When Craft Becomes Calling: A Pipe Carver’s Story

Some dreams don’t explode into your life—they sneak in, click by click, until you realize they’ve become part of who you are. On this episode, I sit down with artisan pipe carver Kraig Sederquist to explore the exact moment a hobby stops being “harmless” and starts shaping your identity. 

From a first lumpy pipe in 2012 to a disciplined, detail-driven craft built on precision drilling, airflow engineering, and graceful lines, Kraig shows how slowing down can transform both the work and the worker.

We trace his path to a small workshop in the Sierra Nevada where functional art takes form. Kraig shares why two simple words...slow down...altered his process, why he favors everyday buyers over luxury-only collectors, and how he balances stability with a calling that won’t stay small. 

Beneath the sawdust and stains lives a universal story: midlife choices, fear mapped into steps, and the refusal to chase regret. 

If you’ve felt that quiet nudge...a camera, a lathe, a notebook, an oven...this conversation offers a clear, steady encouragement: you don’t have to blow up your life to honor your calling. Start by taking your craft seriously and let it make you better.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts—your words help more people find these stories.
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Guest Information
Kraig Sederquist is a web developer and artisan pipe maker living in the Sierra Nevada foothills above Sonora, California. A former Marine and co-owner of Level One Web Design, Kraig blends years of digital craftsmanship with a growing passion for handcrafted tobacco pipes through his studio, SederCraft. Working primarily with briar and drawing inspiration from Danish and freehand styles, he creates functional pieces rooted in patience, precision, and tradition. When he’s not at the bench or behind a screen, he enjoys mountain life with his wife Kay — gardening, hiking, and exploring the outdoors.

Resources and Links
SederCraft - Handcrafted Tobacco Pipes and Accessories
Kraig Sederquist on Instagram
Venn Diagram - Purpose

Music used in this episode:
All music in this episode is licensed for use through Epidemic Sound.

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Transcript

Fletch 0:02

Welcome to the Mango Times podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Fletch. You know, on this episode, you're gonna hear a lot of clicks. Those are lighters, tools, little mechanical sounds in the background. But this episode isn't about pipe smoking. It isn't even about pipe carving. It's about identity. It's about that point when a hobby stops being something you do and starts becoming who you are. My guest today is my buddy Craig Cederquist. He's a former Marine, he's a web builder, with a steady day job. And somewhere along the way, carving pipes in a small workshop stopped being a side thing. It started becoming the thing. Now, Craig hasn't quit his day job, but the shift has already happened. The hobby has some weight now. Customers, demand, a name, a presence, and even a future. And here's the question underneath it all. What do you do when the thing you love won't stay small anymore? If you've ever felt that quiet nudge, that pull towards something that feels more like you than your resume does, this conversation is for you. This is about when craft becomes a calling, when stability meets risk, and when what you make starts making you. So join us as we light up a pipe and we settle in. It's relaxed, it's personal, it's the kind of conversation that feels like you pulled up a chair next to two guys who are just enjoying a real talk. Alright, settle in and let's get into it.

Craig’s Backstory And First Pipe

Fletch 1:57

All right, Craig Zedakwist, welcome to the Mango Times Podcast. Well, thank you for having me. Hey, we're gonna talk today a little bit about pipe carving, but before we get there, can you give people the 60-second version of you before this? Maybe your superhero backstory.

Kraig 2:14

Yeah, well, I was born in Turlock, California to a construction family. So growing up, that was up until like 18, that was I was gonna go in the construction business and taking classes on it. And at the time I wasn't in the best spot with my friends and kind of where I saw myself going. So I decided to take a little break and uh join the Marine Corps. And then wow, yeah, it was it was one of those things I needed to be removed from where I currently was to kind of reevaluate things and test myself.

Fletch 2:48

And I feel like the Marine Corps would do that.

Kraig 2:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of stripped you down really quick and uh made you appreciate a lot of things and you know, instilled for me uh more discipline that kind of helped me later in life. And then, you know, after that, I started getting more into business, things like that, because at that point in time the construction market had taken a downturn. So I was getting more into business and wound up moving to Southern California, where I was doing purchasing and operations for store on Melrose there. And I did that for a number of years, and I would take my lunch walk down to the Beverly Center, and they had Tinder Box. Yeah. And that's I think at this probably 1994 when I bought my first pipe at the Tinder box there. Didn't know anything about tobaccos, but so I did that for a little while in the mid-90s. That's when the internet started coming along. And I had stopped working for the company on Melrose and went to another side business that he had, and I worked up in Malibu.

