Wandi Riyadi Smooth Elephant’s Foot w/ Horn Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Over the last decade or so, Indonesia has produced some impressive pipe makers in the ever-expanding global artisan scene. Since taking up pipe making in 2013, West Java’s Wandi Riyadi has shot to international acclaim, and has even inspired something of a “Riyadi school” back in his native land. Riyadi’s work has been inspired by Scandinavinan masters, such as Sixten Ivarsson, Lars Ivarsson, Bo Nordh, and Jess Chonowitch, and the Japanese master Hiroyuki Tokutomi. As gestured, Riyadi himself has also become an influence for numerous other artisans both home and abroad, and has even joined the ranks of pipe makers such as J. Alan, David Huber, Alex Florov, and Cornelius Manz in being invited to design pipes for Zhang Guo Hui’s GH.ZHANG project.

The Elephant’s Foot is one of the many pipe shapes first created by the late, great Bo Nordh. In a way, it’s not entirely unlike a traditional opera; while the elephant’s foot doesn’t typically have the opera’s oval chamber, the bowl itself is somewhat elliptical, as if the latter had been rotated 90 degrees. In addition to being highly distinctive in form, what this also allows for—and here the comparison with the opera is most apt—is for the production of two broad, convex planes, which are the perfect surface to showcase bird’s-eye grain patterns. Of course, the briar has to be good and the carver has to be skilled enough to use it properly, but the results, as seen on this rendition from Wandi Riyadi, can be stunning. In other words, there’s a good reason why the Elephant’s Foot has survived for as long as it has as a staple in artisan pipe making, and it’s not just because of its association with Bo Nordh. In addition to being beautifully executed as far as briar goes, this Riyadi rendition also features what has become a classic pairing in the composition of an Elephant’s Foot, that being a stabilized horn ferrule.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating. There is some visible weathering of the pipe’s horn section, though this is purely cosmetic and should have no negative structural or functional impact on the pipe.

 

Details:

Length: 5.2″ / 132.0mm

Bowl Width: 0.70 / 17.78mm

Bowl Depth: 1.37″ / 34.79mm

Weight: 1.3oz / 38g