Teddy Knudsen

Teddy Knudsen is counted among the second generation of masters of the hand-shaped pipe in Denmark. He has run his own workshop since 1970. Because of a working pattern that turns out few pipes and keeps each one in hand for a long time, his work is cited as an example of the narrow-production wing of the Danish school. His older brother is Sven Knudsen, of the same tradition's first generation.

From Carpentry to the Bench

He was born on 21 September 1947 in the south of the island of Sjælland. He completed his carpentry training in 1967, and did his military service from October of that year to October 1968 at a Royal Danish Air Force radar station. That the pipes he made off duty found buyers as soon as they were finished proved decisive in his choice of profession. After his discharge he entered W. Ø. Larsen's pipe workshop in Copenhagen, joining the team that shaped the shop's top-tier lines; Tonni Nielsen, who would later become known under his own name, also counts him among his masters. According to records, he went on afterward to work at Anne Julie's workshop, leaving there in 1970.

That same year he joined his brother's setup in the village of Tappernøje; the two brothers went into joint production under the name "Dantonian PipeWorks." The partnership did not last long; he left at the start of 1973 and moved into production under his own name. After working for many years in the south of Sjælland, he moved his workshop to Aarhus.

Material and Workshop Practice

He buys briar from a supplier based in Taggia, on Italy's northwestern coast; he inspects the blocks himself on site, one by one, and sets aside about two hundred a year. Because selection is done at the block stage, the proportion of material discarded in the workshop stays low. The blocks he brings back are left to air-dry naturally on shelves; the number of pipes finished sandblasted runs around twenty a year. He uses wood sourced from Corsica and the Mediterranean, importing it himself and passing the surplus to other makers. Annual output figures given in sources range from thirty to a hundred; whichever is taken as the base, the workshop's small scale does not change.

Method of Making

There are always a few pieces sitting at different stages on his bench. Knudsen only picks up a pipe once he feels ready to work on it, letting it rest in between; he is known to have had pieces waiting years to be finished. His use of light staining is also seen as part of this same selectivity: because he feels no need to hide the grain, he leaves the wood close to the color it came out of the ground with.

In sequence he follows the shape-first-then-drill route. He shapes the bowl and shank on a sanding disc, then opens the tobacco chamber and mouthpiece socket after this stage; that the two holes meet on a single line is among the details he pays closest attention to. He drills the smoke channel to a 3.5-millimeter diameter, after the shape is complete. He makes his mouthpieces only from solid ebonite and gives at least four hours to a single mouthpiece; he starts with a file, continues with progressively finer sandpaper, and finishes on a felt wheel. When he uses horn, silver, gold, faux amber, boxwood, or olive-wood decoration pieces, he fixes these to the ebonite first and then shapes the two together; keeping the joint from standing out is essential.

Stamp and Clientele

He marks the pieces he considers his best with a separate eagle-figure stamp; in auction records these pipes appear under the name "Eagle Grade." From the early years of his career he became sought after in tobacconists in Germany, Switzerland, the United States, and Japan; in later years Austria and Italy were added to this list. Demand outrunning production has meant that many pipes have found their buyer before even reaching the bench. His working in both plain-grained freehand pieces and in classic dimensions has kept his name from being associated with a single shape family.