Fletch 3:58

And well, he had a really rough go at it. Jeez always, my God. Betterly hells than Malibu. I was struggling.

Kraig 4:06

Well, it was the Hollywood part was yeah, it's not what people make it out to see. I wanted to get out of that area as quick as I could. So it when I was there, I that's when I started getting into web development. That was the early stages of the internet. And from there, I then got started jumping jobs, just trying to get up the ladder with web development. And around that point in time, with my first wife, we had my son and then my daughter, and really wanted a house. But in the areas I wanted to live, you know, it was just out of my price range. You know, starter houses were a million and a half. But my parents lived up in Miwok Village in this year, Nevadas. And I either wanted to live by the beach or the mountains, so I picked the mountains. Win, win. Yeah, so that was so much better for me than the Southern California. I've always been big into backpacking and hiking and things like that and outdoors. So that gets you here.

Stability, Pressure, And Self-Definition

Kraig 5:08

All right, so a little behind the scenes here at the Mango Times, probably my fat my favorite guest I've had on the Mango Times, because Craig showed up with a pipe, and we're getting to do this interview in in the studio with pipes lit and a a little, what do we call it, a little dram of whiskey? Yeah. Oh, it's a perfect interview. This is the best interview I've had. So, Craig, what did stability look like for you back then? Teetering. Okay. It was, you know, young kids. It was fun. I mean, I look back, it was a lot of fun times, but not the kind of stability I feel now in my 50s.

Fletch 5:46

Okay.

Kraig 5:47

I'm at a much better place financially and more so mentally. And I think you just start figuring things out. You either figure it out or you just let it finally let it go.

Fletch 6:00

I mean, was it that pretty typical thing? I mean, I I'm kind of working through the same age you are, you know, where you felt like you I always felt like someone was just nipping at my heels. Like it just had to stay ahead. Oh, yeah. Put food on the table, make sure the kids were taken care of, make sure my wife was taken care of, like, but also a burden. Like it's on my shoulders. Yeah. Oh, yeah, there was a lot of pressure.

Kraig 6:19

A lot of pressure.

Fletch 6:20

So if someone asked you even five years ago, who you were, what would you say to them five years ago?

Kraig 6:27

What's funny? When anyone asked me, and this is I'll kind of circle back, but what do you do? Who are you? You know, or or if someone said, What do you do? I'm a pipe maker. That's my hobby business.

Fletch 6:39

Okay.

Kraig 6:39

But that's who I that's what I identify as. My day, my day job, which I'm grateful for, and you know, it's web development, but that's not who I am. That's to put food on the table, to pay the bills, well, and to give my customers a good, you know, a good product. But I've always liked to create and make things. And so five years ago, who was it? Was I? I would say five years ago, I had already started kind of settling in. Okay. My wife, uh, we've been together now 13 years, and she was huge, huge and finally making me feel comfortable, probably with who I am, what I'm doing, and with just kind of life. Very, very intelligent woman. And she's someone where I look up to her. We both complement each other really well. And I would say before I met her, I just felt like I was to anyone else I was put together, in internally, I felt like I was failing. You know, just kind of not at peace.

Fletch 7:49

Okay.

Kraig 7:50

Where I would say in the last five, six years, even more so the last two years. It's like we've been together 13 years, but it's like our relationship gets stronger and stronger each year. And that's kind of and for me, uh well, I'm just so grateful for that. But it's like I'm finally more at peace with myself. And I think that was a problem earlier, you know, growing up and having a family and things like that.

Fletch 8:18

So are you still we're gonna get into this, like I would say, a transition or like I'm a pipe carver now.

Kraig 8:25

Yeah.

Fletch 8:25

Yeah. When do you remember the moment that pipe carving stopped being just a hobby?

