Nate King Sandblasted Brandy with Ivorite (New)

It is very likely that Indiana’s Nate King had something of a “head start” when he first took up pipe making, by virtue of his previous careers. First employed as a transmission specialist in an IndyCar pit crew, before moving on to work as an aeronautical engineer, King came to pipes already having a wealth of experience working with industrial machinery and an acute understanding of fluid dynamics. On the side, King enjoyed restoring estate pipes and, in the 2000s, he began making pipes of his own, after being taken under the wing (if you’ll excuse the pun) of fellow Indiana artisan Wayne Teipen. In the years since, King has emerged as one of North America’s premier artisans and has received numerous awards for his work, including a Master of Pipes from the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club and a fellowship at France’s Confrérie des Maîtres-Pipiers de Saint-Claude. He is also a frequent collaborator with G.L. Pease, with whom he designs yearly, limited runs of novel pipe shapes.

Nate King’s designs typically lean toward the novel, the unusual, and, sometimes, even the avant-garde, though he is by no means a stranger to the modern classics. In the case of this pipe, there’s a clear nod to the stylistic currents of the later Danish and German artisan scenes, taking as it does the form of a beautifully broad brandy rendition, though it is simultaneously instantly recognizable as one of King’s own. This is thanks in no small part to the pipe’s finishing, as it wears one of King’s hallmark deep, earthy, tan sandblast finishes, exposing ring grain patterns so pronounced that one could almost trip over them.

Details:

Length: 5.8″ / 147.3mm

Bowl Width: 0.78 / 19.81mm

Bowl Depth: 1.68″ / 42.67mm

Weight: 3.1oz / 88g