Crable: A Self-Taught Pipe Maker in Hawaii

Crable is the name of the small-scale pipe bench American maker Joseph M. Crable runs in Kealakekua, on Hawaii's Big Island. A firefighter by profession, Crable never learned the craft of pipe making under any master, instead working it out entirely from books and trial and error. In this respect the brand is a typical example of the one-man workshops that multiplied on the American scene in the early 2000s.

A Craft Learned from a Book

Records indicate Crable made his first attempt at a pipe around 1998-1999 and was unhappy with the result. Since there was no workshop on the island he could apprentice at, he ordered a guide popular among amateurs of the period, Pimo's Guide to Pipe-Crafting at Home, and worked through the basic steps of pipe making from this book. Since his first pipe for sale appeared in 2000, roughly two years passed between the first attempt and the finished product.

Formal Language and Collaboration

Crable's name is associated with large-bodied pipes from the volcano family and with a form of his own devising he calls the "Medieval Jawbreaker." Both types are known for their large scale; their length and weight suggest a display piece more than an everyday smoke. The sandblasting on some of his examples was handled by American maker Trevor Talbert. Crable also opened a small shop called Kealakekua Pipe Shoppe, named after the town he lived in, at the heart of the Kona coffee region, where he stocked coffee alongside pipes.

Pause and Return

Production quietly stopped in February 2006. Crable explained his reason for pausing on a discussion forum at the time as carving having turned from a pleasure into a job, causing him to lose his creativity. After a long break, in a 2024 update he reported that he had retired from the fire department in 2017, moved to the mainland, and started making pipes again with kits prepared by Talbert, though he had not yet sold any; this last piece of information has not been independently confirmed. In the same update he added that all his equipment fit in a single toolbox, and that he hoped to set up a proper workshop around 2026. Crable pipes are therefore considered among the very limited-production benches of the American handmade scene.