From Tinkering To Taking Pride

Kraig 8:31

Yeah, and it was actually years into making pipes. Oh. Yeah. I tinkered with it for a while, and I look at some of the pipes, and they're they were okay, but I guess I didn't take the pride in it. It was just something to do, something to make. It was actually, I started making pipes in 2012. It wasn't until 2018 that I'm like, what am I doing? It's fun, but if I'm gonna do this, uh take it serious, even if it's a hobby, take it serious, put pride into it. I had one pretty famous pipe maker at the time, you know, it was probably around 2017. He's like, Oh, I love your work, slow down. And that just got me thinking so much because I was racing to finish the pipe instead of enjoying the process, and really I was trying to complete it instead of take some kind of pride in my work. And that really just got me just those little words, slow down. In so much of my life, I tried to rush through ther certain things. And that was the one time it's like once I started really slowing down and paying attention to what I was doing with pipes, but also that transition to other parts of my life.

Fletch 9:42

Okay.

Kraig 9:44

It's like, don't just rush through it. If you're gonna do it, do it right. I mean, I was never someone that did sloppy work, but I would still try to get through it as fast as I could.

Fletch 9:54

Do you still have the videos up of is it how to finish a pipe or how to do stem work or it was

Teaching, Community, And Early YouTube

Fletch 10:00

a lot of on-site in your your creative space. Do you still have those videos up?

Kraig 10:06

Yeah, on YouTube. Oh, yeah, I have one video tutorial I made in 2013, which was honestly too early in the pipe making to make a video. So that's how I found you. Yeah.

Fletch 10:19

Is that video?

Kraig 10:20

But I I think my whole thing with that was one thing that I love is sharing what I know. And I think at the time no one would help me when I was trying to learn pipe making. And this is there really weren't any YouTube videos in 2012, 2013 on how to make pipes. Sure. And so my whole thing was, hey, I'm having fun at this. Here's how someone with no experience got into it, and here's how I kind of did it. And so that's when I made the first video. Back in I think 2018, I made another video series that was much better. But yeah, that's kind of where it started with YouTube and yeah.

Fletch 11:00

Because in our community, for people that don't know, you know, now there's quite an internet presence. Oh, yeah. Uh especially in the world of Instagram. As soon as you could start publishing pictures of what you could create, I mean, there's just some beautiful pipe carvers. And if you're really not in this world, you don't know, there's famous pipe carvers. Oh, yeah. You know, it this goes back to Europe. Yeah. You know, where you or or Japan, or and then there's quite an onslaught of American pipe carvers now. So do you remember what the first pipe that you made where you thought there might be something here?

Kraig 11:38

Yeah, my first pipe looked like you took a big ball of silly putty and stuck a stem in it. It was just horrible. And I looked at it and then it's like, okay, because the first time was just to make something. I wanted to smoke a pipe again because I had stopped for a couple years when my kids were young, and I was just so busy. Just kind of got out of it. And I just wanted to make a pipe to smoke. I made that first one, I looked at it, and I still have the pipe, and it was it was pretty ugly. But then that motivated me because I grew up in a design, I loved to draw, paint, you know, woodworking. So I'm like, okay, let's make a nice one. So my second pipe was actually pretty, it's decent, and I still have that one. That's what's like, oh, geez, I can do this. Okay. It took me years to really start being able to see pipe shapes correctly. You know, now I look at my old pipes, I'm like, why would I do that? But it takes a while for your eye to start seeing the symmetry or the aesthetics of a pipe, the lines, how it flows.

Fletch 12:44

So yeah. So, you know, one thing for our listeners to hear is, you know, you might just if you know nothing about pipe smoking, you might just think these are hunks of wood with a stick in them and you suck air through them. But there's engineering, and then there so there's form and function. Yeah. Right? And you've taken the time to learn both. Yeah. You know, so obviously people one thing about your pipe, so I'll I'm gonna let the the listeners in on a little secret, and that is if you're traveling in Carmel, California, and you happen to go to the Carmel pipe shop, they have an in-house pipe carver, and that's you. Yes. So the Carmel Pipe Shop is nothing more than a closet. Yeah, it's tiny. And I stop every time I'm in town, and I I know the guys that work there, both Doug and John. Yeah. And I talk to both of them every time I'm in town. I have a relationship with them now, but I was in there just a few weeks ago and I said, Oh, I see you have Craig's pipes. And both of them, they both said, he makes beautiful pipes. I'm like, I know. And it's I don't know if it's your photography technique or if it's it is the pipes themselves. Come on, what am I saying? But

Pipes As Functional Art And Pricing

Fletch 13:53

and I'm gonna put photos up as we're talking, so as people are watching or listening to this podcast, they can they can actually see on their screen some examples, just beautiful, beautiful pipes. So was this something that you think you chased, or was this something that chased you? Oh, definitely chased me. Okay. Yeah. So you couldn't get away.

