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Tavern — $275
5 7/8" long, 2" tall (including peg), bowl 3/4" by 1 3/8" deep, weighs 29g. Handcut vulcanite stem with reverse stainless tenon.
I
was a big fan of Paolo Becker's both as a pipe maker and a human. I was
always astonished at his daring when I saw pictures of his spaghetti
shank pipes, and couldn't figure out how he managed to put a mortise
and tenon in there until, at the Chicago Pipe Show, he showed me. The
tenon is made of the same stainless thin-walled hypodermic tubing
(that's what it's called, I'd hate like hell to be stuck with a needle
that size) and the mortise is in the rubber stem rather than the briar,
avoiding the leverage that a partially-withdrawn tenon could impose on
the end of the shank. Even with this construction I'm not as daring as
Paolo was, but I think the shank is still thin enough to evoke the clay
tavern pipe and I wouldn't put even a .250" tenon in there. Sorry about
the pictures, I didn't think about a black pipe on a black bag until I
was putting this page together and had to crank the exposure.