Norse (Steve Norse)

Norse is the name American maker Steven E. Norse uses for pipes made under his own name. Yet Norse's weight in the pipe world comes less from the small number of pipes bearing his signature than from his business supplying materials to makers' benches. Vermont Freehand, which he runs in Vermont, has with its stock — ranging from briar blocks to ready-turned mouthpiece blanks — been the first stop for many people who have taken up pipe making over the past twenty years.

Vermont Freehand and Its Materials Stock

Records indicate the business was founded in 2005 with extremely modest capital. Over time briar blocks, ebonite rods, molded ready mouthpieces, polishes and stains, and bench tools were all brought under one roof; the stock came to include dozens of distinct briar grades and hundreds of mouthpiece material options. Norse has also connected hard-to-find materials such as bamboo, meerschaum block, and bog oak mined from pits in Ukraine to a steady supply line.

The importance of such a stock relates to how pipe making has spread to a wide amateur circle over the past twenty years. Intermediate goods like a cut block or a molded mouthpiece let someone without a fully equipped workshop get started; what qualities and how much variety a supplier stocks directly shapes what that community can do. The business has also grown through acquisitions: it reportedly took over PIMO Pipe Craft, which had operated in Vermont since the 1980s, and later brought the remaining inventory of Pipe Makers Emporium under the same roof. Most of the business runs online; even so, Norse's appearance with a wide selection at major gatherings such as the Chicago Pipe Show lets makers pick a block in hand, judging it by its grain.

A Maker's History

Norse started out trained as a furniture maker, and he carries his habit of reading wood from there. He made his first pipe from a ready-made kit sold by PIMO Pipe Craft; rather than training under a master, he progressed on his own, by trial and by following the makers' forums of the time. His familiarity with the materials business also began with that first kit, and supply and making have intertwined ever since.

Pipes

As the load of the supply business grew, Norse's own bench receded into the background, and he now turns out only a few handmade pipes a year. In its place, a range of shapes he designed is produced in series under the Vermont Freehand name; this production is reportedly carried out by the BriarWorks workshop. The line is offered in briar as well as sandblasted bog-oak bodies, with acrylic mouthpieces and delrin tenons. Two distinct groups thus emerge: one-off pipes bearing Norse's own name, and Vermont Freehand pipes that are his design but reproduced outside his workshop. Though both are designed by the same hand, their manner of making — and so their standing in collectors' eyes — differs. Norse has also put the materials in his stock to use beyond pipes, making jewelry from briar.