept everything, but sorted it and put it in boxes with labels on them, for example, nails- bent, box next to it nails-straightened. He was also a scientist who lived in Soviet occupied Latvia in era when, if you wanted anything nice, or of high quality, you had to make it yourself hence his obsession of collecting various tools. Grandpa thought me how to work with my hands, how to clean up workshop and put all the tools back in the right places when you are finnished. For that Im deeply grateful and would like to put his hoard of tools to work and make him proud. I`ve been practicing on oak, ash, apple and plum tree blocks from my firewood stash. Recently built a 2 jaw chuck and I think Im ready to buy a block of briar, practice classic shapes and start a new chapter in my pipe making "career". Hope all of you will help me.
Other interesting facts: Never knew this before reserching pipe making history but world famous pipemaker Charles Peterson, maybe some of you have heard about him, was a Latvian imigrant and came from the same parrish - Zalenieki parrish- as my family.
Here is some of my pipes. Since im not trying to sell them and smoke them myself I usually dont take pictures. Here is what I had on my phone.

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Freehand pipe. Mouthpiece is not satiffactory, too thick, awkward between teeh and button way too small.

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Oak stummel with plum wood stem. I tried something similar to p-lip, actually smokes well.

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Sorry for the long post.

[LatakiaLover]

Are you the guy on the left or right in the avatar photo?

[Peecis]

Are you the guy on the left or right in the avatar photo?

Im the one to the right . Gentelman next to me is Indriķis. Very stubborn but fun loving lama.

[LatakiaLover]

I've only ever seen the critters from a distance. By all accounts they are entertaining characters. Enjoy your inter-species friendship!