Carbonized Estate Pipe
- Thread starter BubbaG
- Start date
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If the the cake is well formed there is no reason to take it back to briar just to start over again, ream it back nice and even to about the thickness of a dime and give it a salt/alcohol treatment. The salt treatment will pull the tars, oils, and ghosts out of it but leave a nice dry cake. Be sure to clean the shank very well though, that's where the ghosts hide.
^^^^
Great advice, especially the bit about cleaning out the shank/mortise
Only thing I can add is to stuff the chamber with cotton balls instead of salt for the alcohol soak.
Far less mess
Personally, I take it back to briar with 200 or 300 grit sandpaper. I finish with 1000 grit followed by 4000 grit.
Depends on what was smoked in it. Use your nose if you don't know for sure. If, for instance, you intend to smoke English in it, but it smells like cherries, ream it out good. But, if you are going to smoke English and it smells like Latakia, then just clean it like you would any of your own pipes and enjoy 
Salt is not merely an inert absorber as cotton balls are, it creates negative osmotic pressure that actively "sucks" dissolved tar out of the cake, so it's not interchangable with cotton which just passively absorbs the goo. Cotton will work of course but salt will work better.
I leave less than 1mm of cake, and often take it back to wood.
Alcohol (high proof peach brandy) soak over night. Repeat if necessary
I've done this with lots of estates and have had no problems expunging/exorcising any ghosts
The peach brandy (clear) leaves a nice residual aroma which dissipates with the first smoke.
Never had to resort to anything else. So far
The shank and mortise is where I have the most problems
I often spend much more time and effort cleaning this than the bowl/chamber
I've used cotton balls for years with great results. There have been reports of salt expanding and cracking pipes and cotton balls are easier to clean out than salt.
Pipes smoked hot can turn the inside of the bowl into what looks like charcoal, often with fissures. Check out Smoking Pipes description of some of their estate pipes. They'll mention "carbonizing" and "mild carbonizing." It doesn't ruin a pipe, necessarily. Some of my best smoking pipes are carbonized, even with fissures, which get filled in or covered with cake eventually. I thought that was what you were referring to, until I saw the flow of the thread.
If you prefer cake take it back to a dimes distance else sand it back to the wood with very fine sandpaper.