Silver Gray

by Paul Combs When I first got my hands on The Peterson Pipe: The Story of Kapp & Peterson in the Fall of 2019 I was both overjoyed and overwhelmed with breadth and depth of the world of Kapp & Peterson that opened up for me. One of the Peterson innovations that could easily have been lost to the annals of pipe history if not for Mark and Gary’s research and documentation is the NAP stem, Charles Peterson’s other patent, the subject at hand. I was curious about the NAP stem after reading about it in the book, but really got interested after reading the PPN posts #124, 144, 162 and 241 about the NAP bits and seeing Silver Gray’s absolutely amazing work in crafting the NAP replicas. By the time I read them these posts were a few years old, but in one of them Silver had said that she was taking commissions on NAP bits for Peterson pipes. So I hoped for the best and sent her a note at the end of November. Silver responded and informed me that she was no longer taking commissions on NAPs, but that she still had one NAP pipe for sale on her site, a Deluxe 12.5, and that she also had some other Peterson System pipes that she was preparing to make NAP bits for in January that she would be making available for sale. The 12.5 was quite beautiful, but was simply too small for my taste. However, the larger of the other coming NAP pipes was an XL5S, a shape I knew and liked and actually already owned. Deal made – I could hardly wait! As I waited in anticipation for the NAP XL5S it occurred to me that since I like big pipes and especially big pipes with long stems, maybe Silver would consider making it a little bit longer for me. We talked about it over the phone and she was reluctant but willing. How much longer did I want? I had played around with a couple of my house pipe stems and an XL5S bowl, even mocked up a picture, and to me a 9" bit looked about perfect. OK, 9" it would be. Choosing a bowl… I’d like the large one on the left please.   First steps – precision drill and slit for the NAP. Guess which one is mine?   Tenon extension fit.   First shot – shorter saddle version. The fit and wear-gap looked great, but we agreed the saddle wanted a bit more length. This was not the end of the story.   Longer saddle version, shaping—   …and more shaping. She turned out beautifully.   I really wanted Silver to sign it and she did. Thank you, Silver! Silver stamp on the shank as well – a true Silver Special! It turned out so nicely that my son Christopher wanted one. But where could he get a 9" NAP bit? Oh, I have an idea… [Mark: This is SUCH…