Askwith: Sandblasted Bamboo Billiard Tobacco Pipe

Smokingpipes began hosting the American Pipe Making Expo in 2015, soliciting submissions from North America's premier carvers and affording them the opportunity to showcase their most inventive and creative work. For 2024, to celebrate the Expo's 10th anniversary, we've expanded our scope to accommodate carvers from all over the world, turning the American Pipe Making Expo into the Global Pipe Making Expo. Like in years past, the 2024 Expo revolves around a core theme, and appropriately, given the event's birthday, we've returned to our very first Expo's theme: bamboo.

One of the few artisan pipe makers in England, Chris Askwith fashions Anglo-French classics elevated and modernized through his use vibrant colors and hand-cut polyester stems. Additionally, Askwith boasts a fluency in alternative mediums, and he leverages that knowledge with this striking Billiard, a deftly balanced and sleek design crafted from bamboo laminate and outfitted with a briar chamber and airway. The use of bamboo laminate lends this composition an entirely unique texture and look, its pronounced grain, courtesy of a crisp sandblast and a luscious wax, resembling the hypnotic uniformity of morta grain. Askwith has topped this design with a colorful polyester stem, its creamy hues complementing the warm complexion of the stummel.