In my constant strife for perfection, I've recently started to take estate refurbishing a good measure beyond the usual "basic cleanup" that I used to do. While those extra 20% seem to account for an extra 80% of effort, I still feel that it goes a long way. I want to share a bunch of extra steps that I have learned over time, but which in my opinion make a considerable difference in smoking enjoyment of an estate.
1) Opening the draw
While a lot of pipe smokers out there take the point that you should leave a pipe the way the maker intended it, I have found consistently that opening up the draw does often greatly increase the enjoyment of the tobaccos I favor (VAs, VA/Pers, Flakes). While sometimes there is no considerable change to the better, I have never found it to make a pipe a worse smoker than it was before. My favorite draw turns out to be 4mm.
2) Opening the button, and cutting a "V" funnel
It drives me nuts when I can't easily get a pipe cleaner through a stem. Most of the time, the button is too narrow. If a test with a "Long's Extra Absorbent" pipe cleaner fails, I get out a needle file and open the button. Also, some of the stems/buttons are cut as a square inside the stem. When I blow through the stem and hear a high pitched noise, or a whistle that's a sure sign. Great engineering goes a long way to a dry smoke: at the sharp edges inside the stem air turbulence forms, which causes the moisture of the smoke to condensate and coat the inside of the stem with droplets which in turn will make the pipe smoke wet and cause gurgle. So I use a triangular needle file to cut a long smooth "V" funnel in the inside. The broad end of the "V" should start at the button and gradually get thinner until about halfway into the stem.
3) Polishing the inside of the stem
Again, the smoother the inside of a stem, the drier your smoking experience will be. I have learned this trick from a pipe artisan who takes great pride in flawless interior engineering of his stems. What I do is take a shoe string, and coat it in green jeweler's buffing compound (chrome oxide) over the hole length and pull it back and forth through the stem until the inside is mirror-like.
4) Lifting the heel to the draw hole
The best smoking pipes I own have a draw hole that enters the tobacco bowl from below the heel. Sometimes, especially with bent shapes, the draw hole is a good chunk above the heel, so that there is a little "well" below the draw hole. A perfect trap for condensate, causes gurgle, increases drying time as to not get a pipe to turn sour, and is often the cause of gurgle. I almost always correct this by lifting the heel up with pipe mud (a mixture of white cigar ash and a few drops of bourbon). In my experience lifting the heel up just over the draw hole and then carefully drilling the draw hole free gives the best results.
5) Back to the roots
Especially with estate pipes, I don't want to taste whatever the previous owner smoked, ever. Usually I go for a certain shape and size such as to re-appropriate the pipe for one of my favorite tobacco blends and any external "signal" is distracting in the best case, and downright ruins the taste in the worst case. To start from scratch as best as I can, I usually ream the cake down to the bare wood, then sand the interior with 220 grit, 320 grit, 400 grit and 600 grit sandpaper. This is followed by multiple alcohol/salt treatments until the salt comes out as white as I put it in. However, I have found that with many estate pipes this procedure leaves the inside quite vulnerable, and on the other hand with many older estate pipes the inside of the bowl is often already scratched, contains hairline cracks, or a previous owner did a horrible reaming job. I was able to get a pipe maker friends' recipe for the black protective coating that you can find in many of the modern pipes. It's a mixture of 1 tsp of active carbon (you can buy it for cheap from pet stores - look in the aquarium filtering section), 1 tsp of sour cream (15% fat) and 1/2 tsp of buttermilk. First mix the sour cream and the butter milk until you get a gel-like consistency, then grind up the active charcoal with a mortar and pestle until it's very, very fine and thoroughly mix it into the buttermilk/sour cream. Apply with a soft brush to the inside of the bowl, let dry for 2 hours, then smooth out with your finger. Let dry for another 24 hours and sand the inside with 1000 grit sandpaper. The result is a perfect interior coat like you'd have a brand new pipe - and yes, that also means you will have to go through a normal "break in" ;-)
6) Re-aligning badly drilled draft holes
On a number of pipes that I've worked on (curiously seems to be more prevalent on the 'newer' made pipes), the engineering is wonky and a lot of times the drilled draft holes don't line up. I.e., you try to pass a pipe cleaner through and it gets stuck somewhere where the tenon joins the mortise. To me this is the worst possible engineering flaw, as it tends to lead to the whole range of ill effects from extra condensation to wonky draw and cleaning problems. Re-drilling and alining the draw holes has done wonders to pipes that I had already written off and banned to the back of the pipe rack. For example, one of the pipes I had bought when I just started pipe smoking was a 60$ P.T.M. Amadeus from Greece. In the early beginnings I blamed my inexperience in preparation, packing, smoking and inferior tobacco mixtures for the hellish experience of constant gurgle a minute after lighting and loads of tobacco juice in my mouth. I became more experienced, bought better pipes, had a better smoking technique and knew how to dry my tobacco to the perfect moisture. Still, whenever I revisited the PTM, I only had to look at it and it started to get dripping wet. (If only I had that effect on women!). While spending more time with pipes, I eventually understood more about the internals of pipes and looking at that PTM I discovered that the engineering was way off. After an evening with needle files and drill bits, re-aligning the draft holes this pipe has turned into one of my best smokers, no kidding! What at that time seemed like a very small change - maybe 2-3mms of re-drilling, made a massive impact on smoking enjoyment.
