McLary: An American Pipe Bench Founded in Two Periods

McLary is the name of the one-person bench American pipe maker Dave McLary runs under his own name. It is not a factory or a commercial brand but a personal pursuit founded in two separate periods: production that began in the mid-1960s was suspended for decades, only to revive after McLary retired from his primary profession. Pipes of the second period are mostly known by the stamp "McLary of Ingalls," referring to the town of Ingalls, Indiana.

A Training from the Mincer Line

McLary's teacher was Bill Mincer. This name is not incidental to American pipe history: Bill Mincer is the son of Tracy Mincer, who founded the Custom-Bilt brand in the 1930s. After the elder Mincer, the company's Indianapolis facility continued operating, with Claude Stewart running the workshop; the young McLary was among its frequent visitors.

Work is recorded as having started with a divided arrangement: McLary supplied the briar block, while Mincer took on precision stages such as drilling the tobacco chamber and fitting the stem onto the body. This division did not last; McLary soon set up a workshop where he could carry out every operation himself, and he first gave what he made to those close to him. Shops in Indianapolis and Anderson, Indiana, along with a pipe shop in St. Louis, then took his pipes onto their shelves.

Forty Years in Between

Pipe making was never McLary's sole source of income. His career centered on museum work: twenty years as an exhibit curator and chief taxidermist at the Indiana State Museum, followed by sixteen years as an exhibit and graphics curator at the Indianapolis Zoo. With marriage, building his own house with his own hands, and raising children falling between these two posts, the bench stayed closed for a long time.

Production began again when he left his post at the zoo. He first supplied small batches to a few shops, then, from 2001, began announcing his pipes on online auction platforms. His name entering collector circulation and being mentioned in the American handmade pipe community rests largely on this second period.

Approach to Shape and Briar

Surviving examples show McLary embraced a freehand approach not bound to a mold. Bodies that evoke a tree stump with the bark surface partly preserved; smooth polished apples; surfaces textured with rustication; and figurative experiments such as turtles are all counted among this bench's known work. Against the uniform rustic surface of the Custom-Bilt tradition his teacher belonged to, McLary's work shows a free pursuit of shape that varies from piece to piece.

The same directness stands out in his choice of material. By his own account, he preferred to source briar without intermediaries, traveling in person to a briar cutter in the town of Taggia, Italy, to select blocks one by one. Examples made from Algerian briar are also found.