Do Varnished Pipes Smoke Hotter?

[Briar Lee]

I’ve purged my stash of pipes of most of them, but over many years I accumulated dozens of hard finished, glossy pipes. If they were polyethylene finished I left them alone, because it was too much work to strip the finish. All the vanished ones I stripped off the varnish and applied an olive oil finish.

I did that because people I respected when I was young claimed a pipe that was hard finished couldn’t breathe like a natural oil finished pipe. Besides, I thought they looked better.

Today, thanks to this forum, I use grapeseed oil instead of olive oil. I think grapeseed oil darkens the pipe less and brings out the grain better.

But I’m not certain anymore that a hard glossy finish seals up the briar and makes the pipe smoke hotter.

I’m convinced briar quality matters a lot, and briar needs to be well cured, aged, and old enough when harvested to have a tight grain structure. Where varnished pipes were condemned as tongue burners might have been due to using cheap, young, inferior briar and dipping it in varnish.

I own several Peterson Killarney pipes that have a bowling ball type polyethylene hard finish, yet they have been cool, sweet smokers for about thirty years now.
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And I own a formerly varnished Dr. Grabow Golden Duke that has fantastic briar that would do credit you a pre war Kaywoodie. It was a good smoker before I stripped the varnish, and remains so.

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All Lee pipes I’ve ever seen didn’t have a drop of varnish or shellac.

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I’m leaning towards the idea that an oil finish only makes for a beautiful pipe.

And that a good piece of briar can be varnished or sealed up with polyurethane and will smoke just as well.

 

[alaskanpiper]

No damn idea. Sweet grain on that grabow though.

 

[anotherbob]

the funny thing is there are so many little factors in play some more subtle then others, that pinning down specific effects of specific qualities is kind of hard to do.

 

[telescopes]

I had a Savinelli Regimental whose varnish started to wear in spots along the bowl. It gave the appearance an uneven look. I removed the varnish and latter gifted the pipe to my brother who loved its looks. Cheap varnish coatings in my opinion, make the pipe look…. Cheap

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yep. Don't like the look. But a heavy varnish does not make the pipe smoke hotter, though it may feel that way if you believe it to be true.

There was a pipe shop in midtown Manhattan that had a sign "Don't smoke paint!" near the baskets and shelves of un varnished, some fully unfinished, pipes. As to "breathing", varnish might inhibit the pipe drying fully or a quickly... may....

 

[craig61a]

I seriously doubt anybody is or has covered pipes in polyethylene.

Shellac or lacquer, yes. Polyurethane - possibly.

If you were to seal off a stummel and apply air pressure to the empty space, say a few thousand psi, you could come back 3 weeks later and it would still be holding that pressure. Briar "breathes" about as readily as the large rocks in my garden...

 

[sasquatch]

Wood, all wood, contains moisture. Briar absorbs ambient humidity. If you live in a really dry place, your pipes will be more dry than if you live in a really humid place. And you can see this, depending where you live, your pipes might swell or shrink seasonally.

When you heat up wood that has moisture in it, the moisture tries to escape. Drill a block of "dry" briar.

See the ring of moisture that appears at the top of the bowl?

That disappears in about 5 seconds.


So yeah. When you heat up a pipe, the briar is trying to push out moisture. If you have a hard-shell finish attached to the wood, it will prevent that somewhat (few finishes are vapour-proof even if water proof). This is why some pipe finishes blister - there's a sort of steam pressure behind the finish.

Does it make a pipe smoke better or worse? I don't think it matters a ton. But since it's nice to not have the finish peeling off a pipe, most makers avoid thick coats of poly or acrylic and favor shellac proper or oils as a base to work a wax shine on top of.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

A few years ago, Nording released a bunch of these plastic coated pipes. They were very cool looking, but the plastic coating with the printed image on it starts to bubble under the steam as Sasquatch mentions. I noticed that he doesn't make these any more, so maybe it was a lesson learned... or maybe he just doesn't release them to the US market, not sure. But, the plastic coating easily just peels off... then you can just throw away the ugly pipe underneath, ha ha.

 

[lukasstrifeson]

This might explain why I often prefer a 'naked' briar..

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I have a few that have a very glossy shelac'd surface that smoke very well and do not bubble at all. I guess it just depends on the experience and knowledge of the pipemaker.

 

[Briar Lee]

I seriously doubt anybody is or has covered pipes in polyethylene.

Shellac or lacquer, yes. Polyurethane - possibly.

If you were to seal off a stummel and apply air pressure to the empty space, say a few thousand psi, you could come back 3 weeks later and it would still be holding that pressure. Briar "breathes" about as readily as the large rocks in my garden...

