Jim DeSchaine: a Father-and-Son Bench in the Sierra Foothills

Jim DeSchaine is an American pipe maker working around the town of Auburn in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada. Rather than a large-scale brand, the name belongs to a one-person bench: DeSchaine makes his pipes in a small workshop, in limited numbers, by hand.

By his own account he has more than thirty years of woodworking background, having made furniture, jewelry boxes, and cigar cabinets together with his father. His move into pipes is described as a natural extension of that background.

The Bench's Founding

By the maker's own account, he began pipe production in 2013; this date has not been confirmed by an independent record. As the story goes, the turning point was a trip to Montana that gave him the chance to work at the same bench as experienced maker Mark Tinsky. In the period that followed he is said to have worked with California maker Chris Morgan, gaining ground in engineering, shaping, sandblasting, and surface finishing around the Morgan Pipes circle. Information about these two relationships rests mainly on the maker's own promotional material. The bench can be seen as one of the more recent links in an American handmade pipe scene that has grown through apprenticeship-like transmission.

The workshop is described as a family business. According to the single source available, the father does not make the pipes himself; he is involved only in the hand-carving and finishing of joint-signed pieces, and also makes tampers and leather pipe pouches.