Blog by Steve Laug

I have been on a recent pipe buying binge and before I took my trip to Europe I ordered a new one. I had seen that Steve Morrisette had been posting some great looking smooth and sandblast finished pipes for sale on Facebook. I have several of Steve’s pipes and they are great smokers. He was selling these for $125 shipped buyers choice. He called them SM Modified pipes. The pipe below showed up in one of his listings and I was hooked. It was a beautiful sandblast pipe with an amber acrylic taper stem. The stain looked to be oxblood or cordovan but I liked it either way. There was a smooth band on the shank end that looked great against the stem. Here is a photo of the pipe from Steve’s listing.I wrote Steve the following email with a few questions and to see if he would ship to Canada. I have included our email exchange below. First my questions and second his response. I specify as we are both Steve!

Hi Steve
Hope you are doing well… I am definitely interested in the sandblast SM Modified pipe. Is it still available? Will you take PayPal? Can you tell me what is modified other than the stem??

Hi Steve!
Yes, still available. I thinned down and opened the mouthpiece up and got the drilling correct. Cleaned up the blast and coated the bowl, stained it with cordovan stain, put a VERY light coat of shellac and then melted a light coat of powdered beeswax on it. Now the engineering is correct and it is a pretty nice pipe – and handsome too. Big capacity but not overly heavy. Hope that answers your query.

So now I knew clearly what the modifications are that he makes to the pipe. I really like the way he engineered my previous pipes so I was looking forward to seeing how well this beauty would smoke. We struck the deal and he shipped it out before I left on my trip. When I returned over a week ago the pipe was still not here so I was wondering if perhaps it had been stuck in customs. Then yesterday a very beat up box with the dreaded yellow customs tape signalling that it had been opened arrived. It was so squashed and beat up that I wondered what I would find inside. But when I opened the box all was intact and the pipe was in perfect condition. I took some photos of it once I had unwrapped it. The sandblast is even more beautiful in person than in the photos. The mechanics of the pipe are perfect and the draught exactly how I like it. Here are some photos of the pipe. I took photos of the pipe in a silver pipe rest to get a sense of the proportion and look of the pipe in a rest position on my desk top. It is a beauty that I hope to smoke this weekend. I took a photo of the underside of the shank to show the stamping on the pipe. It is clear and readable. It has the Steve Morrisette oval SM logo stamp and underneath that is a CM stamp which I am assuming means Custom Modified.I removed the stem from the shank to capture the variations in colour on the amber acrylic, the Delrin tenon and the cordovan stain on the sandblast. It really is a beauty! I am looking forward to loading up a bowl of some aged tobacco I have here and enjoying a bowl this weekend when Kenneth stops by. My only wish regarding this beauty is that it would have been great to see some before photos to know what the pipe looked like before Steve worked his magic on the pipe. But all things considered it is not necessary as it is a beauty. Thanks Steve for a great pipe. If you are looking for a well made pipe at a reasonable price you might contact Steve Morrisette about these Custom Modified pipes. Here is his email if you want to reach out to him smpipes1@gmail.com . Enjoy your pipes!