Vitale (Piero Vitale)

Vitale is the pipe workshop bearing the name of Italian master Piero Vitale. Working in northern Italy at Certosa di Pavia, near Pavia, Vitale was introduced to the world of handmade pipes through a friend in 2014, and finished his first pipe within a few months. Being the grandson of a carpenter and luthier explains a familiarity with woodworking dating back to his childhood; some of the workshop's habits trace back to this early period.

Workshop and Method

Vitale's production is not a series but a piece-by-piece one, each pipe passing through his own hands. His annual output hovers around two hundred pipes. From rough shaping to final sanding, the work proceeds with files, rasps, sandpaper, and small milling tools; the lathe comes into play only for cutting the mouthpiece. His choice of burl is deliberately narrow: the master buys briar blocks from Italian cutters and requires that the blocks have rested at least two years. He works with both plateaux and ebauchon blocks. For mouthpieces he uses German ebonite; for decorative accents he turns to materials such as boxwood, cocobolo, horn, and bamboo. For a general comparison of mouthpiece materials, see the mouthpiece materials entry.