Jørn Larsen

Jørn Larsen (b. March 25, 1949) is a Danish pipemaker. Born in a small village roughly fifty kilometers south of Copenhagen, he began the craft not at a pipe bench but at a locksmith's bench. This background gives him an unusual place among Danish workshops: he has not only made pipes but has also drawn up and built the machines he uses to make them.

From Locksmithing to Pipes

His connection to pipes began at age sixteen, in a pipe club he joined with a friend; the two carved pipes for themselves from briar blocks bought in Copenhagen. He left school at seventeen and turned to mechanics, entering a locksmithing apprenticeship, which he completed in 1970 at the age of twenty-one. Following his military service he worked in this trade for many years, during which pipemaking all but stopped. A briar block that came into his hands in his thirties turned him back to carving; this time he had a mature background in metalwork behind him.

The Chonowitsch Circle and Stanwell

A trip organized by his pipe club had once taken Larsen to Emil Chonowitsch's workshop. Around 1985, he went a second time, this time to show his own pipes, and met the master's son Jess there. What began with him producing the specialized tools Jess needed turned into a collaboration lasting years; this acquaintance was also the link connecting Larsen to the Danish school circle. In the same years he prepared semi-finished parts for Stanwell, taking on silver band, bamboo, and horn mountings.

Machines of His Own Making

Larsen had already begun producing tools specific to pipemaking during his apprenticeship, and had designed and built a lathe for the purpose. The machines that followed served to lighten the heavy work; the finishing stage remained by hand on every pipe. When he was going to produce the same shape several times, he used the copying rig he had built himself; when working on a single piece, he would shape the pipe on the lathe or freehand. Records indicate a similar lathe later served other Danish workshops as well; which workshops used it has not been confirmed by independent sources.

Materials, Production, and Stamp

He sourced his briar from Greece and Corsica. For mouthpieces he mostly used black vulcanite, occasionally Cumberland and cultured amber; for bands he turned to silver, boxwood, horn, and amber. He turned out roughly four hundred pipes a year; most were plain-polished, with a significant portion brown or black sandblasted. Most of the output went to Japan, Switzerland, and the United States; an attempt to open the German market brought 9 mm filtered models along with it. His workshop was set up in a room of the house he and his family moved to on the island of Lolland. His pipes generally carry a three-line "JORN / LARSEN / DENMARK" stamp; this signature is found today mainly on examples in secondary-market circulation.