How often do you clean your pipe? after a cake has built up after a few smokes of course. Also is cleaning a corncob any different from cleaning a briar ? do you have to be gentler?
I guess you mean about cleaning the inside of the bowl? I just a paper towel and screw it into the bowl and "ream" it that way perhaps every other time. Cleaning inside the stem with Everclear is done by me after every bowl. That insures a nice clean and sweet smoke the next time.
Generally you don't soak your pipes. You moisten the pipe cleaners for the run through or do a salt/alcohol treatment in the bowl. Alcohol will damage the finish/stain of your pipes. I say generally because if you have a bakelite pipe it would not have any real effect on the pipes finish. Bakelite is also referred to as brylon. Hope this helps and welcome to the forums.
I clean my pipe after I'm done smoking it. One to three bowls in a pipe, in one day, then it gets thoroughly cleaned before racking. It's like pistols. Once you get home from the range, you break them down and clean them thoroughly. A clean tool performs better. And tools that involve combustion, fire and smoke need thorough cleaning.
I clean with pipe cleaners after every smoke, and then every three months or so I clean them with Bacardi 151 or Everclear. Never had any problems that way.
With meers, I just wipe the inside of the bowl with a damp paper towel. I do nothing for cobs other than to run cleaners through them.
I personally clean my pipe after every smoke... Just a basic pipe cleaner, I run it through a few times and im good to go... Once a month I sit down with some q tips, alcohol and saliva... and do a real good cleaning. Take care of your gear and it will take care of you.
I clean mine thoroughly every sunday. It's just part of my routine. I use 99% rubbing alcohol. Usually it only takes 4-8 pipe cleaners and hald dozen Q-Tips to get it clean since I do them once a week. I polish the stems with brebbia stem polish, and polish and clean the bowls with denicare briar bowl cleaner and polish. If I smoke more than usual the pipe will get cleaned mid week, but still won't miss a pass through on sunday with the others in the rotation.
I clean mine with a pipe cleaners after every smoke. I do a thorough cleaning every 10-15 bowls for anything made from wood and every week for my cobs. My cobs are the workhorses of my rotation, and I might smoke 20 bowls or more in the same cob in a week. I use bourbon or rum for all of my pipes, including the cobs, when I do the thorough cleaning. I mainly clean the inside of the bowl by bending the pipe cleaner into a U shape and running it around the bowl that way.