A Visit with Mark Tinsky at American
Pipe Company, Wolf Creek, Montana
By Allen Lloyd
Since the early 1980's me and my
wife Brenda have been travelling to
the western United States for our summer vacations.
Clean air and
star filled skies, no crowds, plenty of wilderness to enjoy,
and
usually great fishing are what you are rewarded with after
making the
long drive from the east.
Ever since I bought my first Tinsky I had wanted to stop by
and say
hello and meet up with Mark Tinsky since we share passions
in fly
fishing and of course, pipes. One of our favorite
places to go in
Montana is Glacier National Park which is in the northwest
corner of
the state. All of our travels to Glacier had been from
Ohio with
three days of hard driving to northwest Montana. Each
trip we were
driving by Mark's home and pipe shop in Wolf Creek, Montana
late at
night and didn't think it was appropriate to just drop
in. Having
retired in October 2010, I planned travels for 2011 a little
different, this time we would be in Wolf Creek, Montana
about late
morning and be able to make a visit to American Smoking Pipe
Company
and connect a face to all these pipes.
In April 2011 I made a trip to Wyoming and the North Platte
River for
some fishing. The plan was to camp out on the North
Platte just north
of the Colorado state line in Wyoming for a while.
Then I would move
north and fish above Sinclair, Wyoming a while and then go
back to
Ohio and pick up Brenda when her school year ended early
June. The
fishing was awful due to winds gusting up to 50 mph and high
water.
For the first time, I was skunked on the North Platte
River. So I
packed it in and headed back to Ohio and in June returned to
the west.
Snow pack in the high county in the western states was still
as much
as 700% of normal in mid-June; this was very unusual and
widespread
across the high country in the western states.
In June our trip began with some backpacking in Utah,
followed by
Idaho, Montana, and finally Wyoming. Idaho is my
favorite state and I
was real intent on backpacking and fishing Kelly Creek which
according
to all reports is a blue ribbon trout stream.
Crossing Hoodoo Pass
on the way to Kelly Creek was a real adventure, the snow was
about ten
feet deep and there was but a narrow slot that had been bull
dozed
through. Snow was well over the top of my Jeep, it was
like driving
through a tunnel. Several hours after going over
Hoodoo Pas we
arrived at Kelly Creek. Kelly Creek was above its
banks and roaring
away as we hiked in. The stay at Kelly Creek was great
except for the
fishing. Water was running too high, too deep, and way
too fast. The
previous week we had an identical situation on the Queens
River of
Idaho to the south, so this was not tuning out to be the
fishing I had
hoped for.
So after the stay at Kelly Creek we headed northeast to
Glacier
National Park, Montana. In Glacier we backpacked into
Logging Lake
which is a remote lake not far from Canada, the hike in was
about
seven miles. While we were loading our packs I'm
thinking, lake
fishing, I hate lake fishing, and so I didn't pack in my rod
and reel.
Almost everyone we ran into on the trail had a backpack fly
rod so I
was sure that once again I had screwed up. But, all
these guys were
catching was cigar sized Cutthroat Trout so I wasn't
disappointed. So
we packed out of Logging Lake after a few days and headed
south for
our stop at Wolf Creek. During the drive south I was
wondering what
Mark would think of someone getting skunked, fishing in
Idaho, a fly
fisherman's paradise.
Having grown up in a small West Virginia coal town I prefer
small
towns over cities. Ever been to Wolf Creek,
Montana? It is a
beautiful small town just north of Helena, Montana and the
home of
American Pipes and Mark Tinsky. Mark's mailing address
in Wolf Creek
is on High Street so we started looking for a house on High
Street
with a shop close by but just didn't seem to find anything
that might
have a pipe makers shop. Brenda said to go to the post
office for
directions, but I had spotted a small bar and figured that
was a
better place for directions since post offices have women,
and bars
have men. The bar was my choice. The owner of
the bar got me right
to the home of Tinsky. Yeah, it really is a guy thing,
never trust
women for directions. Where we were on High Street as
it turned out,
we were very close to Mark's shop. The shop was up on
a hill above
where we were looking on our first pass through town.
We pulled in to Mark's driveway and were greeted by his new
dog. I
heard a machine running so I was pretty sure we were at the
right
place. As we got closer and peeked inside, yeah, this
is it.
So Mark looks up as we walk in, we had of course caught him
by
surprise, and the first thing I do is walk into something
hanging from
the ceiling. Mark politely says that this is a place
for short people
so I felt right at home. We exchanged handshakes and I
was glad that
I had finally made the stop in Wolf Creek. What a
place. Conversation
with this fella was easy and bounced between pipes and fly
fishing
with ease. As Brenda said later, Mark is a real
likable guy.
This little stop was something I had really looked forward
to. Back
in the 1970's while living in Rhode Island and Massachusetts
I had
made many trips to Boston and had watched "George" working
on pipes at
David P. Ehrlichs. But I always figured that he was
not making all of
a pipe there in the storefront window. After seeing
Mark's factory I
am sure that George was just doing show work for us
pedestrian
customers. Now this is a place where some serious pipe
making goes
on. Tools and machines are everywhere.
