Maestro Beraldi tastes badi?

[lightxmyfire]

Hey all! I picked up this beautiful Maestro Beraldi at my local shop a few weeks ago, and I absolutely love it's look and feel. It will take a pipe cleaner straight through and it smokes really well ....

buuuutt I got my first smoke in it and it had an awful lingering taste of burnt rubber! The bowl has some sort of pre-coating so I figured I'd give it another smoke or two and see if it faded. Well I gave it another two smokes and it was still there... maybe a little less but not much.
So I did some searching on here and found some suggestions for giving it a good alcohol cleaning or going full salt and soak. I didn't want to do anything too drastic yet so I gave it just a thorough everclear cleaning. After another two smokes, it does seem to be fading but slowly.
My question is, am I crazy? Has anyone else had this problem with Maestro Beraldi? Should I just keep smoking the rubber until it fades or do I need to go ass-salt my poor pipe to rid it of this curse?! I love this pipe and I want to get it smoking beautifully without hurting myself or it in the process.
Your help is much appreciated!

 

[aquadoc]

Bowl coating is my first guess. I bought 2 unsmoked Big Ben's and the smoke tasted horrible. Sanded out the coating and voila, tasty smoke after a but of seasoning.

 

[danimalia]

Does anyone actually prefer those pre-coated bowls? Seems like most pipe smokers I hear from prefer them au natural.

 

[danimalia]

Hope the bad flavor continues to dissipate. It's a nice pipe!

 

[lightxmyfire]

Sanded out the coating and voila

That seems a little more intense than I want to go at the moment, but if I did decide to do some sanding how do you recommend doing it without messing up the chamber?
Danimalia I have a Savinelli Venezia that came with a pre-coating or at least a pre-char or something and it never tasted this bad! I honestly didn't have a preference until now, I think I'll be avoiding the coatings from now on haha

Hope the bad flavor continues to dissipate. It's a nice pipe!

Thank you! I'm looking forward to just being able to smoke it and enjoy it!

 

[jeff540]

I've generally attributed that nasty burned rubber taste to poor quality vulcanite stems.

 

[lightxmyfire]

Jeff, what can I do to fix that if it is the stem?
Should I repost this in the pipe repair section? haha

 

[cigrmaster]

It sounds like you have a nasty bowl coating that you can either smoke through or sand it off. Light sanding will not hurt your pipe and that is what I would do. I despise bowl coatings.

 

[lightxmyfire]

I despise bowl coatings

Yeah this stuff is nasty! What's the point of it if it tastes bad and objectively doesn't really "aid" in the breaking-in process?!

sand it off. Light sanding will not hurt your pipe and that is what I would do.

Aquadoc mentioned sanding too, but I feel nervous about taking off to much material or accidentally sanding the outside, It's a pretty tight space to sand, how do you do yours? Tape sandpaper around a pencil? what grit? I'm guessing you wouldn't want to go under 100?
Thanks for all the input ya'll!

 

[aquadoc]

I use 220 and got really do not have to take much off.

 

[weezell]

Aquadoc mentioned sanding too, but I feel nervous about taking off to much material or accidentally sanding the outside

Go for it, you'd have to go at it pretty hard to hurt it...

 

[lightxmyfire]

I use 220 and got really do not have to take much off.

Thank you for the tip, I've got some 220 laying around, so I'll have a go! any tips for getting the bottom of the bowl?

Go for it, you'd have to go at it pretty hard to hurt it...

Thank you for the encouragement! I'll you guys know how it goes!

 

[lightxmyfire]

Ok so I overcame my fears and I went at it with some 220, and a little 120 (that shit was tough to get off!) I think I got 90% of it or at least enough to remove the flavor, gonna smoke it tonight and find out! I'll report back after the smoke!
Thanks again for the advice, everybody!

 

[cigrmaster]

light, looking good. I hope it tastes a lot better tonight.

 

[danimalia]

Awesome! Eager to hear the report.

 

[lightxmyfire]

The results are in! It’s worlds better! No trace of anything nasty!! Thank you all for the advice! I’m smoking a bowl of Dunbar as we speak, and it’s a beautiful night!

 

[danimalia]

Great news. And advice I may take when I get my next pre-coated bowl.