Classical high school and architecture studies.
Since 1975 graphic designer, designer, design engineer, development engineer, adventure park designer and interior designer. I`ve always been a wood hobbyist.
The pipe. The first attempts since 1965 with one of my father`s pipes. In the mid-1970s, the meeting with a wise tobacconist provided the first satisfactory pipe smoking and an appreciation of artisanal pipes. In the 1980s, the first plaques given by a Genoese pipemaker and the first self-taught experiments. In 1989 in Genoa I won a cup for pipemaker championship taking place alongside the international slow-smoking trophy.
In 2007 I left the city to live in the small hamlet of Gavi, in the middle of the natural beauty of the vineyard hills.
In 2012, the experience with the adventure parks ended and crafting a pipe led to another and another and another. Why not make this passion a profession? So I decided to set up a lab in the barn with some equipment.
In 2013 I`m in Cagli at the international pipe week where I meet Bruto Sordini, Tonino Jacono and other pipemakers, who give me criticism and good advice. The next year I meet Cris Asteriou working and then David Iafisco who makes me work with him.
I like to have nice pipes to smoke, to keep in hand and to admire. I elaborate classic and freehand shapes.
I know Radice`s reverse calabash and start making some of it trying to make it resemble classic, curved, straight lines.
Lately, physical intuition and experimentation have led me to piercing the lower torch so that the hole is at the centre of the stove and it is easier to smoke the tobacco all the way down.
The mouthpieces are made entirely by hand, drawn from the bar of the best German ebonite. Pipes are numbered progressively and year by year.
The wood, ultimately, is the top-quality Tuscan briar wood.
I produce 100/150 pipes in a year.
Marco
The reason for drilling the draught of smoke in the centre of the chamber
Who, in removing the ash from a pipe, has not found some not burnt tobacco leaf? Now, unless you have great skill with the pipe cleaner, it is normal that a small part of the tobacco is not reached by the heat of the embers and thus ignited.
This occurs because traditional piercing channels the gases overheated from the embers towards the lower front part of the chamber.
In fact, gases and moving fluids (inhaled by the smoker) always tend to make bends that are less acute, not more nor less than river water does in narrow bends, digging its outer banks to straighten its course.
Calabash pipes, which have the chamber pierced in the centre, burn tobacco more easily to the very bottom.
Why then not also perforate briar pipes so that the hole for the passage of smoke from the chamber to the shank is positioned in the centre?
This drilling system presents two other advantages: The new pipe needs to be `runin`. Breakingin consists of creating inside the chamber a `jacket` to protect the briar. This jacket is a patina of fine coal produced by the combustion of tobacco, which adheres to the walls of the chamber and protects it from excessive heat throughout the life of the pipe. Without going into the chemical composition of the jacket, we will often have noticed that the lowest part of the chamber is the one where the jacket is most unlikely to form, especially the rear part, towards the stem. This is due to the moisture that tobacco releases while burning. A more even distribution of smoke and heat facilitates the creation of a good jacket.
Accidental burns of the chamber, however, due to incorrect smoking and excessive draught frequency, also occur more frequently at the frontbottom of the chamber.
With a more even heat distribution this risk is limited. However, it is always better to smoke slowly.... Only advantages? No, unfortunately, as with Calabash there is a disadvantage: if some part of the tobacco ends up in the stem hole during smoking, occluding it, you cannot attempt with a pipe cleaner to push it back into the chamber without interrupting the smoke itself; it is, therefore, necessary to take extra care at the start of the charge by placing a few larger tobacco fragments over the intake hole so that they prevent the smaller fragments from entering it, without having to resort to balls, nets or other tools sometimes proposed.
Enjoy your smoking
