I've been saving a good bottle of Italian wine to celebrate and my beautiful wife, Kathy even offered up a toast to the success of S.E.Thile Handmade Pipes. She has been wonderfully supportive of my pipe making adventure, which is a huge blessing!

Last week I also received five 1 meter rods of German Ebonite from SEM, a new company in Germany that is making excellent ebonite stem material. Working on my first stem from that stock and so far I'm very impressed. I hope to order more as well as some Cumberland, which they are still developing. The only other company that makes this stuff keeps threatening to quit, and has in general been difficult to work, so it's great to see excellent material from a new company that seems more than happy to cater to pipe makers.