Pipe Myths

[cosmicfolklore]

Agree with that for the most part. My father burned out several Grabows and would just get another one at the drugstore.

Yep, I have had many family members who smoked one pipe all day long and once it was caked up, they’d toss it and get a new one. Cake was sort of a badge of honor on how much you smoked, and you looked forward to finishing with that pipe, so you could buy a new one. It was just the rural way to smoke a pipe.
Poor people would scrape the pipe out, because you didn’t have the means to buy a new one.

 

[J-Evverrett]

You can keep a pipe clean if you smoke it all day. If you allow the gunk to accumulate, its not being cleaned

I normally take one pipe with me in the morning for work. They rotate through a 7 day pipe rack weekly. I keep a backup meer in my lunchbox. I run about ten bowls through it driving my route. I do use a pipe cleaner periodically. I clean them properly once a month. The flavor is more pronounced later in the day. Never had an issue.

 

[Sobrbiker]

Annoying pipe myth:
-because you have access to the internet and can speak the terms, your content is valuable

Pipe smoking is just like every other interest delved into on forums and other media: piles of regurgitated “facts” interspersed sparsely by sage advice that comes from true knowledge and experience.

 

[craig61a]

At the taverns in Olde England the clay pipes were occasionally baked in ovens to remove the goo.

Hardly. They were tossed into the Thames. Clay pipes were like Dixie cups back then.

 

[craig61a]

Annoying pipe myth:
-because you have access to the internet and can speak the terms, your content is valuable

Pipe smoking is just like every other interest delved into on forums and other media: piles of regurgitated “facts” interspersed sparsely by sage advice that comes from true knowledge and experience.

The title of this thread should be “Famous Bullshit Stories”

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Hardly. They were tossed into the Thames. Clay pipes were like Dixie cups back then.

Many sold clays prepacked, one smoke shots.

 

[AJL67]

My father burned out several Grabows and would just get another one at the drugstore.

That’s how they did it most people didn’t have multiple pipes or maybe 2 with a backup. So to say it’s a myth that can smoking the same people over and over all day long day after day is incorrect. You know that pipe makers telling people they needed to let their pipes rest even for a day or two before smoking it again thing.

 

[Kobold]

Here’s one I hear a lot: Churchwardens smoke cooler and eliminate tongue bite because of the long stem.

 

[bassbug]

A pipe ember is wider, and burns cooler than a cigarette, but still —-
—-
Those tiny burning embers at the end of a cigarette reach incredibly high temperatures -- 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit when resting in the ashtray and 2,000 degrees when puffed. "Paper," says McGuire, "bursts into flames at 451 degrees centigrade (844 degrees Fahrenheit)."

—

It’s danged near a thousand degrees.

We can only hold something 125 degrees for very long.

——

Studies show that a temperature of 52 degrees C (125 degrees F) can cause a full-thickness skin burn in 2 minutes and a temperature of 54 degrees C (130 degrees F) can result in a full-thickness skin burn in 30 seconds.

——

Meerschaum and cobs are obviously porous.

So is briar, just not as much.

OK, let's go through this again.....

It's quite obvious that we can hold a pipe comfortably (while it is being smoked), ergo, the temperature of the outside of the pipe is less than 125 degrees. If the thousand degree ember was conducting it's heat through the briar, the pipe would obviously be much hotter. The fact that it is not must mean one thing...the heat is escaping somewhere other than the briar. Maybe into the open air at the open top of the bowl?

 

[UB 40]

G

On another thread a friend suggested there should be a thread to expose pipe myths.

When I was growing up nearly all our mothers, had been or were still school teachers. Raising the children was as much their sole prerogative and domain and responsibility as doing the farming chores was for our fathers. When we repeated to our mothers something we thought might be a myth, that was very dangerous, you know? The least that could happen was we’d prepare her a book report on our erroneous assumptions those old men had us believe were true. The worst was our fathers would catch hell for exposing us to such audacious lies, at our tender and impressionable age.

On the other hand, our fathers allowed us to listen to any tall tale or superstition or myth the old men repeated in the barber shops, confident we’d learn the difference between fact and fable, on our own.

Over fifty years of smoking pipes, has convinced me there is something to these pipe smoking myths.

Feel free to disagree or add your own.

1. Briar breathes

Not as much as meerschaum or a cob, but if briar doesn’t breathe how does an almost thousand degree ember lose enough heat in that small distance to where we can hold the pipe? I remove all varnish from pipes to help the briar breathe.

2. Brands matter

Monday morning in Sparta North Carolina a man will be in charge of about forty employees who turn out about 200,000 pipes a year. There’s a master of the briar selection at Dr. Grabow, and he’s a lot better briar picker than I’ll ever be.

3. Briar pipes add flavor.

It is common knowledge raw briar burls are cured and dried before carving. And we all have experienced the taste of a new briar pipe before it’s broken in. I’m convinced that briar flavor never completely leaves.

There’s a discussion starter.

My grandmother Ma Agee recounted in The Index a time when her and Sy Thomas and Saydee were trying to hang pictures on the wall, and they asked Pa to judge if they were straight.

