Went to the St. Louis Pipe Show

[bscofield]

I went to the st. Louis pipe show yesterday (Feb. 19th). It was great fun. I plugged Tyler's site EVERYWHERE

FYI, I was attending not showing.

This was my first show since really being into pipes and pipe making. I got to see and handle, for the first time, a few Eltang's, Barbi's, Tonni's, Jorgen's, Kent R's, and many more! It was AWESOME. Incredible work! Tonni Nielsen was actually there, which was a BIG shock to me. I didn't really expect to see too many makers there (especially Danes). But since he lives in the U.S. now I guess he makes it to quite a few of them. I "chatted" with him a little bit, mostly just small talk. I dropped John Crosby's name for reference cause I knew John knew him ( )... I'm such a ham.

Anyhoo... I "tried" to get him to check out Tyler's site sometime in hopes that he'd contribute. He says he doesn't do the computer thing very much tho. Oh well...

I also got to talk with Larry Comeaux for a bit. We chatted about the tenon cutter patent that he purchased from Joe Giardina (sp?). Turns our that Joe Giardina (don't know if anyone here knows who he is, he invented a pretty spiffy tenon cutter... it's expensive tho) is the grandfather of a good friend of my hunting buddy.

It was a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to Chicago!

[jeff]

Shows are great. They're the only places that I've been able to get my mitts on the finer pipes around.

Good luck getting Tonni to contribute here. He is a great guy, a wealth of knowledge, and a fantastic pipemaker. But, what he said about his expertise and interest (or lack thereof) on the internet is true. He cannot stand the email thing and doesn't browse, so I'd say we would have a difficult time getting him in here in the first place, much less contributing. Barbara, his wife, takes care of most of the internet stuff for him and he is pretty reluctant to learn. But put him in the same room with a block of briar, a few files, and a lathe and the man will make a piece of art.

I hope that you got a lot of good info at the show, Ben, and that you were able to make some good contacts. There are plenty of people there who are overflowing with pent up desire to talk pipes, which is nice if you are anything like me and have given up talking pipes around friends because the interest is clearly on my side, exclusively.

Hopefully the show was inspiring, too. So you should get out to the shop and cut open a piece of wood!

Jeff

[bscofield]

Shows are great. They're the only places that I've been able to get my mitts on the finer pipes around.

Good luck getting Tonni to contribute here. He is a great guy, a wealth of knowledge, and a fantastic pipemaker. But, what he said about his expertise and interest (or lack thereof) on the internet is true. He cannot stand the email thing and doesn't browse, so I'd say we would have a difficult time getting him in here in the first place, much less contributing.

It's funny becuase he said something about not doing computers but when he said it he sounded frustrated just talking about it...

I hope that you got a lot of good info at the show, Ben, and that you were able to make some good contacts. There are plenty of people there who are overflowing with pent up desire to talk pipes, which is nice if you are anything like me and have given up talking pipes around friends because the interest is clearly on my side, exclusively.

Well... I'm not sure I did. I might try out Larry C's place for some pre-fab stems. There just wasn't too many makers there. I didn't even tell more than a few people that I made pipes... No in-roads or chances to really.

Hopefully the show was inspiring, too. So you should get out to the shop and cut open a piece of wood!

Jeff

Now, inspiring it DEFINATELY WAS. Great pipes there! But to be honest, I was amazed how much people still are into pipes the size of my head! 8O

For the first half of the day I thought I was really missing it with the sizes I've been making. Then I got to the end of my browsing and hit all the "high end" tables and felt better cause all the really expensive pipes (for the most part) were much closer to the sizes I've been making, generaly speaking...

[ArtGuy]

I was not until I went to the Chicago show and saw the variety of pipes available that I realized just how small pipes were.

[bscofield]

So did you feel better about your sizes after you saw a good range of pipes.

[ArtGuy]

I found out that I could be making a lot smaller pipes That and I like the jewel like quality that a smaller pipe has.

Mainly, I found that whatever the size of pipe you are making, as long as it is well designed there will be someone out there who will like it.