Cats Paw Pipes

Cats Paw Pipes is a family-scale pipe workshop that operated in Regina, in Canada's province of Saskatchewan, run jointly by Bill Weist and Terri Weist. The brand's name is a nod to the cats in the couple's home. Production never turned into mass manufacture at any point and stayed limited to briar pipes individually worked to order.

What draws particular interest to the workshop is that one of the partners, Terri Weist, worked as a full-time carver at a time when very few women worked as pipe makers in the trade.

Workshop and Division of Labour

According to the workshop's own presentation, the couple took up pipe making in the mid-2000s; this date has not been confirmed by an independent record. The beginning took the form of working with hand tools and pre-drilled kits, and as the work grew, the home garage was turned into a proper working space. Given Canada's harsh winters, heating and insulating this section was a necessity for year-round production.

The two makers did not devote equal time to the workshop. According to information again resting on the workshop's own statements, Bill Weist, since he kept a separate full-time job, was able to complete roughly fifteen to thirty pipes a year; Terri Weist, carving pipes exclusively from 2002 onward, reached around a hundred pipes a year. These figures, too, have not been independently confirmed, though the scale given is ordinary for one-person workshops.