You can use Q-tips for the mortise area. Some of my pipes will fit a Q-tip all the way through the shank airway, too.
I have some shank brushes from Amazon that I also use. Dip the brush in alcohol and then scrub the shank and mortise out. Rinse the brush and the pipe out immediately with hot water. Clean and cheap.
I limit myself to 4 pipe cleaner per day because of the expense. I smoke Cherokee Red tobacco exclusively because I can afford it.
It all works out for briars.
Do the same with your stems. Clean them all with the same alcohol-dipped pipe cleaner, rinsing each time both stem and cleaner.
One pipe cleaner can easily clean 20 stems.
The reason I use 4 pipe cleaners per day now is that I smoke cobs a lot. I don't generally rinse those. So, I've been dry cleaning all my pipes. Two to four pipes per day.
Today, I have smoked out of two different pipes. Two to four cleaners tonight at cleaning time.
A lot of folks don't understand that smoking used to be cheap. It still is, if you know how to do it.
For those who say to quit smoking, there isn't any good response. The gentleman isn't trying to not smoke. He is trying to smoke in an affordable manner.
This is a pipe forum. People here smoke. We come from every economic class.
I would rather smoke than breathe air, or even eat, for that matter.
The reason I keep it simple and affordable is because other people, people who count on me, have needs which come before mine. So, smoking is, for me, a simple pastime. Simple as it is, I wouldn't quit smoking for any reason. The spiritual, physical, and psychological benefits are innumerable.
Anyhow, if we're talking briars, you can get some brushes and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, some napkins or Q-tips, and you can keep your pipes clean by using a pipe cleaner per day. It might last you a week, even, because it gets rinsed repeatedly while you're cleaning.
Water is the obvious equalizer here. Water makes everything right.
Cob stems don't hold up to alcohol cleaning, in my experience, so they use up more pipe cleaners.
You can use water and soap on a cob stem, though. Maybe use one cleaner for those and see how long it lasts.
Think water, alcohol, and brushes and Q-tips.
That's the place to start.