In any case, I'm curious what everyone else does to "go the extra mile". Do you have any stories and experiences to share to turn a good smoking pipe into a great smoking pipe? I want to hear it all!
Cheers,
Nic
1) Opening the draw
While a lot of pipe smokers out there take the point that you should leave a pipe the way the maker intended it, I have found consistently that opening up the draw does often greatly increase the enjoyment of the tobaccos I favor (VAs, VA/Pers, Flakes). While sometimes there is no considerable change to the better, I have never found it to make a pipe a worse smoker than it was before. My favorite draw turns out to be 4mm.
2) Opening the button, and cutting a "V" funnel
It drives me nuts when I can't easily get a pipe cleaner through a stem. Most of the time, the button is too narrow. If a test with a "Long's Extra Absorbent" pipe cleaner fails, I get out a needle file and open the button. Also, some of the stems/buttons are cut as a square inside the stem. When I blow through the stem and hear a high pitched noise, or a whistle that's a sure sign. Great engineering goes a long way to a dry smoke: at the sharp edges inside the stem air turbulence forms, which causes the moisture of the smoke to condensate and coat the inside of the stem with droplets which in turn will make the pipe smoke wet and cause gurgle. So I use a triangular needle file to cut a long smooth "V" funnel in the inside. The broad end of the "V" should start at the button and gradually get thinner until about halfway into the stem.
3) Polishing the inside of the stem
Again, the smoother the inside of a stem, the drier your smoking experience will be. I have learned this trick from a pipe artisan who takes great pride in flawless interior engineering of his stems. What I do is take a shoe string, and coat it in green jeweler's buffing compound (chrome oxide) over the hole length and pull it back and forth through the stem until the inside is mirror-like.
4) Lifting the heel to the draw hole
The best smoking pipes I own have a draw hole that enters the tobacco bowl from below the heel. Sometimes, especially with bent shapes, the draw hole is a good chunk above the heel, so that there is a little "well" below the draw hole. A perfect trap for condensate, causes gurgle, increases drying time as to not get a pipe to turn sour, and is often the cause of gurgle. I almost always correct this by lifting the heel up with pipe mud (a mixture of white cigar ash and a few drops of bourbon). In my experience lifting the heel up just over the draw hole and then carefully drilling the draw hole free gives the best results.
5) Back to the roots
Especially with estate pipes, I don't want to taste whatever the previous owner smoked, ever. Usually I go for a certain shape and size such as to re-appropriate the pipe for one of my favorite tobacco blends and any external "signal" is distracting in the best case, and downright ruins the taste in the worst case. To start from scratch as best as I can, I usually ream the cake down to the bare wood, then sand the interior with 220 grit, 320 grit, 400 grit and 600 grit sandpaper. This is followed by multiple alcohol/salt treatments until the salt comes out as white as I put it in. However, I have found that with many estate pipes this procedure leaves the inside quite vulnerable, and on the other hand with many older estate pipes the inside of the bowl is often already scratched, contains hairline cracks, or a previous owner did a horrible reaming job. I was able to get a pipe maker friends' recipe for the black protective coating that you can find in many of the modern pipes. It's a mixture of 1 tsp of active carbon (you can buy it for cheap from pet stores - look in the aquarium filtering section), 1 tsp of sour cream (15% fat) and 1/2 tsp of buttermilk. First mix the sour cream and the butter milk until you get a gel-like consistency, then grind up the active charcoal with a mortar and pestle until it's very, very fine and thoroughly mix it into the buttermilk/sour cream. Apply with a soft brush to the inside of the bowl, let dry for 2 hours, then smooth out with your finger. Let dry for another 24 hours and sand the inside with 1000 grit sandpaper. The result is a perfect interior coat like you'd have a brand new pipe - and yes, that also means you will have to go through a normal "break in" ;-)
6) Re-aligning badly drilled draft holes
On a number of pipes that I've worked on (curiously seems to be more prevalent on the 'newer' made pipes), the engineering is wonky and a lot of times the drilled draft holes don't line up. I.e., you try to pass a pipe cleaner through and it gets stuck somewhere where the tenon joins the mortise. To me this is the worst possible engineering flaw, as it tends to lead to the whole range of ill effects from extra condensation to wonky draw and cleaning problems. Re-drilling and alining the draw holes has done wonders to pipes that I had already written off and banned to the back of the pipe rack. For example, one of the pipes I had bought when I just started pipe smoking was a 60$ P.T.M. Amadeus from Greece. In the early beginnings I blamed my inexperience in preparation, packing, smoking and inferior tobacco mixtures for the hellish experience of constant gurgle a minute after lighting and loads of tobacco juice in my mouth. I became more experienced, bought better pipes, had a better smoking technique and knew how to dry my tobacco to the perfect moisture. Still, whenever I revisited the PTM, I only had to look at it and it started to get dripping wet. (If only I had that effect on women!). While spending more time with pipes, I eventually understood more about the internals of pipes and looking at that PTM I discovered that the engineering was way off. After an evening with needle files and drill bits, re-aligning the draft holes this pipe has turned into one of my best smokers, no kidding! What at that time seemed like a very small change - maybe 2-3mms of re-drilling, made a massive impact on smoking enjoyment.
In any case, I'm curious what everyone else does to "go the extra mile". Do you have any stories and experiences to share to turn a good smoking pipe into a great smoking pipe? I want to hear it all!
Cheers,
Nic
