Martelo: Sandblasted Cutty with Horn Tobacco Pipe

An artisan carver from Brazil, Gustavo Cunha crafts MarTelo pipes, and while his portfolio includes artful Freehand forms, like his signature Jatobá shape, Gustavo is especially fond of vintage classics, often drawing inspiration from pipes of centuries past. That said, he elevates such traditional designs with handcrafted quality, precise engineering, and stunning finishes and accents; he's particularly regarded for his sandblasts, revealing the briar's natural grain in remarkable relief for vivid definition and texture.

The Cutty is a well-inclined shape for Gustavo, the design dating back to when pipes were all made from clay. Old-school Cutties were characterized by a rounded, forward-canted bowl with a foot along the heel and often with a long, Churchwarden stem. This MarTelo rendition modernizes that age-old form to more standard, everyday size, while still maintaining the Cutty's defining foot. The shank and stem are sleek and streamlined, promoting a lightweight posture, and the bowl is a slight departure from the traditional Cutty: It's a flaring Dublin shape that retains the profile's slender demeanor, tapering down toward the underside's foot. It's all dressed in a delightful sandblast that highlights stacked growth rings all around the bowl, and Gustavo accented the shank end with a creamy band of horn to complement the stummel's tanblasted tones.