Important Tip for Struggling Beginners

[pipestud]

Howdy sevenseas,
I do appreciate you wanting to share with the group a packing method that you have found to be perfect for you. I think you got sideways with the group by proclaiming (accidentally, I believe), that your way is THE WAY.
I personally believe that the type of tobacco one is smoking, the cut of the tobacco one is smoking, and the moisture content of the tobacco that one is smoking all combine to make the more experienced pipe smokers pack their pipes accordingly. Gravity feeding a dry cube cut Burly works for me with just a wee bit of a tamp. Smoking a long ribbon cut aromatic that is naturally a lot more moist, will require a totally different approach and probably several pinches and tamps before having the bowl loaded properly.
And finally, as others have stated, the tightness or looseness of the pack is a personal preference and varies with each smoker.
So, while you were offering your own personal preference regarding how to load and smoke your pipe, it was just letting everyone know what works best for you. Unfortunately, it came off a little on the "preachy" side.
If you had said that only Brand-X pipe should be smoked because.... well, you would probably have received the same kind of responses as, like packing a bowl, pipe brand preferences vary greatly.

 

[janosh]

I just open a tin and let what tobacco wants to, just hop in on its own. Yeh yeh yeh, sometimes it needs encouragement, motivation so to speak, enticement. I have to make a lot of false promises to it that I never intend to keep.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

[warren]

"Every bowl down to a fine gray ash . . . " Really? Every bowl? I am impressed and you, shutterbugg, are now the definitive guru of pipe smoking. :worship: All hail!

 

[woodsroad]

I don't think that you all grasp the gravity of the situation.

 

[sjfine]

<br />

 

[shutterbugg]

"Every bowl down to a fine gray ash . . . " Really? Every bowl? I am impressed and you, shutterbugg, are now the definitive guru of pipe smoking. [:worship:] All hail!

Back the truck up Jethro, don't attribute that quote to me cause I'm not the OP of this thread who said that.

 

[bcharles123]

I sometimes like to just pack the top half and leave an airspace. A poor mans calabash I guess. One of the pipe heavy hitters (authors) advocates this. The Frank method is a variation with a little loose stuff under the top bunch.
As to what works best I have no idea, but I enjoy trying. I do know who makes the best pipes and what the three best tobaccos are but I'm not sharing.

 

[cigrmaster]

sevenseas, you are dead wrong about your packing method. Yes the tobacco has to be at the right humidity, but if your goal is to only smoke down to a white ash, then you are missing a ton of flavors. Smoking a cool dry smoke with a ton of flavor is the goal. To accomplish this, you need some resistance to properly pack a pipe. Now depending on cut of tobacco will determine the amout of resistance you want. A ribbon cut needs more resistance than say a fold and stuff flake as the fold and stuff will expand a great deal. If you cube cut a flake, then you want a lot more resistance than a fold and stuff. No matter what cut you are smoking, just gravity feed with no pressure is a waste of tobacco. There is a reason people have been usuing the three stage packing method for a century or more.

 

[warren]

I stand before you, shutterbugg, hat in hand, toe scuffing the dirt, head bowed, eyes to the ground. My apologies shutterbugg. I have no idea what caused me to attribute the quote to you. Lack of morning coffee possibly. Mea culpa! Mea culpa? Mea culpa?

 

[mcitinner1]

I have no idea what caused me to attribute the quote to you

Had a senior moment?...I couldn't help myself...laughing.

 

[warren]

I keep forgetting that I am now allowed to have "senior moments." I think it's one a week so I'm close to using up my 2016 quota already.

 

[mayfair70]

Regardless of pipe, cut, or moisture level, I use the anti-gravity method. :P

 

[shutterbugg]

I think it's one a week so I'm close to using up my 2016 quota already.

LOL reminds me of a Red Skelton joke: "So there's this drunk, so smashed he can barely manage to stay on the barstool, tells the bartender to pour him another shot, downs it and slurs 'my doctor shez I can have one drink a day. Thish onesh for Sheptember 18sh, 1995*'"
*Skelton told it around 1965,see, so 1995 was still 30 years in the future...

 

[brian64]

This thread has latent Starcat potential.

 

[mayfair70]

 

[brian64]

It is latent no longer.
If only HAJA were here...he'd set all of you straight. The packing is irrelevant...what matters is the LIGHTER!

 

[deathmetal]

The key is to properly dry your tobacco before smoking, and gravity fill it.

This strikes me as good advice for people just starting out.
For me, the trick was finding a balance between filling and compressing so that enough air went through.
I generally do not dry the tobacco however... especially not something delicious like Royal Yacht.

 

[cynicismandsugar]

Paeg Dambae Do! ... the way of packing tobacco.
I'm not claiming to be fluent in Korean (or any other language for that matter), but that does sound like a martial art that I wouldn't mind getting a black belt in. :x

 

[sablebrush52]

This thread has latent Starcat potential.

I've been thinking recently about Starcat and the epic thread that mushroomed from his last post. A week of genius and anarchy here that terrified some of the old guard, and delighted a great many of us. The Spirit of Starcat will linger on, despite the efforts of the PTB to erase it. It will never disappear.
There is potential here, though the OP lacks the gift for dramatically hyperbolic metaphor that so informed starcat's posts. We're also around a year since the last serious blow up here, and the starcat thread was a cathartic nervous breakdown that helped sweep away the remaining tension following an epic explosion a couple of weeks earlier.
If a few of you will kindly oblige by behaving in an especially crude and antisocial manner in this forum, such as will get you kicked off of it, maybe we can whip up the energy for another go.

 

[mayfair70]

"maybe we can whip up the energy for another go"