New member

[Dotter]

Hi all,

I have just registered to pipemakersforum so a little introduction would be in order.

My name is Domagoj Telisman, I live in Zagreb, Croatia.
I'm 28 years old, studied graphic design and working as a graphic designer in one big Croatian firm.

My father smoked pipes 30 or 40 years ago, and somewhere ten years ago I found his pipe collection, bought some tobaccos and fell in love in pipesmoking and collecting and cellaring tobaccos.

Back then I smoked my fathers old pipes, smoking one or two pipe per week.

Turning point in my pipe smoking, and generally in my life happened 5 years ago. While I was on summer holidays with my girlfriend, on Island of Mali Losinj in Croatia I saw a guy next to us on the beach working on something interesting... I was very interested in what he was doing so I approached him. It turned out that he was pipemaker! I couldnt belive what I was seeing. For all I knew back then, pipes were made on machines, in big production series, and now I see this guy here making this beautifull pipe only with his hands, his chisel and sanding paper. His name is Norbert Riemer, and he is a pipemaker from Germany. My girlfriend and I stood beside him for nearly two hours, I had so much questions and he was more than happy to give all the answers that I wanted. My girlfriend had to translate because I dont know german language, and Norbert doesn't speak english. From him I found out about handmade pipes, about briar, about process of making pipes, about break-in process...
After that I started reading everything on alt.smokers.pipes newsgroup and continuing reading and participating (not so often that I woul like) till this day.
Greatest possible surprise and beautifull gift gave me my girlfriend for Christmas, when she ordered pipe from Norbert, that same one that he was making during our conversation on the beach. To this day, that is my most valuable and my best smoking pipe.

Two years ago, I started informing myself on the Internet, wanting to know everything on pipemaking. Thanks to all of you I've found tons of tutorials, pictures, texts, movies of pipemaking process...
After I finished my little workshop and collected necessary tools and machines, I made my first pipe, some 6 months ago. Till now I've finished several pipes, and on the advice of Love Geiger decided to register here and became a member of this community. I'll post pictures of my pipes in the gallery, and would appreciate if you could take a look and post a comment.
Thats it for now,

Thanks for reading

Domagoj

[Tyler]

Welcome!

And great story about the pipe maker on the beach. Even better, what a treat for your girlfriend to surprise you with that pipe!

Tyler

[pierredekat]

Welcome, Domagoj.

Yes, Love Geiger definitely pointed you in the right direction, sending you here.

And if you need a place to host your photos, I have had good luck with Photobucket. You just set up an account, upload your photos, and then link to them. They should be in the format with an [img]tag%20in%20the%20front,%20http://www.whatever.com/whatever.jpg%20in%20the%20middle,%20and%20an[/img] tag at the end

Of course, there are other good hosting services as well.

[Dotter]

Thank you guys, hope I'll find some time today and post a few pictures of my work.

[Nick]

Great story bud. Really fun! Welcome!

[LexKY_Pipe]

Welcome!

[jmlarsen]

Dobar Dan!

Fun to hear you are from Croatia. I spent 6 weeks in Croatia (mainly in Rijeka, but traveled to Zagreb, Pula, and Rovinj also) last summer. I actually purchased my first pipe on a trip through Austria last summer, which inspired me to begin the process of making pipes for friends.

Thanks for the introduction, and I look forward to seeing more of your posts here!

Jason