American Smoking Pipe Company has machine lathes, band saws,
sanders,
and all kinds of stuff that could have me making trips to an
emergency
room probably daily. This is the kind of place a
normal male feels
right at home in. The shop is neat and tidy and at the
same time has
that look of work in progress. Mark knows where
everything is, not
once did he have to look for something while we were
there. Well,
maybe once, when he looked for a pencil.
Conversation was easy with Mark; this guy is down to earth,
no hidden
agendas. We talked pipes, tobacco, and of course
fishing. Mark has a
collection of MacBaren Navy Flake that would make a smoker
of this
weed have some serious envy. To get on this guy's good
side at
Christmas, send him some Navy Flake.
After talking a while, Mark offered to make a pipe. My
God, this was
a dream come true. I never would have thought that I'd
see a pipe
made, start to finish. Seriously, I thought this would
be a quick
drop in, chat a while and then head south. After all,
this is quite a
complicated matter. Mark had given me and Brenda an
introduction into
the raw wood that he makes pipes from. There is a lot
to the wood
selection and I could not absorb everything that was being
noted by
the Master. Yeah, I know. If you are going
to write up an event,
take notes. But there was just too much fun in what
was going on to
be writing things down. What I got from the wood
selection process is
that he selects a piece of wood based on what his customer
wants and
the pipe shape he needs to make. Sounds simple enough
but my guess
would be that it takes years of making pipes to be able to
pick out
the best hunk of wood for a particular shape.
Mark picked out a piece of wood and made a couple of cuts
with a bad
saw. While watching all I could think was, man could I
lose some
finger tips with that thing. After the cuts, he had
some fresh
looking smooth wood, squared up, and then, much to my
surprise, he
started sketching out a Bulldog shape on the wood with a
pencil. No
T-Squares, no compass, no circle template, or any other
drafting
templates. Yeah, this guy has made some
Bulldog's. I guess I always
figured these guys had some way of starting out a new pipe
with a
guide of some kind. What wasn't quite apparent yet was
why sketch on
the wood.
The two holes for the pipe was drilled out, the tobacco
chamber and
the air hole running through the shank. All pipe
smokers know about
the importance of these holes and how they gotta be just
right for a
pipe to behave. Milling machines have always been
fascinating to me.
Just watching someone set up the machine. Put
something in the chuck
and turn out something new. Mark made the drilling of
the wood look
way too easy. I'd guess that in maybe two minutes the
two holes were
in the wood, perfectly aligned. Mark stopped and
inspected the
drilling and handed me the wood to look over. I guess
that what was a
little surprising, not knowing anything about pipe making,
is how
smooth the tobacco chamber and draft hole were bored
out. I had
always figured that there was some sanding to get them as
smooth as
they are when they show up at your doorstep for smoking.
Then it was back to the band saw. That sketch on the
side of the wood
now made its intended use a little more apparent. Mark
carefully
removed excess wood with the band saw before turning the
bowl on the
lathe. The wood was then put back in the lathe chuck
to shape the
bowl. What followed was interesting to me, watching
that chunk of
wood spin, and to see a Bulldog take shape complete with the
two thin
rings. There were some definite skills required to
turn those cranks
on the lathe to get the perfect Bulldog bowl we all respect
as a
Tinsky Bulldog.
A lot of sanding took place next. Mark started working
the wood with
a sander. Only so much of the pipe can be made on the
machine lathe.
The extra wood that you just can't remove with the lathe has
to be
carefully sanded out. Boy if there is a place where
you could screw
things up, I'd guess this to be the step where the risk is
probably
the highest. After shaping the bowl Mark started the
final sanding
process where he used increasingly fine sand paper to smooth
out the
bowl. Then a stem was fitted, heat was used to put a
bend the stem,
and then the bowl was stained. Then Mark put several
layers of
carnauba wax on the pipe and in short order had a finished
pipe.
I'm sure that I missed a few steps in the process of making
a pipe in
this narrative but this is not intended to be a course in
making a
pipe. This is more of a story that might have you
think about all of
the work that goes into making a pipe and paying a visit to
a pipe
maker to see for yourself just what you are paying for as
you add to
your collection.
Our visit to Wolf Creek concluded with a stop back to the
local bar
where we treated Mark to a burger and continued some
conversation
about trout fishing. Then we continued our travels to
Cody, Wyoming.
Have to say that watching a pipe being made was the
highlight of this
trip. Next up, a Volcano shape made in Montana.
Oh yeah, those two good lookin' guys in the photo are me and
Mark.
Mark on the left, the geezer needing a shave, yeah thats me
after
being in the woods for a month. Many thanks to Mark
and the American
Pipe Company for the great visit and letting me write up
this little
journal. Also have to thank Bert Olton for publishing
this on the new
ASP website.
