A Pipe Made of Deer Antler – What Every Mountain Man Should Have For a Night under the Stars (at Least an Old Mountain Man...)

 

It has been snowing for two days. After getting the energy out of my dogs by walking behind him for a couple of hours, decided to get back to a project I had started a few months ago.

Indeed, a few people who saw the fur hats I made and wore them these past months said that my “Mountainman Collection” will not be complete without a mountain man pipe. Specifically a pipe made of deer antlers!

I have never made pipes and did not know the ways of working the antlers, drilling the stem for smoke to pass through, and especially making the bowl of the pipe. But since I have naturally shed antlers which I use for various art projects, decided to tackle this new challenge.

The longest it took me was the making of the bowl and polishing it. I used the largest base of the antler at the pedicle where it meets the skull. The natural shape of the crown, now the mouth of the bowl, can be in itself a piece of art.

So, the bowl is deer antler, and the mouthpiece is the tip of the branches of the antler. I did mess up once with the drilling through that mouthpiece and had to start again. It is good that deer have more than one tip on their antlers!

The stem is rather special as it is made of European Roe Deer antler. I have a few of these from Germany and the texture is amazingly pronounced compared to American white deer. The ones I have date back to the 1950s and 1970s and there is documentation on a few of them as to where they were harvested.

Here is the final product. I made a stand with petrified desert wood and a patch of hare skin and a tamper with the tip of the Roebuck antler tip:

 

As I was taking a picture of the pipe, it occurred to me that a painting I had posted on Valentine’s Day (https://vaheark.blogspot.com/2021/02/twinkle-twinkle-little-star-how-we.html) would provide a great background to the pipe. So the picture at the top of this page shows these two works together.

Maybe one day I will start clothing and apparel online store called “For the Mountainman by Vahé”!!!

Till then, I am letting my imagination run free…

 

March 12, 2021

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2021