My pipes are on racks, tobacco jarred and tins organized and stored and accessories in a small cabinet in my locked gun room. I have a bottle of everclear in there as well used to clean my pipes so it is my personal Bureau of ATF.
Are You a Sloppy Pipe Smoker or a Meticulous Pipe Smoker?
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... for ashes, matches, etc. I don’t understand that you’ve never understood. They sell a lot of them, so I’m certainly not the only one... ?
I pull the stem out only to deep clean the mortise, or if something is obstructing the airway in the shank.
I only smoke one pipe so I dont have pipes laying around. My tobacco stays in the tub. I do wipe the bowl out each time. But I smoke all day long so not much of a mess
As to the extremes, I don't hit either end of the spectrum, and still there's wide variation in between. For example, I got careless and lazy and didn't clean my pipes for a month. So I had 50-60 pipes to clean at once, which I finally did yesterday.
Silver lining: time spent per pipe when batch cleaning cuts way down on time spent per pipe!
Silver lining: time spent per pipe when batch cleaning cuts way down on time spent per pipe!
I don't use matches unless I'm out of butane. Pipes are the least messy way of smoking and if you're lighter handed with the packing, there's less to dump at the end of a smoke, the pipe can breathe better with no need of dumping ashes mid smoke, and I just keep the ashtrays for the cigarettes and cigars.
I keep my pipes in a 36 count cabinet and a 15 count. I have a 6 count circular rack as well. I take 2 pipes out at a time and clean the smoked pipes before they go back to the rack. I have my racks organized by carver. I clean each pipe after it has been smoked. I then put it back in it's section. I am a messy smoker, plenty of burn holes ashes here and there. I never polish my pipes. I have a couple of Dunhill polishing cloths with one being brand new bought years ago. I am real anal about many pipe things but polishing isn't one, not sure why really.
I enjoy waking up with coffee ready and then see all my pipes clean.
I rest a pipe at least one day after smoking it. I rarely have to do deep cleans because of how I clean after every smoke. If I do have to I only use Everclear.
I also put Obidisian stem polish on every stem after smoking. I like a shiny stem when I go grab a clean pipe.
My tobacco storage is totally different, it is all over the house. In my bedroom closet, in my night stands, under the bed, in a built in cabinet in my living room. Keeping track of my pipes is so much easier.
I enjoy waking up with coffee ready and then see all my pipes clean.
I rest a pipe at least one day after smoking it. I rarely have to do deep cleans because of how I clean after every smoke. If I do have to I only use Everclear.
I also put Obidisian stem polish on every stem after smoking. I like a shiny stem when I go grab a clean pipe.
My tobacco storage is totally different, it is all over the house. In my bedroom closet, in my night stands, under the bed, in a built in cabinet in my living room. Keeping track of my pipes is so much easier.
I'm fairly organized. I always have 3 pipes in a case in the car. New set of 3 every day. The rest all have their places in the racks, separated by maker and type of tobacco smoked in them. Two pouches and one tin of tobacco in the car, jars of frequently smoked blends in a cabinet, the rest tinned or jarred and kept in plastic storage containers. After finishing a smoke, the pipe gets scraped out, a pipe cleaner, chamber wiped out with a napkin, and stem wiped down... every time. Deep clean internals twice a year and taken to Blue Room Briars once a year for TLC.
My pipes are like the other things in my life, I'm somewhere in the middle. Things are not meticulously organized, cleaned, etc. but it's also not a total shit show. Pipes are not generally organized and they'll sometimes spend a day or two dirty after a smoke before being cleaned, but most everything is in the same corner of the loft/man cave/office and I generally know where everything is. Well, except for lighters and tampers. I'm always losing those!
It just looks disorganized. I know exactly where things are.
About the only thing I do is I don't drop pipes. Other than that I'm a complete pig.
I was pretty organized, filthy but organized was my rule with pipes, etc., and with housekeeping. When I moved in August the vacuum cleaner saw its first use in 10 years, and I put to the curb about 5 lbs. of dirt.
I’ve got a pipe rack that pipes go on, and cabinet full of jars-one shelf for va-VaPer-etc, one shelf for English, one shelf for unopened tins and larger cellar jars. I dump bags of cleaners into old Rattray’s tins that sit on the bookshelf with my pipes. That’s the extent of my organization.
As far as smoking goes, I’m a slob. Ashes on my pants because I tamp with my fingers a lot and need to wipe them. Shreds of tobacco all over that I need to vacuum outta the carpet. Used and new cleaners appear everywhere, I believe my washing machine actually makes pipe cleaners cause I find them there even while washing bedsheets and stuff. My pipes all have charred rims, uneven cake buildup and get cleaned semi-occasionally and at random but fairly regularly though hardly at all, somewhat. I do not know. I have a jar of Yorktown that lives on the piano because I put it there and that’s where I keep that jar. I have to walk over to it all the time and always think “why don’t I just put this with the others” but I never do. I found, much to my delight, a pipe that I didn’t know I even owned in a bag with my baseball hat collection. I have ashtrays but I dump my ashes and dottle out in the front yard when there’s snow because if there’s still an ember, it sizzles in the snow and I like that. Until the snow melted yesterday, there was a little battlefield of pipe-ember craters right off the porch. My car is...well, let’s not talk about that yet I’m not comfortable sharing.
