Blog by Steve Laug

The Doodler pipe designed and made by Tracey Mincer of Custombilt/Custom Bilt fame has always intrigued me. It may be the oddity of the design that first caught my attention. The rusticated bowl with one, two or three grooves around the circumference of the bowl and then holes drilled vertically connecting the rim to the bottom of the last ring just had my attention. I went on the prowl looking for them, both on EBay and on my treasure hunts through antique malls and thrift shops. When I had seen the drawings and photos in Bill Unger’s book on Custombilt pipes I wanted at least one. If you are a pipeman you know how that works it seems that one is never enough.

I looked for quite a while before finding the first pair of Doodlers. They are pictured below (the second and third pipes from the left). Honestly, I think that the only reason I got them was that the seller miss identified them as Boodlers and they were missing their stems. The first one on the left in the picture below is a complete pipe with stem that I picked up at an antique shop in Washington State in the US. The last one pictured below is stamped Holeysmoke.It came to me via EBay as well and did not have a stem either. Everything about it said it was a Doodler so I bought it and added it to the group. I liked the longer shank on it and the solidity of the pipe. I did a bit of research and found that the Holeysmoke pipes were made by Claude Stuart who worked with Tracy Mincer. After the Mincers sold The Doodler to National Briar Pipe Co. in 1960, Claude Stuart continued to make replicas of The Doodler using the Holeysmoke brand name http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-h3.html

I restemmed the two “Boodlers” (Doodler) and also the Holeysmoke. The Doodlers needed to be banded as well as they both had significant cracks in their shanks. I repaired the cracks with superglue and then pressure fit nickel bands on the shank. The restemming was quite simple. I used some stem blanks, turned the tenons and shaped the stem to fit the size of the shank. They are very light weight and all are pot shaped. The Holeysmoke is a long shanked pot. Some might call it a lovat but the shape of the bowl says pot to me. The Doodlers all have two lines cut around the circumference of the bowl. The Holeysmoke has three lines. I have seen up to four lines around the bowl on pipes on EBay and also billiard shaped pipes. I have not seen other shapes.

The crazy design, intended to make the pipe smoke cool, seems to work well as all smoke cool and dry. I notice though that several have cracks in the rings and in the rims. The vertical drilling seems to weaken the integrity of the pipe along the drilled holes and also along the cut bands in the bowl – just a note on the thinness of the walls outside the drilling. Even though this may be true, the fact is that they have still lasted until they came to me so the durability is not bad. I am glad to have a few in my collection as they are a unique piece of pipe memorabilia.