HS Studio XL Sandblasted Panel w/ Plateaux Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

If you’ve been keeping up with the world of Chinese pipe making, their artisan scene has been really taking off over the last decade. Like the great Danish institutions of old, many of these pipes are produced in artisan workshops such as Zhiputang, Qi Studio, and GH Zhang. Hong Kong’s HS Studio follows a similar model, with a team of expert in-house carvers crafting high-quality briars in a variety of styles.

While many of the new old stock HS Studio pipes we’ve had come through have exhibited a distinctive inspiration from one prominent artisan or another, this one seems to have taken cues from someone, or rather something else: the briar itself. It’s an interesting, extra large synthesis of something like a Danish freehand and a more English panel (or, perhaps both, via Charatan), but what appears to have driven its shaping is the extraordinarily gnarly, ring grain patterns of the block it was carved from. The sandblasting is extraordinarily deep and consistent, which is even more impressive for a shape composed entirely of flat planes.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating.

 

Details:

Length: 6.6″ / 167.6mm

Bowl Width: 0.89 / 22.60mm

Bowl Depth: 1.35″ / 34.29mm

Weight: 3.3oz / 94g