S.E. Thile Pipes

S.E. Thile Pipes is the handmade pipe brand Scott E. Thile produces at his own workshop in Murray, Kentucky, in the United States. Thile came to the bench late: his primary trade is piano tuning and technical work, and his second pursuit is playing bass. After years of smoking a pipe, he warmed to the idea of carving his own in 2004, and the brand grew out of those first attempts. Thile is also the founder of Pipedia, one of the pipe world's most extensive online reference resources.

From Musician to Pipe Bench

Thile began his career as a piano technician in California, later moving to Kentucky to take a position as a musical-instrument technician at Murray State University. He has played bass since his youth and continues to do so professionally. He taught himself pipe making largely on his own, with feedback from fellow carvers on maker forums forming the main channel of that learning. In later years he spent time at the bench with Todd Johnson and Bruce Weaver, and counts Adam Davidson among those who influenced him; by his own account, Jeff Gracik and Brad Pohlmann belong on that list as well. He completed his first pipe under the name "Étude #1, The Piano Tuner's Pipe"; this naming, drawn from musical terms, later spread across the brand's entire classification scheme. For the broader picture of the American handmade pipe scene, see the Go West entry.

Étude, Opus and Freehand

The workshop's output is grouped into three lines, with names drawn directly from the musical repertoire:

• Étude: An étude is a short piece a musician practices a particular technique on. Thile reserves this name for design experiments; a new proportion or detail is tested within this group.

• Opus: A term for a mature, fully realized composition, used here for refined versions of forms the maker has now mastered.

• Freehand: Pieces shaped according to the grain that emerges in the block, without adherence to classic molds. For the term's definition, see the freehand entry.

In known examples, the line name and sequence number appear together in the shank stamp (such as "Opus2-57"); the maker has not published a formal stamp guide.

Style and Craftsmanship

By Thile's own description, his style rests on the neoclassical Danish School as reinterpreted by North American makers. Bowls are carved from briar blocks; the smoke channel is reportedly drilled at 5/32 inch (roughly 4 millimeters). Stems are not bought ready-made, but hand-shaped from German ebonite or Cumberland rod. For the difference between the two materials, see the stem materials entry. Both lightly contrasted smooth finishes and sandblasted work appear on the surface; the shape repertoire moves between English classics and Danish-derived proportions.

Founding Pipedia

The second reason for Thile's recognition in the community is Pipedia. By his own account, he built the site during the immobile weeks following foot surgery, when he could not get to the bench, using the same open-source wiki software that runs Wikipedia; in this account, the founding date is 2007. Pipedia is today one of the most consulted compilations for brands, makers and stamp information, and is kept up to date by volunteer editors. The family's connection to music is not limited to the maker's own generation: his son Chris Thile, a mandolin performer, has won multiple Grammy Awards and was named a MacArthur fellow in 2012.