What are the different finishes that pipes come in?
Generally, six (surprised?!): Smooth, Sandblasted, Rusticated, Carved, Smooth Black, and Painted. Smooth means that the natural grain pattern of the briar remains unaltered; the difference could be in the tint used, from natural (slightly more yellow/orange than the natural color of the wood) up to dark red, for example. Sandblasted pipes still show the natural grain of the wood, not as it was in natural but rather through exposing the pipe to an extremely strong jet of sand, which removes the weakest parts of the grain, leaving the hard ones “in relief”. The grain on Rusticated pipes, on the other hand, is no longer visible; the maker uses a tool (either a hand tool or an electric one) to basically render the surface “rugged”. Why?! Usually because the pipe exhibits sandpits that are too big to be treated or hidden. Carved pipes, which are the rarest of the lot, are pipes that have been formed into a particular shape or image, such as a face or a motif; carving is made exclusively by
