Pipe Rotation

[crashthegrey]

I sell pipes for a living and I will still tell you that there is no actual need for a rotation, especially if you smoke once a day. It is nice to have more pipes, and I have plenty, but I test new products by smoking only that pipe for a very long time, often multiple times a day. A pipe cleaner up and down the shank and made into a U to wipe the bowl and you will be fine the next day. If the above is accurate, and the shank is cracked, that is from misuse, not smoking.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I sell pipes for a living and I will still tell you that there is no actual need for a rotation, especially if you smoke once a day. It is nice to have more pipes, and I have plenty, but I test new products by smoking only that pipe for a very long time, often multiple times a day. A pipe cleaner up and down the shank and made into a U to wipe the bowl and you will be fine the next day. If the above is accurate, and the shank is cracked, that is from misuse, not smoking.

This fellows been in my collection since '92 and has been just as heavily smoked as any of my pipes.



Briar is very hydrophobic and absorbs little to no moisture. Any dampness left in a pipe to sour is neglect of the smoker.

 

[molst]

We all work rotations. You can handle this with two pipes. You can literally smoke a pipe once a day and things will generally be okay. So figure how much you smoke each day and buy that many pipes and only smoke them once per day. If you smoke less than one bowl a day then you need two pipe. The second is just in case the first is damaged, lost or whatever.

Totallt agree. One pipe is one or maybe two smokes a day. One addition: Run a pipe cleaner through it after each smoke and it will probably stay great for many weeks.

 

[NC TX ID pipeman]

Sometimes I smoke a pipe multiple (4-5) times a day if I am long distance driving...Corn cob makes the test but briar not..Some beater briar pipes I have tried to smoke like that,cleaned after each smoke did not taste the same after second bowl in them.. Some italian pipes briar(ardor,ser jacopo,viprati,mastro de paja etc) is so great they smoke very dry multiple(3-4)times a day and the next day they taste fine...My Petersons taste different after second bowl...I usually smoke only 1-3 bowls a day so sometumes i use a second pipe during that day

 

[crashthegrey]

Sometimes I smoke a pipe multiple (4-5) times a day if I am long distance driving...Corn cob makes the test but briar not..Some beater briar pipes I have tried to smoke like that,cleaned after each smoke did not taste the same after second bowl in them.. Some italian pipes briar(ardor,ser jacopo,viprati,mastro de paja etc) is so great they smoke very dry multiple(3-4)times a day and the next day they taste fine...My Petersons taste different after second bowl...I usually smoke only 1-3 bowls a day so sometumes i use a second pipe during that day

Not just Italian pipes. I smoked a Kaywoodie for 6 months straight multiple times a day, and it just got better and better.

 

[Briar Lee]

I know one old man, who buys one Dr Grabow about every year or two, and smokes that one pipe all day, everyday, until it’s simply used up.

He gave me one of his spent pipes, and it was black, rank, sour. burned, cracked, and tasted terrible.

Years ago I knew several pipe smokers that treated their one pipe like a hammer, using it up every year, or at the most a couple of years, and buying another.

Last week I won three pipes for $27, and while they seem to have been kept clean (the bowl bottoms are still bare briar) they were subjected to so much use they’ve blackened like meerschaums.
I have the other two in an alcohol and salt soak, but here’s the Three Star Lee.

These pipes aren’t rank or sour, but they aren’t as wonderful smokers as my other briars.

I think a briar pipe might have a life of about two or three thousand smokes before you need to replace it.

Rotation postpones the inevitable day a pipe, simply wears out.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I think a briar pipe might have a life of about two or three thousand smokes before you need to replace it.

I've not ran into one yet that couldn't be restored to like new condition.

Rotation postpones the inevitable day a pipe, simply wears out.

If kept clean a briar or any other pipe material can last a lifetime, even multiple generations.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

No way your pipe cracked from over use even if you smoked it daily much less once per week. If you didn't smoke a pipe hot, you could smoke it 4 or 5 times per day without damaging it.

 

[Briar Lee]

I've not ran into one yet that couldn't be restored to like new condition.



If kept clean a briar or any other pipe material can last a lifetime, even multiple generations.

I believe you are right, that unless just burned to a crisp, that almost any well worn briar can be restored.

But the men who smoke $35 pipes from the rack at the big box store will just buy another one, to use up.

Let’s look again, at my well used Lee Three Star:

It’s strange that if this was a meerschaum, I’d be really proud of it.

This pipe really doesn’t taste bad. I just can’t say it’s really good. Maybe it’s the six inches between my ears that’s the trouble.

But unlike the other two pipes, this one is a really nice, straight grained, early 7 pointed gold inlaid star Three Star Lee. So I didn’t put salt and alcohol in it yet.
And as blackened as this one is, the other two are worse.

If I spent about $5 postage I could find somebody that might restore this old Lee for who knows what charge, to where it would equal the 75 or more other Lee pipes I own that don’t need restoration.

Or I can wait and score another almost perfect Lee for $25-30.

Restoring this old Lee, isn’t economical.

Now, had this been one of the two $15 English pipes that Lord (soon to be Baron) Inverchapel bought on his tour of the western states in 1946, and there was sufficient provenance to show it came from the estate of his shockingly young and deliciously beautiful Argentine socialite second wife, then it might make sense to spend what it took to make it new.

New English made luxury pipes cost maybe a thousand dollars.

A new old stock Lee, a mere fraction of that.