About Me – Tom Richard Pipes

Name : Tom Richard Mehret
Born: in Karlsruhe Germany
Development: Architekt
First Pipes : Januar 2003
It was always my wish to make a pipe for myself. To work with wood in all forms has always given me great enjoyment.
Syring the pipereparer in Flensburg gave me my first piece of Briarwood and a stem to try out. This was then worked on with drill, file and sandpaper.
Early contact with Rainer Barbi who gave me tips and tricks so I could understand and learn how to make better pipes. Through many visits to his workshop I learned about the different skills and workmanship from the beginning with the briar to the perfect finish.
Contact in the early years to other pipemakers they also helped me. Cornelius Maenz, Reiner Thilo, Paul Becker, Through intensive contact with theese pipemakers my pipes became better and finer. Today our active exchange with each other is a plus for all.
Workpractice and production of my pipes: choosing the briar, the grain, form and design, cutting the blocks with bandsaw and grinding freehand with the sander, smoothing down on the bandsander and on the other different sanding equipment and of course smoothing down between by hand. Contraststaining two to three times between sanding the finishstain , oil and waxing. The pipes with small imperfection I work on very intensive to rustify or sandblast. On some of my pipes I use exotic woods, horn or bamboo to enrich character. A beautiful pipe belongs a nice mouthpiece for the perfect finish. That‘s why my stems are handmade (handcut).
Since the beginning of 2005 I produced pipes out of Bog-Oak (Morta). Bog Oak is fossil wood ca. 4000-9000 years old. . The smokingperformance of these pipes are perfect , with different woods such as boxwood or other exotic woods a Mortapipe becomes perfect harmony.