Tim places some of his pipes on eBay, where his handle is tcfullerpipes. Some of the bowls are on his web site, but they are primarily intended for local craft fairs. He works solely at home, turning pipes on the lathe, and also produces bowls, pepper mills, rolling pins, pencil holders, tampers, candle sticks, napkin rings, match holders, and pipe cleaner holders. Tim says that he'd wanted to try wood turning for decades, so he bought a lathe when he was setting up his shop. The market is small, and much of the market share is already captured by the brand names."
Tim says that "It still remains to be seen if pipe making is an economically sound venture. They bought a house in Troy with an oversize two-bay garage, and Tim set up shop in half of it. Tim's wife is in her second year of law school at the University of Idaho in Moscow, and his son, who does all Tim's web site work, is in his third year at the University of Idaho. Tim and his family moved to Idaho in the summer of 2003 after 12 years in Alaska. He has a weakness for exceptionally beautiful wood, so pipe making is a "good fit" for him. "What else can one do with a BA in English?" Tim asks. Tim had been working with wood, or been in the woods, all his life-building boats logging, and working construction. He was building a deck on his house in Alaska when, for some reason, he thought, "By golly, it'd be nice to sit out here and smoke a pipe." Then he started making pipes. Tim tells me that he hadn't smoked a pipe since his early teens when he got interested again in the fall of 2002. [First, my thanks to Jeff Loid, who has almost earned the title of Assistant Newsletter Editor for his work in making contacts and setting up this article, as well as others that will follow. Intorduction by Bill Unger, editor of The Collector Originally published in The Collector, the newsletter of the NASPC and added to Pipedia by permission.
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