Frazing Machine

The frazing machine is the name used in pipe workshops for the copy-milling machine that mechanically transfers a shape held ready on a metal master pattern onto a briar block. The term's kinship with the French verb fraiser, meaning to mill, is often mentioned; but this connection is more a linguistic association than something documented in the pipe literature. In Turkish it's rendered as "copy mill" or "pattern-following machine."

Working Principle

A metal sample representing all or part of the shape to be produced is fixed to one side of the machine. On the other side, an unbored raw body (stummel) is secured. As a follower tip travels along the surface of the pattern, a cutter mechanically linked to it travels the same path over the briar and removes excess material. The motion is transmitted from one end to the other through arms, joints, and counterweights; numerical control or computer data play no part. Similar mechanisms have long been used in fields like furniture making, foundry mold work, and gunstock making; what sets the pipe machine apart is that it works with a relatively small piece of material, each specimen of which has a different density.

Its Place in Factory Production

Because it's the practical way to produce many copies of the same shape, copy milling is considered the backbone of factory workshops. When a catalogue shape needs to be reproduced repeatedly to standard dimensions, the machine comes into play; this has let production in centers like Saint-Claude sustain dozens of models consistently. The result the machine produces, however, is not a finished pipe. The body coming off the machine carries cutter marks, sharp transitions, and excess wood; these need to be cleaned by file, sandpaper, and hand. This is why a considerable portion of even factory pipes is completed by hand. The method suits the classic pipe shapes family in particular: forms with defined proportions, like billiard, apple, or bulldog, can be reproduced from a pattern without deviation. That the same machine can be switched to a different model by swapping the pattern has also made it easier for workshops to sustain a broad shape repertoire with limited equipment.

Relationship to Handmade Work

Some makers never turn to the copy machine at all. The argument given is that developing a shape through the partnership of eye and hand gives a more settled result; since every block's grain and flaws differ, the only way to adapt the shape to the wood is to work it by hand. The freehand approach is born largely out of this stance. Even in most workshops that do use the machine, it handles only the rough-shaping stage, not the whole of the design; what follows is still determined by the maker.

Community accounts say that few original examples of the old machines survive today; the equipment of closed factories has mostly been discarded or refurbished. Because this information rests largely on oral tradition, it isn't possible to give a numerical tally.