Kraig 14:11

No, no, it's one of those things after I started making a couple pipes, already starting to think about the next one. It's I mean, I've made hundreds and hundreds of pipes now. Still to this day, when I'm just getting ready to start drilling, I get just not nervous, but a little bit like, okay, how am I gonna do this? And it's still a challenge. And I'm still learning, and it's like even after all these years, I'm still learning new things all the time and trying to uh improve. And I think that's what I like. If it was easy, I would have gotten bored and stopped.

Fletch 14:46

Yeah.

Kraig 14:46

But it's something where it's a constant challenge. How can I make it better?

Fletch 14:50

So you said at the initially that when you first started out on YouTube, there was nobody showing how to do this. No. What's the situation now?

Kraig 14:58

Now there's a lot a lot more. Okay. I haven't really searched them out anymore. The tutorials, but now there's a wealth of knowledge, you know, if you want to get started, and there's a lot of forums now.

Fletch 15:11

And you feel would you would you say that there's a a general attitude of let's help one another, you know, reach back and help the person coming up, or do you still feel like it's a I never I never experienced that.

Kraig 15:23

Okay. No, I never experienced that. That's why even on Instagram, Facebook, they'll say, like uh the last couple days, I've done a video applying shellac. Yeah. Or, you know, other pipes, I'll do a Danish oil. People ask me questions, I tell them exactly how I did it. There's a few things I won't say that honestly you have to experiment and figure it out on your own. Like certain how I do certain contrast coats with the dies, and there's certain things, but I'll point them in the right direction. But I learned so much just through trial and error and trying to figure out okay, how does this work?

Fletch 16:01

All right, before we move on to the next section, let's take a little break and we'll be right back. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break in the interview, and while we're paused, if you've been enjoying the Mango Times, would you take a minute and leave a review over on Apple Podcasts? It helps more than you know. It helps new listeners find these stories, and it lets me know that I'm heading in the right direction. So, you know what? You can go do it right now. I promise this conversation will be right here waiting when you get back. So go, leave a review. I'll see you when you get back. I'm

Purpose, Plans, And The Venn Diagram

Fletch 16:43

gonna show you a Venn diagram. You already looked at it. So it's a Venn diagram, four circles. You love it, the world needs it, you're paid for it, you're great at it. And if you hit the sweet spot, you've found a purpose. So you've watched your pipe carving gain momentum. At what point did you realize that it was overlapping joy and skill and demand?

Kraig 17:07

I think at first I was selling my pipes really inexpensive just to recoup costs on the hobby. Okay. Not even, I wasn't even really charging for my time. I was charging, you know, a minimal. For years I charged like $125, $150 for pipes. Why don't you give our audience kind of a sense of pipe costs? Pipe costs are all over the place. The bit the big difference is factory pipes and handmade pipes. There's a lot of very well-made uh factory pipes, different brands out there. Some of like one that I really like from Italy is called Savonelli, but there's also from London Dunhill, Peterson from Ireland. Those are very good pipes and they smoke excellent. But then you get into And what would be the costs for those? The cost on those, I would say probably starting at about 120 for a good pipe. Yeah, maybe a little less, 120 to 300. I would say that's kind of like the normal range.

Fletch 18:09

Yeah, so for my listeners that haven't ever bought a pipe, they may know what we're dealing with. So that's yeah, right in there. I'm a Savonelli guy. That was my first pipe. Yeah. It was a Savinelli Roma billiard, which is a straight pipe. I might, I might even put a picture up for the listeners. Yeah. But that was my first pipe in 1986. Uh-huh. And of course it's a billiard because that's a straight pipe, because that's what Ward Cleaver would smoke. You know, so we we have our archetypes of pipe smokers, and mine was, well, yeah, Ward Cleaver. He smoked a pipe. There's a a Bing Crosby pipe, which is called, what do we call it? Bing's favorite's favorite. And if you think of Bing Crosby, you think of that pipe. Yeah. There's the Sherlock Holmes. There's Gandalf. Like as I say these names, the listeners are going, Oh yeah, I I know that pipe. Yeah. Uh and then there's the corncob pipe, which is what my my daddy, my listeners know pop. He smokes corn cobs. He has a ton of beautiful pipes. He picks up a corn cob every day and smokes it till he burns a hole in it. And then gets another corncob. Yep. So so yeah, but that's so factory pipes, you're looking 120 to 300 range.

