G. Batson Pipes (Grant Batson)

G. Batson Pipes is the pipe bench American craftsman Grant Batson runs in Nashville. Batson did not first sit down at the bench as a pipe maker but as an instrument maker; the years before he turned to the briar log were spent in a guitar workshop. This dual background is a common thread sensed in the precision of measure and surface in the work leaving his shop.

From Guitar to Pipe

Batson was born in Texas in 1975 and settled in Nashville in 1993. He built his first guitar with his father at age fifteen, a pursuit that later grew into a guitar company he founded with his brother.

The pipe, for him, was first a habit and then a profession: he had smoked a pipe since he was nineteen. Handing his share of the guitar company over to his brother opened the way for him to devote his working hours to a new material. According to sources, he began making pipes in 2012. He learned the craft at two separate benches: first with Todd Johnson, working in the same city, and then with Teddy Knudsen, a well-known name of the Danish school.

Bench and Material

The bench's primary material is briar. Batson often uses bamboo inserts in the shank section; this solution both adds length and creates a visual intermediate tone between the body and the mouthpiece. For bamboo's place in pipe making and the criteria for selecting it, see the entry on bamboo shanks.

Mouthpieces are mostly worked from vulcanite rod, but colored rod materials such as bakelite and celluloid are also among the bench's regular materials. Departing from vulcanite requires thinking about the color of the body and the mouthpiece together; for a maker coming from instrument making, this is not considered an unusual choice.

A delrin tenon is used at the point where the body meets the mouthpiece. Compared to a metal or vulcanite tenon, delrin is a solution contemporary makers often turn to because it is less prone to being affected by heat and can be replaced when worn; the details are addressed in the entry on the use of delrin tenons.

Approach to Shape

The training he received also shaped Batson's shape language: his work sits closer to the fluid lines of the Danish school than to classic English molds. Alongside names working in the same period, such as Peter Heding and Konstantin Shekita, he is considered part of this school's contemporary reading in the 2010s.

Habits carried over from the guitar workshop also persist in the unseen side of the work: tolerance, the tightness of joints, and surface finishing are the points sources most often note in Batson's work. The bench remains active today, and G. Batson Pipes is counted among the well-known names of the American handmade pipe scene centered on Nashville.