Carlson (Bengt Carlson)

Carlson is the name signing the pipes of Sweden's Bengt Carlson (born 1938). Carlson came to the craft in middle age, repairing and reshaping pipes he already owned; after retirement he became a maker turning out only a few dozen pipes a year in a one-man workshop. His work is known abroad, particularly among collectors in the United States.

Stamp and Scale of Production

Carlson's pipes carry a single stamp: "BC Sweden." Requests — mostly from American buyers — that he add further marks such as a year of manufacture, a quality tier, or a shape number, have been recorded, but the maker has not obliged them. Production has stayed small-scale from the start; sources give the annual figure as between twelve and twenty-five. Demand has long run above this number, yet Carlson has continued working to his own pace rather than to an order list. His view of himself as a hobbyist rather than a professional is tied to this stance.

Entering the Craft

The habit of altering factory-made pipes served Carlson as a kind of apprenticeship: records dated to 1993 mention that he gave an old Stanwell pipe an eight-sided bowl and thinned its shank and bit. In the same period he began visiting Bo Nordh's workshop regularly. Nordh culled the top-grade briar blocks he obtained for his own work and passed on what he set aside to enthusiasts around him; Carlson's first blocks came from there too. Once ordinary hand tools proved insufficient, a lathe was bought first, and the workshop was completed step by step over the years. Being able to retire at sixty in 1998 markedly increased the time he could devote to the work.

Finish and Shapes

Only smooth and rustic finishes are used; according to a record from 2002, he had not tried sandblasting up to that date. The rustic texture is opened with a dental drill and resembles a ring-grained sandblast. Smooth pipes are either simply oiled and left in their natural colour, or stained a medium brown; in both cases a black undercoat is applied first and sanded back to bring out the grain. The mould he returns to most often is what he calls the "Bun": round-bowled, thick-walled, and gently proportioned. Second in mention is the blowfish, a difficult mould put forward by Lars Ivarsson, son of Sixten Ivarsson: since horizontal grain is wanted on the flats and birdseye on the sides, a suitable block is scarce, and the body is left asymmetric so as not to disturb the grain. Around 2002 he tried bamboo and horn for the first time; because tightly spaced growth rings are sought in bamboo, the material is hard to find.

Standing Among Swedish Makers

Carlson's name in Sweden is tied not only to his own work but to the support he has given those around him. He has taken part in preparing the Swedish Pipe Club's magazine, Rökringar, and helped Love Geiger find equipment, above all a lathe, when setting up his workshop. It is recorded that after seeing the early work of Ronny Thunér, who began in 2005, he took on, at his own suggestion, a role as teacher and design advisor, and that he has also hosted new makers such as Jonas Rosengren at his workshop. It is reported that, after Bo Nordh's death, he remade in a small number of copies a Nordh pipe left to him for repair. Available records concentrate in the 2000s; the pace at which the workshop operates today cannot be confirmed from independent sources.