Help with Peterson

[maxpeters]

Ok. I realize that I can get long winded when explaining things, so I will try to stick to the main points here.

I know a lot of members here love their Peterson pipes. I don't want this to sound like I am disparaging Peterson's at all. I'm not. I would just like to get some help from you folks if possible, so I can like my Peterson better.
I have had several Peterson pipes over the years, either because I liked the way they looked, or because I liked the way they felt in the hand, but they have all been disapointing to smoke. Because they gurgle. A lot.
I have only held onto a Sherlock Holmes from that series, because it is shaped almost perfectly for me. It feels good to hold and it hasn't any fills. With my elbow on the arm of my chair, it comes to the mouth almost perfectly. It also hangs great when I clench it in my teeth. Like I said, it's a almost perfect pipe for me.

But it gurgles. A lot.

I attribute this to Peterson's system. Please tell me if I'm wrong here.

Their system has a small reservoir under the air chamber to catch moisture? The problem is that when the pipe starts to gurgle, it's impossible to run a cleaner down the airway to clean it up.
How do the rest of you handle this? Do you have the same problem? Do you just tolerate it?

It drives me nuts! This morning I got my pipe out, and in an effort to like it better, so that I will smoke it more often, I started trying to come up with a way to stop it from gurgling.

The only solution I could come up with was to take a piece of paper towel and press it down into the small chamber until it was completely full. I also noticed that the chamber is only about 1/2 in. deep. A little shorter than Peterson shows on their system diagram.
Anyway, it performed a lot better. About 5 min. into my smoke it started it's usual gurgling. I just took 4 or 5 long draws on the pipe so the moisture would come up and go into the reservoir, and it would quit. This happened again about 3/4 of the way down the bowl. Same action, same result.

When I finished, and after the pipe cooled down I took it apart and the papper was saturated with moisture, so the system works. Just not without the paper stuffed into the little chamber.
So what's the solution? Is my Peterson defective? Should they make the reservoir deeper like it shows in thier system diagram so that you wouldn't have to stuff anything into it?
Can any of you help me out here? Thanks.

 

[mole]

It does sound like the reservoir wasn't cut deep enough. If it was, the air would pass over the liquid instead of through it. I don't know if that's something you feel comfortable getting into but it definitely sounds (no pun intended) like it's the issue. Especially once you factor in the fact that if you fill the reservoir with paper towel you're effectively cutting off the dynamic of air passing partially through fluid which is where the gurgle comes from.
Someone let me know if I'm wrong.

 

[puffpuff]

I used to get gurgle in many of my pipes (not petersons).
I found that packing less tightly got rid of 99% of my gurgle problems.
More recently, I picked up a Peterson 306 and it hasn't gurgled on me at all.
Loose packing also made things less hot, less 'bitey' and quicker smoking.
I don't know if that's what you're experiencing, but maybe it will help.

 

[puffintuff]

Whenever I hear a pipe start to "gurgle", I put it down for a few minutes and puff lighter next time around. Seems to work for me. But I don't think about it too much.

 

[surfmac211]

I will say that 3 of my first Petersons I got gurgle a lot. 2 of them are Shannons and one is a Kapet. Neither of the 3 are obviously system pipes, though they are bents. I have found my less expensive Peterson that are straights do not gurgle at all. Personally I just stopped buying bents from them under $100. I also noticed that my bents from them the hole is not lined up to get a pipe cleaner through so this was the other reason I stopped getting the bents.

 

[chuckw]

You didn't mention what pipe or shape number you're having trouble with or what tobacco you are smoking. Are they filter or non-filter pipes? It would be very helpful to know these things. The only Peterson's I have that gurgle are the System Premiers and System Deluxes with the aluminum condenser. Once it is removed, they stop. The System Standard's perform as advertised.

 

[maxpeters]

Chuckw, I don't know what shape number it would be, but I included a picture.

It doesn't have a condenser though. I'v owned this particular pipe for many years now. I have smoked almost every type of tobacco in it that I have, and that is quite a few.

It just gurgles a lot. The other one's that I have owned, did also. I have no idea why Petersons do that for me. I can only think that either I have had extremely bad luck with them, or that I am not smoking them correctly, or that Peterson pipes just smoke this way for some reason.

I really am trying to like this pipe. I really want to. It's just been hard going so far. But thanks for for your input. I just wanted to know from other members if they were having the same issues. Or not. Or if I need to maybe just get rid of the damn thing, and start over.

 

[yoru]

I have a 307 System (ebony, but that doesn't really matter) that doesn't gurgle...ever. I do get some -- just being able to hear the air in a small empty part of the bowl. I always lightly fill the bowl and push it to fill just a little more than a third of the bowl -very- loosely, and roll a tight ball to place on top of it (usually loading the ball up-side down), having that very light amount of tobacco in the bottom seems hit-and-miss in that in some pipes, it causes major gurgling (switch to 3-layer progressively tighter for those) and in others, I've never heard it cause gurgling once. My Peterson System is one of those pipes.
My barrel on the other hand (another Peterson to be clear) -always- gurgles a little at the last third of the bowl no matter what I do, I've tried just about every loading method and thickness I could think of, but "spurting" is fairly rare so I let it go.
But more than anything, it sounds like yours is a bit off. You might try fixing it if you've the hands for it, but as a problem I've not encountered I can't really weigh-in on it.

 

[chuckw]

Ok, the picture helped alot. I don't know how I missed it the first time.

That isn't a System pipe. It looks like a Professor from the Sherlock Holmes series. Please allow me to suggest letting your tobacco dry some before you fill the pipe. Another thing that will help is to open the draft hole in the shank to 4 mm/5/16" to let the pipe breath better. That trick has become automatic for me with non-System pipes, whether estate or new. Peterson's draft hole can be as small as 2mm and they drill all their mortices for 9mm filters now. That difference will cause moisture to gather around the entrance to the hole in the tenon.

Another trick is to bevel the entrance in the tenon to smooth the airflow. I've used a Dremel with a conical stone to do that. If you don't feel comfortable doing these things, you can send it back to Peterson with a note explaining the problem and they WILL take care of it.

'Tis a shame Peterson can't do that before the pipe leaves the factory but when you only have 25 people on the floor turning out 2000 pipes a week, I suppose attention to detail goes lacking.

 

[maxpeters]

Thanks Chuck,
You said that my pipe isn't a system. Any idea why it would have a reservoir about 1/2in long under the airway, right where the tenon meets it? Do you think that was a mistake on Peterson's part?

Opening the airway is an excellent idea. Thanks. I really don't feel comfortable doing it myself.

And I didn't know that Peterson would take care of it if I sent it back to them.

I will check on that.

The nomenclature on the pipe reads: Peterson's

Sherlock Holmes
On the other side it reads: Made in the Republic of Ireland

Also it has a regular lip and not a P lip. This is The Proffesor?
Thanks again.

 

[collin]

This is a "system" cutaway,....some are a tiny bit different, such as a rounded "pit" instead fo the graduated one shown in this photo.
http://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/peterson/history.cfm
The one system pipe I have has yet to gurgle and given the size of the chamber, I doubt ever will. After smoking the little pit is wet indeed and always get a dab from a dry Q-tip to soak up any excess wet. :mrgreen:

 

[chuckw]

Yessir, it is definatly a Professor. As for the over-drilling in the mortice, it may be a mistake or it may be just the way their jig is set up. My LeStrade is drilled the same way. As I said in the earlier post, they have only 25 people on the floor. I would imagine there is only one or two stations where the mortice is drilled for their regular pipes and maybe one more for the System pipes. At 2000 pipes a week, they don't have the time to drill each pipe individually.