Are You a Sloppy Pipe Smoker or a Meticulous Pipe Smoker?

[sumusfumus]

Generally, things get put away in their proper places, but I'm not anal about leaving a few pipes laying around. After smoking and subsequent cleaning, they get placed in individual cloth bags....so no scratches, dents, dings, etc.

I prefer things, neat....and I'm not a clutterer by nature. However....those used dirty, pipe cleaners, and anything that stinks, gets dumped into the garbage, immediately. None of that stuff lays around, fouling the air that I breathe. HATE!....the smell of stale pipe-cleaners and rank, stale, ashes, etc.

 

[canucklehead]

Smoking area is cluttered, but cleaned and reorganized every Saturday. Open blends are on an organized shelf except for the usual suspects on the desk, like Windsail, Ryback, and Boneyard. Pipes internals are always clean though.

 

[telescopes]

I am ... a bit of a mess. By the looks of things, first glance, everything appears organized. Pipes in racks, tobacco in humidors, tins in drawers and 1 oz bags at the ready in a Trader Vic's Easter Island Punch bowl. Pipe tools and pouches are are easily available on their own shelf. But... then I begin to smoke. I often leave my humidor of the moment outside after I go to bed, pipes I have been smoking as well as my tools on the patio bar.

My father cleaned his pipes after every 4th or 5th smoke. That was my routine for decades. But now, as I enter retirement, I have become more, shall we say, routine. Pipe cleaner after a smoke, using a wipe of the bowl with a paper towel.

We weren't tin smokers- in fact, my father accidentally received four tins of tobacco meant for my address and screamed at me for making him sick with rich tobaccoes and spending too much money on, to quote ..."s&%t".

And so, like many of you, I continue. I continue to collect tobaccoes, smoke tobaccoes, and clean and maintain an every growing collection of pipes. None of which my father approves.

By the way, if the plurals of tomato and potato are spelled tomatoes and potatoes respectively, shouldn't the plural of tobacco be spelled tobaccoes?

 

[solideogloria86]

I'm a hybrid. I keep my pipes, tobacco, and all accompanying accessories in their specific place, but my desk is often littered with stray tobacco scraps and sometimes I don't get around to cleaning a pipe until I pick it up to smoke it and realize it still has ash and dottle in it.

 

[F4RM3R]

Great thread! I have a shelf for tobaccos, a small plastic tub where the pipes get thrown into. I've sort of claimed one of the kitchen counters as my pipe station where I keep my stuff and mix up/cut up my whole leaf blends.

Pipe cleaner after every smoke and i leave the pipe outside on the porch till it's cool as not to stink up the house. Ashtray gets emptied when it's overflowing with dirty pipe cleaners. Nothing fancy but everything has a place, I'd probably have stuff everywhere if it was just me, but i keep things a little neat so the miss doesn't get too annoyed.

Now tobacco on the other hand, it gets spilled and dropped everywhere. Damn gravity I tell ya.

 

[Grangerous]

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

That is most defiantly, Old School!

 

[alaskanpiper]

Somewhere in between. I clean my pipes after every smoke, but burners are treated with far less respect when it comes to transportation, smoking practices, rim cleaning, and storage than are my artisan pipes. Some pipes never leave my house. Others ONLY leave my house. And everything in between.

And as far as organization goes my pipes and tobacco are in an ever-evolving fluid state somewhere between spic and span and thoroughly disheveled. When looking at my study (or as my wife as deemed it "The Tobaccho Hole") sometimes you'd think I have OCD. Others you'd think someone had thrown a hand grenade into a B&M. Depends on the day and what sort of half-witted organizational endeavor I may or may not currently be engaging in.

 

[Grangerous]

Once per day smoker. Pipe is cleaned immediately and is rinsed “spotless” and if not then rinsed at least every other bowl. Warm water, paper towel, pipe cleaners. Seldom do I have to resort to alcohol. My pipes stay clean.

I store the pipe to be smoked next, loaded in a garage cabinet the night before. I’m of the early morning coffee & pipe kind. Occasionally will have an afternoon bowl—like today. Unseasonably warm and sunny.

Keep remainder of my pipes in a “pipe” drawer in the foyer in removable divider/insert.

Tobacco kept in a wide-mouthed, flip-top glass jar in a garage cabinet. This is always filled with Granger.

Yes. Even my Cobs are kept clean. All but one.

Being me... it’s a full-time job.

 

[weezell]

I...do not want to talk about it... ?

 

[Simmerdown☕️]

I keep my pipes in a drawer for easy access. The wood & cedar inlays of the drawer keeps the sweet stench of my pipes at bay for others not so keen. Meers are treated somewhat carefully, but not overly so. I tend to smoke my briars a handful at a time, then clean them up when I’m ready to switch out. My cobs are given freedom to be dinged & danged up.

