I Made a Pipe from Last Night’s Dinner

[Joe H]

My first ever home-made corn cob pipe. We had corn with dinner last night and I saved some of the silk to blend with tobacco, and the cobs to see if any were wide enough to make a pipe. They weren’t really but this is the result with the thickest one.


It smokes far better than I expected for a cob that’s not quite dry (I had it in the oven at 200 for a couple hours). The stem is six inches from one of our garden plant stakes and the whole construction process took an hour. It’s such a narrow chamber that it smokes down in about 15 minutes with my ribbon cut burly-based cherry aromatic.

It was a fun project but I prefer my old drug store briar pipes. Of course, I’ve been smoking my old briars for 30 years so I know them well. The cob has two bowls through it so I’ll play with it bit more before it decide if it gets tossed or kept.

 

[renfield]

I like it. Minimalist and practical.

 

[Bbailey324]

Neat project and good use of recyclables! Hang on to it and see how it does as it dries out. Any possibility of cutting a larger chamber after it has dried some?

 

[Lumbridge]

My first ever home-made corn cob pipe. We had corn with dinner last night and I saved some of the silk to blend with tobacco, and the cobs to see if any were wide enough to make a pipe. They weren’t really but this is the result with the thickest one.

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It smokes far better than I expected for a cob that’s not quite dry (I had it in the oven at 200 for a couple hours). The stem is six inches from one of our garden plant stakes and the whole construction process took an hour. It’s such a narrow chamber that it smokes down in about 15 minutes with my ribbon cut burly-based cherry aromatic.

It was a fun project but I prefer my old drug store briar pipes. Of course, I’ve been smoking my old briars for 30 years so I know them well. The cob has two bowls through it so I’ll play with it bit more before it decide if it gets tossed or kept.

Cool project. I've been pondering making my own cob-like pipes out of oak or another hardwood.

 

[didimauw]

I was expecting a mashed potato pipe sculpture!

 

[BingBong]

See if a bit of folded flake gets you a decently longer smoke, might be just the thing for 25min.

 

[The Benedictine]

I was expecting a mashed potato pipe sculpture!

Pipe out of a T-bone.

 

[Snook]

That turned out great. How did you drill the draft hole in that stem?

 

[Joe H]

Thanks for all the interest in the humblest of pipes (OK, probably the mashed potato pipe would be more humble). I used a pocketknife to drill the chamber hole initially, but then a drill bit that I hand turned, and finally some coarse sandpaper to widen it a bit. I don't think there's any more widening that could be done without the hole burning out on the next couple of smokes. The stem is bamboo, so it's hollow. I just pushed the pith out with some stiff wire. I'll try it with some of my crumble cake in a cube cut to see if that extends the length, but honestly, for a no-cost, minimal effort project, I think I learned a lot. I can imagine Huckleberry Finn carving one of these in an idle moment and firing up some corn silk - it would totally provide a decent smoke for free. I tend to dry my corn silk, then rehydrate it with a cooked down rum, brown sugar and anise concoction. Then I mix it 50/50 with a cherry blend, Huck never had it so good.