Clay Pipe Care

[deepspringfarm]

My friend just had a clay pipe sent to me. I was wondering what the proper care is for a clay pipe. I'm not sure I could get a church warden pipe cleaner through this stem. It's about 12 inches long with a small hole.
One of the cool things about this pipe is that it is made by the lady who did all the clay pipes for the show Poldark. I am a fan of the show (the first season for sure). I had noticed there was a lot of clays being smoked on the set. Dawnmist.org is her website.

 

[virginiacob]

Heather at Dawnmist makes some beautiful and historically accurate pipes. As for as pipe care, don't use a pipe cleaner in the stem. The stem holes are made using traditional wires run through the clay during the press molding of the pipe and the stem holes are too small for a pipe cleaner so trying to run a pipe cleaner through the stem will very likely result in a stuck cleaner or a broken stem or both. If the stem starts becoming too restricted with tar and moisture build-up, you can try heating the pipe in your oven. During the colonial period, innkeepers at the end of the day would gather up the clay pipes used by their patrons and then stack them in an iron rack that was placed in the hearth so that the heat from the fire and coals would burn away the tar build up and "clean" them for the next day's use. Reheating clay pipes, unless the pipe is flawed, won't hurt the pipes. When we fire our Old Dominion clay pipes we generally fire them to cone 06 or 1,830 degrees F. You just want to make sure to let them cool down slowly back to room temperature as sudden temperature shocks could cause a pipe to crack. Also, if you find the tackiness on your lips objectionable when smoking the pipe, the traditional method to prevent this was to coat the mouthpiece with natural beeswax. Anyway, hope you enjoy your new clay pipe!

 

[deepspringfarm]

That was a great response, exactly what I was interested in . Thanks for sharing. Your website is interesting as well.

 

[winton]

Virginiacob is an expert. I have several of his pipes and enjoy them.
Someone suggested painting the tip with nail polish. I used some of my wife's polish on one of my clays. It worked well, but the guys at my pipe club laughed at me when my lips were purple and glittery.

 

[blueeyedogre]

I put about a 3/4" long chunk of shrink tubing on the end of my clays and change it every couple of bowls. Seems to work good and solves the teeth on clay issue for clenchers.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Good tip, but won't work for the historically accurate crowd!
Virginiacob: A most interesting handle for an expert in clays! I've read that clay pipes could be placed directly on coals in the fireplace. Myth, or would that work without frequently cracking the pipe?

 

[blueeyedogre]

Good tip, but won't work for the historically accurate crowd!

Neither will finger nail polish..... Historically accurate finds me with the "pipe notch" ground into my teeth. lol

 

[winton]

Virginiacob has a business selling historically accurate cobs from corn he grows and also clay pipes. They are based off the artifacts he has found on his land. Very good product. He is also fun to talk to. Met him at the last couple Chicago Pipe Shows.

 

[condorlover1]

I must have written about this a bazillion times on this forum. Original the pipe tips wiretapped in either reddish varnish or red glaze, you can see this on the Pollock clay pipes which are either glazed red or green on the mouth piece when they show up on Ebay. Exposing the lips to the porous clay can lead to lip cancer and before you ask my source for this information was the Lancet Magazine. I find the best thing that works longish term is the deep red hard non-chip red nail varnish. Put a piece of tape around the stem one inch from the tip and then paint it with the varnish. When it has hardened over night just remove the tape and off you go to the races.

 

[deepspringfarm]

"Exposing the lips to the porous clay can lead to lip cancer " What the?????? Don't people use clay on their bodies all the time!!!???!!!!!

 

[condorlover1]

Yes! Here we go again. The porous clay tears the thin cover on the lip membrane and then mixed with hot tars and tobacco juices causes lip cancer after repeated exposure depending I suppose on your DNA. Do I have to get you the page references from Lancet or will you just take my word for it?

 

[virginiacob]

I really haven't found a lot of evidence to support varnish or glazed tips on 17th and 18th century clay pipes. There is some research to support that some pipemakers did rub beeswax on their finished pipes while others were probably waxed by their users. You start to see varnish and glazed tips appearing in the latter 19th century and into the 20th century. We have an original circa 1900 pipe mold that we use to press mold a very decorative pipe (our "Venus" pipe) and we do add a red glazed tip to that one since that pipe would fall within the historic time period for glazed stems.
As with many aspects of our hobby, we all know that there are certain health risks with smoking tobacco and we all have to do our own due diligence to see where our comfort level lies with our smoking habits. For me, I don't have a problem smoking an unglazed clay pipe. I have read some of the old studies about lip cancer and unglazed pipes and one fact that struck me was at the time in Europe, clay pipes were the "common man's" smoking pipe and were smoked by many from sunrise to sunset and so these folks would have had a very high exposure level. Whether all the cases of lip cancer were caused by the clay pipe irritating the lip membrane or simply by the fact that they simply had a very high exposure to carcinogens from the tobacco remains to be seen. I rotate through my pipes from clays to cobs to briars and I typically only average smoking a bowl or two a day, so I'm comfortable with that. You just have to do your own due diligence and decide what's best for you.
jpmcwjr, yes you should be able to sit your clay directly into the coals without damaging the pipe so long as you avoid heavy objects in the fire such as a log from shifting and obviously crushing your pipe. You just want to leave it in the coals until the coals die out and let the coals and the pipe cool back down naturally to room temperature. If you attempt to remove the pipe while it is still extremely hot, then it can crack or shatter when instantly exposed to cooler air.

 

[condorlover1]

On the whole your assessment is correct Virginiacob. The only other thing I can add is that smoking clay pipes long term causes 'pipe notches' as I have them on the right hand side of my mouth from smoking a clay pipe until my mid 20s!

 

[virginiacob]

condorlover1, You're right about the notches. Clay pipes can be hard on the teeth, especially if you clench them a lot. A couple years back I went to see the CSS Hunley in Charleston, SC and one of the crew members was a pipe smoker. The archaeologists could tell from his skeletal remains because of the groove worn in his teeth from clenching his clay pipe!