Erik Stokkebye 4th Generation Churchwarden

Sounds annoying at best. its definitely a looker though.I hope you get it figured out , so it becomes more enjoyable for you. I am still on the hunt for that perfect churchwarden that speaks to me.

That's a nice looking warden. Shame about the alignment of the draft hole being off. That does sound a tad bit odd that they didn't center the mortise draft hole up. If it were mine, I would weigh just how much I cared about drilling into the mortise or not. I probably would if I had a drill press and a vice to lay on it. I'd just center up the hole. Don't think it would hurt anything, since you're still having to pull the smoke through the tenon opening anyway, so it can only draw so much. As far as the gurgle is concerned, mine does the same thing, but mine has a military stem, or spigot, so I can easily pull it apart while I smoke and run a cleaner up the stem and into the bowl a ways to soak up any moisture. I think it comes more from the fact that you're cooling that smoke quite a bit more in a warden stem than a regular, shorter pipe stem so condensation is gathering in the stem, then running down into the bowl. Turns it almost into a wet smoker. That's what mine does, no matter how dry the blend is. I've just been learning to smoke it for 5 or 10 minutes, then tamp it, stoke it a bit, and pull it apart to run a cleaner. Just seems par for the course. I see yours has some metal down there too, like mine, so maybe that affects them more.

That's sp's customer service at low ebb, my opinion. If the design is gurgling, it's a poor design and a poor product. We'd have had words.

I don't know if you want to push this further, but I'd call and ask to speak to Keith Toney, over CS last I knew. If you don't get satisfaction, ask to speak to Joshua Burgess, who is over Mr. Toney. I wouldn't stand for "no", as you were sold a defective product.

Impressive work!