I have no problem with bowl coatings and I have a lot of them. Actually I prefer them. You can request the carver not to put on a bowl costing if you wish.
Bowl Coatings….Why!?
- Thread starter VDL_Piper
- Start date
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
Site Sponsors
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
I hate them all. Leave the summabich' bare. The only exception is/was a Blakemar (sp?) pipe in which he made perfect sense to me. He briefly held the newly finished bowl chamber over a propane torch. Thus creating a light char of sort. But these secret sauces and recipes that they slather into a new pipe are a joke. IMO of course. Yogurt, glass fibers, donkey dung, eye of newt, etcetera...Enough dang it!
I always feel an uncoated chamber appeals to a more experienced and sophisticated pipe buyer and thus accords a certain amount of prestige to those who buy the uncoated pipes. However, usually I don't know if a bowl is uncoated when I buy online. It gives me great pleasure to find a pipe isn't coated. I repeat myself, but it is a plus to me.
Usually you actually do. You can even request one or the other to be ordered by retailers. It doesn't matter either way to me.
Two Giubileo d'Oros currently at SPC.
Any commision I do, I ask for no coating.
I hate bowl coatings especially Water Glass. That shit is nasty. I don't remember the last new pipe I bought with a coating. I always insisted on bare bowls and most artisan I dealt with obliged quite easily.
I have to ask before purchasing. It's a deal breaker for me....unless I REALLY like the pipe.
Looks stained. Just as bad. Maybe worse. I try to avoid either. Probably stained under the coated one, too. Double-whammy. I don't want to see stain, wax, coating, anything at all in there.
Even some of the legends of Denmark used chamber coatings.
Many years ago I was taught various methods of starting your own bowl coating based on your preference; but that was in the day of tobacconists and local tobacco, pipe, cigar stores. Now you don't get that individualized instruction so they start a coat for you. I have only had two pipes where the coating was a problem ...a 1970s Peterson with the famous untasty bowl coating and my recent Vauen that tasted and smelled like petroleum or burned diesel. I wiped, reamed and sanded, salt-cleaned them out then did my own whiskey, honey, maple coating then wiped it out and smoked them ... they're fine now unless the tobacco is iffy. If I ever buy a coated pipe again I will definitely wash out the coating first.
When I was still carving, mine was water, sour cream, and briar ash made from the dust of the pipe carved.
I'm not allowed too much sour cream anymore !!
(But I can see why you would use that for fats and oils and acids and it burns off. It also acts to protect in heat ... like mayonnaise on grilled fish that melts off in flame but protects fish from burning. - That's my guess anyway - don't ask me for a scientific source like some !)
I mainly used it very thinned with water for a cohesive and organic adhesive for the ash.I'm not allowed too much sour cream anymore !!
yeah..and totally pisses me off it they are covering up the dang stain. A certain big name brand likes to do this.
And there's the mic drop. ?
I like to sweeten the pipe ... a very little whiskey & honey (some use flavored brandy) does that and immediately starts a carbon cake build up with the first smoke. Just jump starting the process.
Honey. Old skool'. I did it back in the day.