Kraig 19:16

Yeah, I would say on average, yeah. And then the custom pipes, what are you seeing there? The difference is the major difference, one, you're buying a nice-looking pipe that smokes well with the factory pipes. When you start getting into the artisan pipes, I'd say the people are buying this because they

Fear, Decisions, And No-Regret Mindset

Kraig 19:35

want something that's handmade. They want something that's beautiful. A lot of them will smoke better, but not all of them do, but a lot of them do. Really, you're essentially buying functional art. Yeah. You know, you're buying something that's really a one-of-a-kind, a one-off.

Fletch 19:53

Now, are people telling you what they want as much as they see what you've created and say, oh, I want that?

Kraig 20:00

Usually they see what I've created. I'm doing one now where they've seen a couple pipes I've done and they want to mash together. But getting back to with the custom pipes, the prices on those normally start, I would say, low side 200. And honestly, you can go up to I've seen them for 15,000.

Fletch 20:23

Yeah. So, you know, again, for listeners that aren't in this world of pipe smoking, we can be nerdy. Did you consciously think this could be a business or did that sneak up on you?

Kraig 20:38

I would say right around 2018, that's when I started getting serious about it, and I invested in metal lathe or machinist lathe. I started getting better tooling and I started investing in it more. I started adding it to my tax write-off. And that's when I started thinking, hey, this, you know, it's it's it's extremely hard to make a living at it because it can take- You mean soul, like that's all you do. If it's not a side job, if your full-time job is pipe making, it can be challenging. That's when you have to really start raising your prices up. And for me, that's always been tough because there's a lot of people where their end goal is to have be able to sell their pipes for a thousand, fifteen hundred, two thousand. That is not my goal. I to me, I get too much enjoyment out of just selling to just everyday people and not people that are only wealthy. Because if you're gonna spend fifteen hundred, two thousand dollars on a pipe, that's a little different than I'm selling to people that are electricians, you know, just every day they work in an office. Just to me, I just like that. So, what I'm trying to do is figure out how can I keep

Mentors, Craft Legacy, And Slowing Down

Kraig 22:00

Keep the quality level high, get it even better, but just make my time in the shop more efficient.

Fletch 22:06

All right. So circling back to this Venn diagram, which of the circles lights you up?

Kraig 22:11

First off, what hooks me is I love it.

Fletch 22:14

Okay.

Kraig 22:14

That's what keeps me doing it. Second is I just love getting feedback from people when they get their pipe and they're like, oh my gosh, it looks better than the pictures. It smokes amazing. That just keeps me going. You know, does the world need it? They want it. It's pipe smoking's uh, you know, it's a luxury. It's you know just something you do, it's something you enjoy. It's not needed, but yeah, sometimes with the stress in today's world, maybe it is needed. But and of course I like being paid for it, but definitely I don't do it for the money. I could not make pipes today and be fine.

Fletch 22:55

Okay, so I really want to get into this concept of midlife and making decisions that are shifts from where you were. You are still continuing with the web design at this point. So you're still profession is web design. This is still considered a hobby. Yes. Do you ever see it becoming what you do? Oh, 100%.

Kraig 23:17

Okay. So down the road. My wife and I are always already making a plan for this. Is this will be my once I retire from web development full time?

Fletch 23:28

So anytime something moves from a hobby to like a livelihood, a lot of our a lot of my listeners have been sharing with me that that's when fear shows up. You know, they're I don't know if I should do this. It's a big step, it's a big leap. Has that happened to you? Has fear shown up in your life? Whether whether it was just moving to Miwok or the hills, the Sierras, has there been a point in life where fear showed up and you're like, I don't know if this is the right choice? Yeah, quite a few times. Okay. And what did that look like? Or how did how did you face that?

Kraig 24:07

With anything like that, it's just I have to write down pros and cons and then just commit and don't look back. I mean, I don't believe in regret at all. Bad decisions sometimes, but not really regret, because if I changed anything in the past, I wouldn't be here today. And really, it's just kind of make peace with bad decisions you've made, but I don't regret really.

