Jørn Larsen

Jørn Larsen (b. March 25, 1949) is a Danish pipemaker. Born in a small village roughly fifty kilometers south of Copenhagen, he began the craft not at a pipe bench but at a locksmith's bench. This background gives him an unusual place among Danish workshops: he has not only made pipes but has also drawn up and built the machines he uses to make them.

From Locksmithing to Pipes

His connection to pipes began at age sixteen, in a pipe club he joined with a friend; the two carved pipes for themselves from briar blocks bought in Copenhagen. He left school at seventeen and turned to mechanics, entering a locksmithing apprenticeship, which he completed in 1970 at the age of twenty-one. Following his military service he worked in this trade for many years, during which pipemaking all but stopped. A briar block that came into his hands in his thirties turned him back to carving; this time he had a mature background in metalwork behind him.