Smooth Elephant's Foot with Horn Tobacco Pipe

If at first glance you find yourself thinking "Bo Nordh?", you aren't alone. The shape of this elephant's foot shares quite a few common elements with the pachyderm's paw created by the late Danish legend. By placing the zenith of the front-to-back thickness roughly 2/3rd's from the top of the front panel, and eschewing a reciprocal bulge on the rear of the bowl in favor of the plane, marvelous changes take place in this most famous of the Danish esoteric shapes. Aside from the visual benefits, creating a plane on the rear of the bowl also creates a tremendous sense of hand friendliness that I usually don't associate in the standard, the back and curve of the shank line up in such a manner that one's thumb almost feels like the form was molded around it. Adam walked in while I was running my fingernail over the juncture of the shank and horn ferrule. The transition was only detectable by a visual change in material, from a tactile point of view, the segue is totally seamless. It turns out that Adam attaches his horn using a hand-threaded aluminum tap-and-die method ("Threading each piece makes for a stronger junction than glued tenons") and the amount of time that he spent doing fine sanding was staggering (at least to my mind). The grain? Take a peek at the birdseye on the front and back panel of the pics. At $725, this pipe is a "can't miss".

--Bear Graves