Adam Davidson: Smooth Blowfish without Bamboo Tobacco Pipe

Since 2015, Smokingpipes has hosted the American Pipe-Making Exposition, celebrating the ingenuity and talent of artisan carvers across the United States. However, in 2024 the Exposition expanded to include all pipe makers around the world — the Global Pipe-Making Exposition, the first of its kind. Though broadened in participation, the Expo's format remained consistent with previous years: Artisans designed and fashioned pipes centered on a singular theme, distinct to each year, expressing the motif according to their own creative visions. For the first Global Pipe-Making Exposition, we returned to the Expo's very first theme: bamboo.

If the Expo were a science fair, Adam Davidson wouldn't merely fashion a vinegar-and-baking-soda volcano and call it a day. He'd create a real volcano that makes its own synthetic lava capable of burning through any surface known to man, and then he'd package it neatly in its own handy contraption and use it to power his home. His Expo pipes regularly push the boundaries of what's considered possible in pipe making, and this Blowfish without bamboo is no exception. It's defined by a resin cast comprising the shank that reveals the shape of bamboo in negative space — bamboo but not bamboo. Cast from an actual piece of bamboo, the resin exhibits every intricacy of the bamboo, only in fossilized form, and it also functions as the pipe's airway through which the smoke will swirl and cloud as it flows from bowl to stem. It's an exceptional feat of engineering, and it's equaled by a beautiful shape: a bold Blowfish whose ridgelines flow seamlessly into the resin shank's and stem base's panels. Moreover, the resin portion is removable via military mounts on either end attaching to the briar and the stem. This allows for periodic cleaning of the airway, and even with the military-mounted construction, the shank fits perfectly flush on either side. In conception alone, this pipe is a masterpiece; in execution, it's elevated to historic status.