Olive Wood Pipe

[bernie2]

I had to run some extra equipment down to Chicago today so I was able to fit a few bowls in on my 2 hour drive each way.

The olive wood pipe I picked up a few weeks ago is still performing nicely. I'm not sure if this is typical but even after running a half dozen bowls through it I still find the smoke to be sweeter than my briar pipes. I'm guessing that this behavior will change as the pipe ages, but I hope it doesn't.
One of the odd things I noticed with my first few smokes with this pipe was that although the smoke itself was very cool, the bowl seemed to heat up much more than my briars, even though this pipe has fairly thick walls. The 2 hour smoke I had on my drive back was the first time where the bowl stayed relatively cool. I'm not sure if this is just the pipe breaking in or maybe I'm just relaxing and slowing down my smoke a bit more. I do feel like I was keeping a nice pace on the drive home as I didn't have to re-light at all.
After the 2 hour drive I ended up dumping about 1/3 of the bowl. If I ever have the patience to sit still for 3 hours I'll have to see if I can make it all the way through a complete smoke.

 

[tobyducote]

Nice pipe

 

[gloucesterman]

All of the olive wood pipes I've seen have very interesting grains and tremendous contrast. Yours is a great example. I think I'll put one on my "to be acquired" list

 

[winton]

I am more concerned about you taking a picture of your pipe while your car is doing 75 mph.
Nice pipe. I bought an estate olive wood pipe. I found that it gets warm to the hand also. Perhaps it is my technique.
Winton

 

[tallguy]

Very nice pipe. Olive wood really has incredible grain which shows very nicely in this picture. I hope it will continue to smoke nicely for you.

 

[leacha]

Add another to the nice pipe camp. Thanks for talking about the burn characteristics.

 

[bernie2]

@winton - you bring up a good point about safety while driving, but with the proper use of technology taking pictures can be a pretty simple process that can be done without ever having to take your eyes off the road.
All smartphones these days have motion sensors and some can be programmed to perform tasks. My phone is setup to come out of a sleep/locked mode and start taking pictures automatically by just picking it up and shaking it in a specific pattern. So all you have to do is pick up the phone, shake it to start taking pictures, wave it slowly in the general area you want a picture and then shake it again to shut it off when you're done.
That's all there is too it except for deleting the bad pictures you don't want and then cropping the one(s) you want to keep.
Now, learning the skill to relight a pipe while driving is a bit beyond my skill-set/coordination. I haven't thought of a way to inject technology into that process to make it easy and safe. 8)

 

[bernie2]

For those of you that have a Motorola Droid phone you may have this feature already enabled. Here's the best illustration I could find on the motion pattern:

I'm not sure if this feature is automatically enabled in any other phones apart from Motorola's. This has worked out of the box on the last two Droid's I've owned. The ability to automatically take multiple pictures within seconds only has worked on my newest phone. You just have to configure the default settings for how your camera starts up.
If you choose to use this feature I'll give you a very important hint...be very aware of your automated flash settings...
I used this functionality last year when my daughter had the lead role in her high school musical, Annie. Photo's were prohibited so I thought I'd be smart and sneak some pictures and video using this method. I covered the screen of my phone so it didn't produce any light and practiced the gestures required to take pictures. It worked well in practice so as soon as the lights in the auditorium went down and my daughter started her first solo I gave it a try. Unfortunately I had forgot to disable the flash so as soon as it started taking pictures the flash started going off, lighting up the entire room. It was not one of my best moments as a parent.
She has the lead role again this year in the musical Oklahoma. I think I've perfected my technique this time so hopefully I can get a few good shots without embarrassing her or without getting myself kicked out.

 

[bigpond]

Oh lawwddd....now I need to worry about some jerky blinding himself with a bad wrist flick activated flash while taking pipe glamour photos at 75 mph. How many twists does it take to upload?

 

[okiescout]

I have not seen many olive pipes, but yours has an interesting grain to it. All the others I have seen were very plain. It is very interesting that it is smoking sweeter, please keep us posted if it continues to do so.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Nice pipe, and nice driving skillz. If they don;t like the way you drive, then get off the sidewalk!!!

BTW, I am posting this while driving 85 on the interstate and smoking my pipe. ::

 

[mso489]

Please park for photo sessions. I'm not being an altruist, but I'd like to read more reports on how this olive wood pipe performs over time. So stick around.

 

[jkrug]

Very nice Olivewood pipe...even at 75 mph.

 

[jkrug]

Very nice Olivewood pipe...even at 75 mph.

I'm thinking of ordering an olivewood block and making one myself as a project. The blocks are fairly inexpensive to purchase. ::

 

[sjpipesmoker]

I have a olive wood Brog pipe, smoked maybe 20 bowls and my bowl heats up hotter than any briar I've smoked. I like the size of my pipe, nice thick walls, deep bowl and it smokes decent.

While I like the pipe I won't be standing in line for any future olive wood pipe purchases, same with cherrywood, pear wood ect...I'll stick with briar and Kirsten pipes.

 

[settersbrace]

Never smoked an olive wood but yours is a very nice example and it obviously smokes well. Your cadence more than likely has more to do with the bowl temp than the wood and a 2 hour drive smoke sounds delightful. Crazy smart phone or not I'd be afraid of diverting my attention off the highway especially in a Cooper! I've got swerve packing and relighting down pretty good but I've yet to work up the nerve to try swerve photography yet, lol. Enjoy that pipe and drive safe!

 

[maxpeters]

I just recently picked up one off ETSY. Haven't smoked it yet. Waiting for the right time. (seller's photo)

 

[bernie2]

@maxpeters - That is a fine looking pipe. You'll have to let us know how it smokes!

I have a olive wood Brog pipe, smoked maybe 20 bowls and my bowl heats up hotter than any briar I've smoked. I like the size of my pipe, nice thick walls, deep bowl and it smokes decent.

As @sjpipesmoker and others in this thread talked about how their olive wood pipe bowls heat up while smoking I started thinking through my only "cool" smoke with my pipe. Now that I've had time to reflect on it a bit I am convinced that the cool smoke had nothing to do with the pipe breaking in or a slower smoking rhythm, rather I think the pipe was only cool because of the position that I held it in. While driving I keep pipes in my left hand at about the 10 o'clock position on my steering wheel, right in front of the vent. When I smoke I leave the sunroof open and turn up the blower a bit to help air circulate. I think the pipe was only cool because it had a constant supply of cool air blowing on it.
I'm about to head down and grab a bench for another smoke down by the river tonight. I'll put my theory to the test and let you all know the results tomorrow.

 

[saltedplug]

Stunning pipe. It's not hard to like that wood.

 

[jmui]

Do olive wood pipes have the same care and maintenance as briars?