Fletch 24:33

Okay. Any any regret when you monetized it that it was gonna go from being this joyful hobby to No. No?

Kraig 24:43

Okay. I charged a little bit. I was always I just when I first started making pipes, I just had too many. I had and people started asking, will you sell one? Will you sell one? I'm like, I'm just starting. Well, will you sell it? Okay, you know, 50 bucks here, 50 bucks there, and then I got more demand and more people asking. So no, I I mean the being paid for my hobby is great. Okay.

Fletch 25:08

So pipe pipe carving, I mean, this is an art. It takes planning, takes thought, takes dedication. You're not just picking up a piece of wood and just whittling. No, you know, but you you have a design in mind, an end design, you have an engineering mind behind it. So I'm just interested because you said it at the beginning, you you had this stint in the Marines. Yeah. Did that time develop any sort of discipline in you that you can look back on? Tell me a little bit about that.

Kraig 25:39

The biggest thing is, well, and this is kind of going through initial the three and a half months of boot camp, but so many times where all the things you think are impossible or you can't do it, it proved you could do it. It's and it's really in other training and other deployments and things like that, where how am I going to get through this? And it's just

What The Work Makes Of Us

Kraig 26:05

after a while, you just don't even have that mindset. It's just like, okay, instead of looking at the whole big issue in front of you, break it down to little steps. Okay, a first A, then B, then C. And whenever I hit anything like that, just break it down into smaller parts. Because if you try to eat the whole thing at once, you're gonna choke. But if you take little small bites here and there, then you can whittle away at the issue, problem, challenge.

Fletch 26:31

Now, does that play out in you're also quite a mountaineer? That's another thing I love to follow in you is your love to take on these epic hikes. Yeah.

Kraig 26:41

Similar? Yeah. That I mean, that's I've always been into hiking and backpacking, but when I was younger, we didn't do like my wife and I all do 20 plus miles in a day, things like that. Every year I do half dome twice before they put the cables up and take them down. And I guess what drew me to half dome was my Fair Heights. You know, doing the cables and stuff like that. And it's just, I like the challenge. That's fantastic.

Fletch 27:10

Let's relight our pipes. We'll take a little break, and we'll be right back with some more questions. Before we wrap up this interview, there's one more thing. I'm always on the lookout for good stories, uh, especially the kind that involve courage, reinvention, midlife pivots, or just everyday killer adventure. If that's you or if that's someone you know, you can text me straight from the show notes. Or if it's easier, just head over to themangotimes.com and hit the let's connect button. I promise I'll do all the legwork because around here, I believe a good story needs to be told. All right, let's head back into the studio for the rest of this interview. So when you were thinking of this, when you were, okay, so you you go through life, we've we've backtracked a little bit, you know, Marines, and you get into business, but now you're making this decision to move to the Sierra and maybe even maybe taking on this from more than a hobby. Was there someone you talked through this with, or did you carry this plan mostly on your own? Pretty much on my own. Okay. So you looked at the the road in front of you and said, I can do this. Yeah. Okay. So I mean, I think this is gonna touch to a lot

Fast Five: Tools, Time, And Form

Fletch 28:24

of our listeners who are tuning in for these mid-age, uh, we don't call them crises. We've we had the whole episode on how it's not really a midlife crisis, more of a midlife shift. And that idea of, can I do this? Can I do it on my own? You know, do I reach out? Do I ask someone ahead of me? If if you had the opportunity to do it again, do you think you'd treat it more as a mentor relationship? Find someone 20 steps ahead of you, or do you think you'd do it the same way you did it the first time?

Kraig 28:52

If I was going to give advice to someone, I would say reach out to a mentor. If I was going to do it over again, I'd do it exactly the same. Okay.

Fletch 29:01

So you've talked a lot about this, about how you forged your way in this hobby. Have you had the opportunity yet? I know you're very open with what you're doing and and and your process, but have you had the opportunity to have a mentor or mentee to serve in that way?