Somewhere in my stash I’ve kept a seventies Kaywoodie “Magnum” as proof there is such a thing as as a horrible smoking Kaywoodie. It resisted mechanical striping of what appears to be a DuPont type polyethylene finish.

But the briar under the hard shell finish is actually a bright green in some spots, and a shade of very light brown in others. It’s a terrible piece of briar.

Yet both of my Peterson Killarney pipes are good, cool, excellent smokers although they have some kind of very hard finish that appears polyethylene to me.

View attachment 139399View attachment 139400I’ve owned both Peterson pipes since the late 1980s or early 90s. I forget now if they were any harder to break in, but that also means I don’t recall them ever being a hot, bitter, wet smoker like the Kaywoodie Magnum.

I tried stripping the other Killarney years ago and only managed to scratch the finish a bit, and stopped.

Remington and Browning firearms had a hard, glossy finish like the Killarney during the seventies and eighties. Remington even advertised it as by DuPont and the same finish placed on bowling pins.

It’s shiny, glossy, mostly waterproof, and shows every little scratch and dent and will not come off easily. It cannot be touched up, that I’ve found a way.

All the other pipes I’ve stripped were varnished or perhaps shellacked. Lighter fluid (naphtha) and steel wool accomplish this easily.

Often striping a briar reveals stain and putty covering up flaws in the grain.

The answer to that is more stain and putty. Friebing’s Leather Dye works well for me.

 

[mso489]

Properly made pipes with a polished finish don't smoke hot in my experience. Several of mine in this category are notably well insulated. I'm not sure varnish per se is involved, but they do have a gloss finish.

It wouldn't surprise me if some pipes that are overly coated with vanish or other thick coating do heat up, but better brands have it worked out so the finishes they use do not.

 

[Ag®o]

All the other pipes I’ve stripped were varnished or perhaps shellacked. Lighter fluid (naphtha) and steel wool accomplish this easily.

Sorry, because of my language I probably didn't understand well; Are you saying that you removed shellac from pipes with a petroleum derivative (naphtha) and steel wool?

 

[telescopes]

Sumac makes an excellent shellac, but in the USA, this is an impossibility to obtain now. I have a Ming Dynasty style Dining table that I bought in Xian, China. It is handmade without any metal holding it together. It seats 10 and is magnificent to look at. We bought it because it is impervious to hot plates and scratching - for the most part. However, the downside is that it also really can't be touched up by most detailers. Fortunately, I live 110 miles from Chinatown in LA and there are some artisans who could do the job if need be - but the expense is no different than if I hire a professional museum to attend to it. The coating on the table took the artisans who built it 60 days to coat it. The work had to be done with the workers wearing hazmat suits and special breathing filters. Needless to say, it is the most expensive piece of furniture we will ever own. I remember when I bought it, I thought, just where am I going to put this table - as nice as our Mediterranean style home is, it isn't one of Donald Trump's properties.

 

[sablebrush52]

I own a couple of Nording hand mades that have that bright shellac finish and htey smoke just fine. As I am a slow cool smoker I've not experienced any issues. Like pretty much everything involved with pipe smoking it's 25% equipment and 75% technique.

 

[kcghost]

I've never had a problem with hard finish pipes.

 

[Briar Lee]

Sorry, because of my language I probably didn't understand well; Are you saying that you removed shellac from pipes with a petroleum derivative (naphtha) and steel wool?

The most commonly found varnished pipes I’ve seen are cheaper old “drugstore” grade pipes and some (but not all) basket pipes. That varnish is easy to remove, and really all you need is fine steel wool. Naphtha (lighter fluid) seems to make the job easier.

I own a lot of old shotguns, and unless it’s a particularly nice original condition old gun I strip the factory varnish and apply boiled linseed oil.

I leave hard finished old Remingtons and Brownings and the like alone. There is supposed to be a special chemical stripper to take off those finishes but after bitter experience trying to strip a poly finish years ago, I gave up.

Varnish can be removed by steel wool, chemical strippers, sandpaper, and one of my favorites is broken glass.

Take a piece of window pane and wrap in cloth and shatter it in pieces.

What you’ll have is a lot of razor sharp scrapers to remove varnish. They’ll quickly dull, and you use another one.

 

[Donb1972]

In my experience, pipes(expensive or inexpensive)are like people: some run hot, some keep their cool unless you push them, and some have a nice, even temperament.

 

[warren]

As I am a slow cool smoker I've not experienced any issues.

Cool? Most definitely. Slow? Possibly.

 

[Ag®o]

It is not the mechanical removal with sandpaper or steel wool or with other materials that can mark more or less hard that puzzles me, but the use of any solvent that can leave its ghost on and in the pipes.
I think rifle butts are one thing, and the wood where we burn tobacco is another. But maybe, I don't understand what "Naphtha (lighter fluid)" is