This past May, while on a long car trip home, an idea that I have had bouncing around in my head finally took form. By the I crossed the Georgia state line from Tennessee a new line of tampers was born.

I’m pleased to announce an innovative line of tampers that will be quite different from anything that has been done before. The project name is “Progeny” and the concept is to create pipe tampers based on pipe shapes. If you look at the shape of many pipes you will see that transformation of the shape into a pipe tamper, with a good deal of scaling down, is quite possible and quite practical. As some are aware, I am also a pipe maker. I make pipes for my own personal consumption and the idea of more closely mating pipes to tampers is very appealing to me on several levels. I have a wonderful supply of incredible briar (I’ve been sitting on it for nearly ten years) that will be perfect for the line. The stem/tamper portion of the tamper will be crafted from either stem material or 6063 grade aluminum with the end of the stem morphing into a metal tamp end instead of a button. My intentions are to primarily do interpretations of shapes that I love, the first of which will most likely be a blowfish. On a much more limited basis I will offer collectors the opportunity to have created for them a tamper that will be based upon a pipe or pipes in their collection. They will vary from fairly “exact” resemblances to looser interpretations of shapes depending on what the collector would like or is feasible. To be quite candid, I will be much more interested in doing unique shapes as opposed to standard shapes like billiards. I have nothing against billiards, but they don’t grab my interest as other shapes do. These obviously will be special orders and will require the collector to be able to provide me with multi-angle photographs of the subject pipe(s).

Stay tuned for more.