Sandblasted Tomato with Briar Tobacco Pipe

The strong, lifting heel, subtle forward cant, and slight curling gesture to the broad, oval shank all work to create a lot of forward momentum in this Tomato from Scott Klein. It's beautiful shaping to be sure, but what strikes me most about this design, however, is probably its most obvious characteristic: that pronounced channel and ridge circumnavigating the transition.

At first glance, it reminds me of Todd Johnson's Ball and Cup, which used a similar feature to visually separate the bowl and shank and allude to an old children's toy. But this transitional segmentation is actually one of those things like the teardrop shank that has been used by artisans for years. So why don't you see it as often? Well, this ridge may be more difficult to execute properly. If you find a flaw in a teardrop shank, for example, you just make a slightly smaller teardrop, but the same can't be said for this transitional ridge. If the briar doesn't cooperate, you have to shave more briar off the bowl itself, just to bring a ridge back into relief, which means both altering a central focus of the shape and possibly reducing the workable volume for the chamber. Suffice to say, none of that proved too difficult for Scott, however. He's simply knocked it out of the park.

- Andrew Wike