As far as smoking goes, I’m a slob. Ashes on my pants because I tamp with my fingers a lot and need to wipe them. Shreds of tobacco all over that I need to vacuum outta the carpet. Used and new cleaners appear everywhere, I believe my washing machine actually makes pipe cleaners cause I find them there even while washing bedsheets and stuff. My pipes all have charred rims, uneven cake buildup and get cleaned semi-occasionally and at random but fairly regularly though hardly at all, somewhat. I do not know. I have a jar of Yorktown that lives on the piano because I put it there and that’s where I keep that jar. I have to walk over to it all the time and always think “why don’t I just put this with the others” but I never do. I found, much to my delight, a pipe that I didn’t know I even owned in a bag with my baseball hat collection. I have ashtrays but I dump my ashes and dottle out in the front yard when there’s snow because if there’s still an ember, it sizzles in the snow and I like that. Until the snow melted yesterday, there was a little battlefield of pipe-ember craters right off the porch. My car is...well, let’s not talk about that yet I’m not comfortable sharing.
There's a definite aura of deep clutter and chaos in my pipe area, but my use of the pipes is methodical and fairly tidy, so it is a disturbing balance between well-kept pipes and tobacco in an disorderly array. But the pipes are buffed by hand and all racked and in place. Much culling, trashing, recycling, and organizing needed.
At home everything I need, including 6 meers, are within reach of my desk, scattered over the credenza. On the road or in the wild, everyt6hing I need is stored close at hand. I don't "display" my pipes on racks or in cabinets. I have a couple of tools which are in a pocket, on the desk or in a desk drawer. Tobacco is kept in the "tin" until I finish the tin and then toss it, roughly a week depending on size of manufacturer's container.
I f you must label everything, I'd say I'm a smoker who is not maticulous with a place for everything and everything in it's place. I'm not one of those ritual smokers. I just smoke, take reasonable care of my pipe (tools, not jewels mostly), and really don't give a care to dings and scratches. In not too many years the kid will simply toss them in the trash bin.
I f you must label everything, I'd say I'm a smoker who is not maticulous with a place for everything and everything in it's place. I'm not one of those ritual smokers. I just smoke, take reasonable care of my pipe (tools, not jewels mostly), and really don't give a care to dings and scratches. In not too many years the kid will simply toss them in the trash bin.
I tend to be organized with an antique desk in the living room which has two 7 round pipe racks on each end of the desk, 7 castello 10s in one and seven Radice short billiards in another. Inside the fold down desk are a 12 pipe rack and a 4 pipe rack plus three or four tins of tobacco plus pipecleaners. A drawer in the desk holds another 10 or so pipes that I like but don't smoke that often. Other tobacco is stored in the cellar or some bookcase drawers. I don't smoke in a systematic rotation but usually give a pipe at least a couple days rest between. Usually, the pipe to use sort of calls to me, I know that sounds weird but it is true.
I'm a bit of both.
A casual glance would suggest I'm sloppy, as my bullpen of the 7 or 8 pipes I smoke the most are just thrown in a box in my smoking area. I almost never buff or clean the outside of them (though I do wash my acrylic stems regularly). As I mentioned in another thread I posted the other day, I've got a Tinsky commissioned pipe on the way, and I'm sure I'll be more careful with that and any other $$$ pipes I may purchase. My other pipes are all modestly priced factory pipes, and I just don't care if they get dinged up. I have a big plastic tub where I keep my jars of opened tins, and there is no rhyme or reason to how they're arranged, and I have no list of what I have (dozens of them). Same with my blending tobaccos.
On the other hand, I keep the inside of my pipes meticulously clean and never leave a dirty pipe lying around. My cellar (which I define as my sealed tins or jars of bulk that are "sealed") is neatly arranged in covered plastic bins, and I keep an updated spreadsheet with each tin or jar separately listed, with weight, age, etc. of each in separate cells so I can sort by any criterion. If I open something, I take it off the list. I also have formulas showing me how long it will all last at a couple of different smoking rates.
A casual glance would suggest I'm sloppy, as my bullpen of the 7 or 8 pipes I smoke the most are just thrown in a box in my smoking area. I almost never buff or clean the outside of them (though I do wash my acrylic stems regularly). As I mentioned in another thread I posted the other day, I've got a Tinsky commissioned pipe on the way, and I'm sure I'll be more careful with that and any other $$$ pipes I may purchase. My other pipes are all modestly priced factory pipes, and I just don't care if they get dinged up. I have a big plastic tub where I keep my jars of opened tins, and there is no rhyme or reason to how they're arranged, and I have no list of what I have (dozens of them). Same with my blending tobaccos.
On the other hand, I keep the inside of my pipes meticulously clean and never leave a dirty pipe lying around. My cellar (which I define as my sealed tins or jars of bulk that are "sealed") is neatly arranged in covered plastic bins, and I keep an updated spreadsheet with each tin or jar separately listed, with weight, age, etc. of each in separate cells so I can sort by any criterion. If I open something, I take it off the list. I also have formulas showing me how long it will all last at a couple of different smoking rates.