Cob gets hot.

You mean too hot to hold, or just noticeably warmer?

Warm, not hot unless Im really puffing

My plastered cobs get hot if I don't pay attention to my smoking cadence. I prefer the natural cobs because they never get hot and for some reason the tobacco tastes better in the naturals.

My cobs have always burned really hot, as in almost uncomfortable to hold hot, as a result they got very little use over the last couple of years. I was using the balsa filters although I don't think that had anything to do with it.

This past week I was building a new fence and wanted something to chew on, so I dusted one off and loaded her up with some burly flake #2, burned pretty much the way I remembered very hot and very little taste, I decided to try something different, I packed the next bowl TIGHT (as in lets see how much #2 I can stuff in here) and took the filter out.

Tremendous difference, the flavor was what I expect out of burly, the bowl barely got warm, not even close to hot, and even being distracted by working only had to relight once at about the 3/4 mark, this is the Washington and is normally a 30/45 min smoke at best, this one went over an hour and a half.

I have come to believe that when there is a problem with a pipe it is almost always my technique or choice of tobacco.

Cobs have a wide open draw without the filter, it's thus easy to get them hot with what might be an normal cadence on another pipe. This is made even more likely if the cob has rather thin walls. The way around this (as mentioned above) is to pack slightly tighter to compensate for the open draw. Or just smoke slower.