So, I protect my pipes but my ADD tends to leave them dirty a handful at a time. When I do finally give them a once over...a pipe cleaner or two & a wipe down with my T-shirt is about all I do unless I do my bi-annual deep clean with Everclear. Also, although I appreciate pipes in general...they are tools that burn the leaf. That’s likely why I rarely buy a pipe over 300$...no real need when it comes to me.?️

 

[Merton]

Once per day smoker. Pipe is cleaned immediately and is rinsed “spotless” and if not then rinsed at least every other bowl. Warm water, paper towel, pipe cleaners. Seldom do I have to resort to alcohol. My pipes stay clean.

I store the pipe to be smoked next, loaded in a garage cabinet the night before. I’m of the early morning coffee & pipe kind. Occasionally will have an afternoon bowl—like today. Unseasonably warm and sunny.
View attachment 67960
Keep remainder of my pipes in a “pipe” drawer in the foyer in removable divider/insert.
View attachment 67961
Tobacco kept in a wide-mouthed, flip-top glass jar in a garage cabinet. This is always filled with Granger.

Yes. Even my Cobs are kept clean. All but one.

Being me... it’s a full-time job.

nice job! as a lover of straight and slightly bent pipes, I say great collection. Is that an African Meer in the lower part of the photo?

 

[crawdad]

Eh, probably in the middle. I keep all my pipes in a cardboard shipping box, most of which are kept in soft bags or socks. I keep my ‘baccy jars and tins in the drawers of old high school/college biology/chemistry lab counters with the thick black tops. These counters make up most of my wood shop in the basement. I have no system of storing the jars and tins, just where it’ll fit.

 

[Grangerous]

nice job! as a lover of straight and slightly bent pipes, I say great collection. Is that an African Meer in the lower part of the photo?

Pioneer African Meer

Umm ?.. meticulousness?

 

[Grangerous]

I keep my pipes in a drawer for easy access. The wood & cedar inlays of the drawer keeps the sweet stench of my pipes at bay for others not so keen. Meers are treated somewhat carefully, but not overly so. I tend to smoke my briars a handful at a time, then clean them up when I’m ready to switch out. My cobs are given freedom to be dinged & danged up.

So, I protect my pipes but my ADD tends to leave them dirty a handful at a time. When I do finally give them a once over...a pipe cleaner or two & a wipe down with my T-shirt is about all I do unless I do my bi-annual deep clean with Everclear. Also, although I appreciate pipes in general...they are tools that burn the leaf. That’s likely why I rarely buy a pipe over 300$...no real need when it comes to me.?️
View attachment 67968

Simmerdown? My hat’s off to a beautiful collection. -Jim

 

[Simmerdown☕️]

I...do not want to talk about it... ?

Simmerdown? My hat’s off to a beautiful collection. -Jim

Thanks Jim! Nothing of real value, but they all smoke great...so they’re very valuable to me. Your’s is pretty
sweet as well. ?️

 

[jmsmitty6]

Like alot of people here, I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't baby pipes, but I'm not tossing them around either. Smoke, wipe out the bowl and pipe cleaner. Organized on racks for space. Tobacco is meticously cataloged but then thrown into a boot locker for storage. A couple of mason jars on the dresser for the open tins I'm going through at the moment. Never more than three blends in rotation

 

[Papamique]

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.

This was truly a joy to read! Thank you!!

 

[Bushido]

Meticulous. Enjoy organizing, labeling, cleaning, and generally fussing over the stash and the gear.

 

[B.Fee]

I'm neat and organized. ?

 

[jaytex1969]

My wife and I have occupied a 900sf house for over 20 years. Shit accumulates and space becomes an increasingly valuable commodity.

I have one room in the corner of the house, the "command bunker", which houses my shrine to the ATF.

It's the only room in which I smoke. Neither of us appreciate smelly environs and I've managed a system loosely focused around that aspect of our comfort.

Ashes, for instance, are always dumped into a flared shot glass with a flat lid on top. When it fills, contents are transferred to a ziplock that sits in the waste can. Once or twice a week, the ziplock is tossed.

Used pipe cleaners, bent in half, go into an 8 ounce SPC tobacco can with a tight fitting lid, emptied into the trash just before putting trash outside.

Those two steps, along with my exhaust fan setup, have kept the olfactory impact minimal.

Although cluttered, my space is functional. Being intellectually lazy, I reduce as many mundane aspects of my habit as I can to mindless repeatability so I can mentally goof off as I wish.

I don't care if my pipes are shiny but they are kept functionally in order.

Tobacco is just out of control, at this point. Large and small boxes, totes, repurposed cat litter buckets, furniture orifices, shelves, ceramic jars, baggies, flats of mason jars and now even a small humidor.

About 20 pipes are in "active" rotation, residing in three small table top racks. Stashed with the boxes of tobacco tins are two small boxes of 30 or 40 "reserve" pipes. Six lighters lie in wait across the edge of my desk. At any given time, at least three work.

I'm about as organized as one can be and still not know where anything is...