Kraig 29:18

If someone wanted to learn, I would definitely help them out. Okay. I mean, I help people all the time. People email me with questions on how to do something. So for me, it's also part of if you're not in the pipes, you think and you don't see people smoke pipes, you think, well, that's no longer a thing. Yeah. There's a huge community out there. Yeah, there's a really big community. And so for me, it's keeping this old craft alive, you know. And I think that's one of the draws to pipe making, is everything has become so disposable, and you know, it's it's it's kind of the just consumerism. I'll just buy another one, I'll buy another one, and you know, just buy something cheap. Last year, there's something about making something where it may be passed down and handcrafted, it's made by a person, you know, whether they're in this country, another country, it's made by someone that's putting their time into it. And I think that's what's kind of special, and I think that's what draws people to it. It's something about in our hectic pace slowing down with a pipe. Again, my grandpa was 94, you know, when he passed, and he was a lifelong pipe smoker. Yeah. And I think there's so many benefits of slowing

Reflections

Kraig 30:45

down and just decompressing instead of just holding all this tension. Yeah. Went a little off course here, but no, it's perfect.

Fletch 30:52

That's perfect. I mean, you're sitting, you can look right in front of you, and you can see three, four pipes on a pipe rack here in my dental office. Those belonged to a World War II vet. Yeah. I'm the one I have in my hand. It's one of his. Yeah. So he came into the office, and uh, there's I'll put a link up to it in the show notes. It's called Bruce's Pipes. Bruce was a World War II vet. He was D-Day plus 15. Oh, wow. So when he came ashore, they already had docks. They already drove right up the beach and drove right into Germany. He was at the Battle of the Bulge, he got to he got to liberate camps. And so he came in and he was saying that his previous dentist had told him, you know, he had to stop smoking. And I'm like, oh, hell no. Um, I go, bring your pipes in. So he brought all these in. He he had all these are all Peterson pipes. Craig mentioned those earlier. They're from Ireland. He had about 12 of them. And I said, Let me clean them up. So I put them on my dental lathe and polished them all up for him. And I gave him a pipe of pouch of tobacco. I said, No, go home tonight and smoke your pipe. Yeah. So he came back in a few weeks later and he said, I want you to pick one of my pipes. And I said, No, you know, I I don't deserve one of your pipes. I'm not your family. I'm not, you know, to me, this was a big deal. Again, a bunch of pipes purchased in Ireland. You know, they were not, he didn't buy these online. Yeah. And so he said, Well, if you don't pick one, I'm gonna pick one for you. So I picked the crappiest one he had. Yeah. And at the end of the day, the staff came back and they said, he gave them all to you. He didn't want you to, he wasn't gonna tell you this. So I have all of Bruce's pipes, and every time I smoke one of Bruce's pipes, even today, yeah, I'm thinking of Bruce. Yeah. Here's this guy, and he ended up dying, but he was a World War II. I mean, this guy liberated Nazi death camps. Like I get I get to smoke his pipe and think, what did he think when he was 57? Yeah. What was he working through? Was did he have kids that were that he was stressed out about or you know, finances? So it very much is that that just what you're saying. So not off course at all. I mean, just to talk about this this history of a piece of wood. Let me ask you this, and this might be a tough question, but what are you becoming through this work?

Kraig 33:15

I'm getting to a point in my pipe making, I would say the last two years where I'm finally getting comfortable or where I appreciate my work. Okay. I think before I'm someone that is hyper critical of myself. Hyper critical. And I think that's that's good when you're making a pipe, because every pipe, I when I finish it, as soon as I finish it, I'm like, oh, okay. Because I can I can I think it's not perfect. I'm kind of always going for that. But then I look at it two days later, I'm like, damn, I like that pipe. You know, and it's one of those things where I'm not being negatively critical of now. It's like, okay, yeah, I'll do that different. But I'm not where I think when I was younger, I would beat myself up a little more negative. I'd be more harder on myself. Okay. And I would say, as I've gotten older, it's just like I'm human. You know, most people have these thoughts going through their head, insecurities, different things. And you finally figure out I was like, oh, okay. I mean, this is part of being human. And so I've finally gotten, I think, as I get older, more comfortable in my own skin.

Fletch 34:35

So, what does pipe carving give you that your previous work didn't give you?

Kraig 34:39

I don't really like to use the word pride, but get well, pride in my work when I do something well. Because when I'm working with code, I'm working within the framework of the code. Yeah, I can do a lot of different things, but no matter what I create, it's gonna be obsolete in 10 years with computers. Every pipe I create, it could be around 100 years later, 150 years later. And it's something that people are getting true enjoyment out of. You know, creating a website is functional, it serves a definite purpose for businesses and to sell their products, but this is something I'm creating, something that someone's gonna sit back, relax, and enjoy.

