Martin Romijn

Martin Romijn is a pipe maker working in Leerdam, on the river Linge in the Netherlands' Utrecht province, who comes from a background in stonework. Born in 1969, he first encountered pipes at twenty, in 1989; he did not begin making his own pipes until 2016. He carries on production alone in the workshop at his home; this scale is the customary arrangement for one-man workshops.

A Trade Born of Stone

After finishing school he served four years in the Dutch Marine Corps; after leaving the service he worked in security and at a motorcycle shop. When the shop went bankrupt he was forced to find a new trade and turned to stonecutting and carving; according to the record, this work remained his main livelihood for nearly thirty years. He produced work across a range running from gravestones to door and window sills, from kitchen counters to bathroom and fireplace cladding; alongside the old methods carried out with hammer and chisel, he also learned decorative carving. In choosing stone he favors Belgian hard stone and Jura stone, both of which he likes for their fossils and crystals. Marble, granite, onyx, and petrified wood have also passed through his bench.

Accessory production began after an injury: knee surgery following a torn cruciate ligament kept him out of work for about a year. In this gap he turned leftover stone scraps from the workshop into tobacco tampers, shared his first examples on the pipe newsgroups of the day, and set up his own website for these pieces in 2003. Production later expanded to ashtrays and magnetic pipe stands that create the illusion of the body floating in the air. By the time a progressive condition that made walking difficult rendered the physical burden of stonework impossible to bear, he had over a decade of accessory-making behind him.

Moving into Pipe Making

Romijn took up pipe making in 2016, largely self-taught. He first got to know the material by reshaping the bodies of estate pipes he already owned; according to the account, one of these experiments was done on an old Vauen. He then moved on to working with pre-drilled briar blocks; again according to the account, his first blocks were a gift from Belgian maker Nick Ramaekers. In the early years he received occasional guidance from German maker Dirk Heinemann; beyond that, what he learned rests on trial and error and online craft resources.

The workshop's defining tool is the wood lathe his parents gave him as an encouraging gift; Romijn credits this lathe with turning his production serious. His insistence on a wood lathe rather than a metal one is explained by the freedom of movement he finds when turning chambers. Alongside it he uses a band saw, a sanding disc, loose-belt sanding, a buffer, a Dremel, and hand tools. The briar he uses comes from Italy; he makes his mouthpieces from ebonite and acrylic.

Approach to Form

He describes his own work as "organic." He carries the attitude he adopted for carving stone over into briar as well: rather than sticking to a design drawn in advance, he lets the form be determined by the material's grain and flaws. This is why spending a long time on a single block and changing direction midway through the work are considered a normal part of freehand work.

His portfolio leans toward round bodies evoking eggs, apples, strawberries, and acorns, along with wide-chambered Dublin and brandy shapes. Workpony, Workhorse, and Buster are models he has named himself; bamboo-shanked variants of the first two are also produced. He openly expresses admiration for the masters of the Danish school; he particularly values Poul Winsløw's work and met the master in 2018.