Tony Fillenwarth Smooth Straight Grain Freehand Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked [SOLD]

Description

Tony Fillenwarth is an American artisan from the state of Chicago. Fillenwarth began making pipes after purchasing a hobby kit from eBay, and in the following years he would become a cult favorite in the American pipe scene.

The first rule of carving freehands is to “listen” to the briar. In other words, when shaping a block of briar, the patterns that emerge and are unearthed are always making their own suggestions as to what shape that block should ultimately be. When you end up with a block as finely and uniformly grained as this one, it is almost disrespectful to the briar to try to force it into more conventional shape. It may instead be better to allow the straight grain to ‘fan’ out, as this one does, and to work in ridges and folds that further accentuate the fanning movement briar root makes as it naturally grows. That’s what’s happened here, to impressive effect.

This Fillenwarth freehand is also completely unsmoked.

 

Details:

Length: 7″ / 177.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.79 / 20.06mm

Bowl Depth: 1.84″ / 46.73mm

Weight: 3.0oz / 86g