Fletch 35:24

All right, so the final question of this part of the interview if this never gets bigger than it is right now, would it still be worth doing? Oh yeah.

Kraig 35:35

Yeah, it's I get so much enjoyment out of it. I like the challenge. I mean, even if for some reason I couldn't sell them anymore, I would keep making them. I mean, it's it's I guess for me it's it has nothing to do with the money. I mean, of course, it's nice to have the money, but it's one of the things I can truly say I don't do it for the money.

Fletch 36:04

So quick, no overthinking. Fast five questions. First pipe you ever carved, how bad was it?

Kraig 36:13

Horrible. It was I've seen mine was pretty bad. It was pretty bad. But I had so much fun smoking it. So the best compliment you've received from a customer. He was a Dunhill collector, and he said it smokes better than any of his Dunhills. Holy crap, that's a people you don't understand. Well, I shouldn't say collector, but he had six Dunhills. And he says it smokes better than all six of his Dunhills.

Fletch 36:41

Uh I'd say that my my Cedar Quest pipe smokes better than my Dunhill. One tool you can't live without.

Kraig 36:52

This has changed, but now it's a metal lathe. Okay. Just because of the precision of drilling. Something people assume about pipe carving. That's totally wrong. Thing they assume is that a pipe's made in two hours or three hours. I spend two hours on the stem alone on mini pipes. I've wanted to time myself multiple times, start to finish, how long does it take? I get working on a pipe and I'm just like, woo, in my zone, and I forget. I'd say six to eight hours on average to make a pipe. So I think it takes a lot longer than people realize. When you're not carving, where do you mentally go to recharge? Usually hiking. Getting in the outdoors is another way to recharge for me. Coffee, tea, or something stronger when you're carving. Well, my something stronger is I drink a little bit of diet ginger ale and probably over half of pure ginger juice, so I like something stronger. I love ginger.

Fletch 38:03

And then lastly, when it comes to pipe carving, form or function?

Kraig 38:09

You have to start with function. And then form. If you can have a beautiful pipe and if it smokes horrible, then it's just ornament.

Closing Comments

Fletch 38:21

Well, folks, I brought Craig on because I love his story. I love that he's doing something that he loves. I love that this will become something that he does after a career. So I want to thank you, Craig, for being on the Mango Times podcast.

Kraig 38:36

No, thank you.

Fletch 38:41

I'm really thankful that Craig took the time to come on down to the studio and record that episode with me. I think as a listener, what you're gonna remember are those little clicks in the background, the lighters, those little tools that we use as pipe smokers to keep our pipe lit. They're, you know, just little mechanical sounds of someone who is enjoying their hobby. But what I think I'm gonna remember in this episode is that moment when a hobby stops being harmless. You know what I mean? It's when it starts to ask for your attention. Uh you need to start plugging in with a little more courage, and maybe even you recognize that it's part of your identity. You know, Craig didn't burn any bridges. I mean, he hasn't quit his day job. He's just leaned in to his hobby. And maybe that's the real move here. You know, because you don't always have to blow up your life. Sometimes you just have to take the thing seriously that you're doing. And that's how I want to end this episode. If something in you has been tugging, maybe it's a craft or a business idea, a creative project, a second half dream, maybe this is your nudge to stop shrinking the dream and actually start pursuing it. And with that, I want to thank you for listening to The Mango Times. If this episode resonated with you, maybe all you need to do is share it with someone who's sitting on something that they care about. If you just found this show, I would love it if you would follow it. Just hit the follow button or the plus button on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're really inclined, you can leave a review for me on Apple Podcasts, because I know you think it's not much, and I know I ask for it every episode, sometimes multiple times, but it genuinely helps more than you think. And lastly, if you or someone you know has a story about leaning in, about pivoting, or building something meaningful or just a great adventure, would you reach out to me? I would love to talk to them. I will do all the footwork to get them on this podcast. Alright, in the meantime, why don't you hop on? Let's go find your adventure and let's quietly make some noise. You have been listening to the Mango Times podcast. For more information or any questions, head on over to themango times.com. And so they gave me a 25 year old scotch. Oh, nice. And I only open it for special people or special occasions, and I hide it whenever my dad's in the office.