Pa said he didn’t want to take no sides.

So those that don’t speak up, sit a spell and listen to us that do.

That’s great!

 

[sablebrush52]

Biggest myth: Pipe smoking is unhealthy....

Nonsense. Of course pipe smoking is unhelathy. Any smoking is unhealthy, and unnatural. But I enjoy pipe smoking and don't need to lie to myself or be a hypocrite about it to enjoy it. I've done a lot of things that were unhealty and just accept it as some of my life choices.

 

[The Amish Tyrant]

Hardly. They were tossed into the Thames. Clay pipes were like Dixie cups back then.

Many sold clays prepacked, one smoke shots.

These men speak the truth.

Remember littering in the '80's and '90's. Now imagine drunks in the 17th century disposing of Penny Pipes when there is nothing better to do after the pub (aside from chasing women who haven't bathed in a month and smell worse than the Thames River).

Hazards and clay pipes -

 

[sablebrush52]

1. Briar breathes

That's probably news to Briar. Briar is porous to a small degree, and contains the remains of its capillary structure, which is what is referred to as grain. This structure allows for heat dissipation, and that dissipation varies from pipe to pipe as does the structure.
But when I stare at one of my pipes and yell, "breathe" at it, it just sits there and mocks me.

 

[sablebrush52]

2. Brands matter

I don't rate "brands matter" as myth material. Myth material is more like, "This brand is better than all other brands" or "this carver is better than all other carvers", "this tobacco blender is better than all other tobacco blenders", etc. The myth is in the absolute.

 

[Briar Lee]

IBTL

So are you saying it's a myth that brands matter ?? Ya kinda lost me

Brands do matter, because the owner of the brand uses effort to distinguish his product.

I think conventional wisdom is briar is briar, and brands only exist to fetch more money.

The key to success in pipe making is that every pipe made is a good smoker.

There are only two ways to accomplish that, buying better briar, and then curing or seasoning it better.

 

[sablebrush52]

Hardly. They were tossed into the Thames. Clay pipes were like Dixie cups back then.

They were pplaced in the fire to clean them as well. Tavern clays had long stems and were reused by different customers. Between use the pipe would get roasted and then a bit of stem broken off before being passed onto the next customer. When the stem ran out, the Thames was the recipient.

I feel sorry for the Thames, it was the Brits garbage disposal and deserved better.

 

[sablebrush52]

Annoying pipe myth:
-because you have access to the internet and can speak the terms, your content is valuable

Not a pipe myth so much as a plague on the world. Pull the plug on social media. Kill it. Smash its little head.

 

[The Clay King]

These men speak the truth.

Remember littering in the '80's and '90's. Now imagine drunks in the 17th century disposing of Penny Pipes when there is nothing better to do after the pub (aside from chasing women who haven't bathed in a month and smell worse than the Thames River).

Hazards and clay pipes -

@The Amish Tyrant Interesting article!
Anthony says he found a pewter tankard and a clay pipe during a river clean-up and said he thought they were mine!
He says the Condor packet I found while litter picking was one of mine as well...
The beachcombing sounds my sort of thing; it would be fun to find complete clay pipes!
Do you think I'd want to smoke one I'd unearthed???
I'm strongly against disposable single use items and find it shocking that many people discarded their clay pipes after only one smoke...
I thought single use items were a modern problem and that discarded e-cigarettes are the modern equivalent of clay pipe fragments...
I've already reduced my plastic waste by refilling my empty bottles and other containers. I get my toiletries and cleaning products from the refill stall at the market and there's a newsagents in Chesterfield that sells loose Gawith pipe tobacco.

 

[Briar Lee]

I don't rate "brands matter" as myth material. Myth material is more like, "This brand is better than all other brands" or "this carver is better than all other carvers", "this tobacco blender is better than all other tobacco blenders", etc. The myth is in the absolute.

This Mel-o grade Marxman has the tannish cast of the best Algerian briar.



Bob Marx, or maybe his employee, had to buy old, well cured, Algerian briar from a trusted seller who wanted repeat orders.

Then Marx might have aged it, or further cured it himself.

The carving is as Marxman as a handwritten signature.

The last process was the product earning the stampings.

It retailed for $3.50 when that would buy a Kaywoodie Drinkless, and a good Dr Grabow or Yellow Bole cost a dollar or dollar and a half.

No name pipes were fifty cents and up.

Brands matter, or we’d not pay for them.

 

[sablebrush52]

Brands do matter, because the owner of the brand uses effort to distinguish his product.

I think conventional wisdom is briar is briar, and brands only exist to fetch more money.

The key to success in pipe making is that every pipe made is a good smoker.

There are only two ways to accomplish that, buying better briar, and then curing or seasoning it better.

Essentially, branding matters. It identifies the product.

Is branding used to increase the price to the customer? Of course it is, regardless of whether the brand is marketed as a "luxury" brand or as a "value" brand. Manufacturers are making enough to comfortably pay for the costs of marketing and advertising that brand. Customers pay the cost of that advertising, plus the addedd revenue it produces.