Question Regarding A Pipe That Burned Out.

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sasquatch

Lifer
Jul 16, 2012
1,683
2,862
Briar supply is good. There has been a shift away from the big factories requiring 400,000 blocks of no particular character towards artisans and smaller shops needing better and more specific types of pieces. But briar is fairly fast growing as a plant, and there's tons and tons of it around. The cutters I've chatted with operate as forestry managers, they take the trees that are ready, leave the ones that aren't. But the idea of "running out" is preposterous - there's far less overall demand for briar today than there was 40 (or whatever) years ago. The demand for super-briar is of course as high as it's ever been - every hobbyist is emailing the cutters and vendors looking for a whopping 3 top-grade uber-blocks at this point, and there's thousands of those guys now where there just wasn't before.
But what is available now is absolutely as good (arguable better) then what has ever been available - standards are high, information and product is widely available. It's all good. I can get briar from various vendors that would put a DR or an Autograph to shame. I have access to whatever cuts I want, whatever sizes, and I can choose Greece, Algeria, or any number of Italian vendors, let alone Turkey, Corsica, Morocco, whatever.

 

sasquatch

Lifer
Jul 16, 2012
1,683
2,862
All briar is decades old before it's carved. All. To quote Jaume Hom, the plant is not big enough until some 30 years of age.
The root is 30 to 50 years old when harvested. Before that, it's too small. After that, it's showing cracks, possibly attacked by insects, all kinds of issues.
No one ever bought wood and sat on it for 50 years. Ever. Period. Briar was harvested, cut, boiled, sent to factories, and used. Imagine warehousing a half million blocks for 50 years. Never happened, never will.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Instructive photos, sasquatch, and thanks. They illustrate the flaw clearly. I've never had a burnout. I presume I have a few pipes with flaws that could cause a burnout, but the flaws are not in critical positions to start a process, so present no problem, I surmise. I had the opportunity as a kid to observe my dad's one-pipe-at-a-time pipe smoking, from just after breakfast until bedtime with breaks for meals and business sessions. Eventually, all of his pipes burnt through. It seems most of them burnt through the side of the bowl eventually causing a crack that soon dusted ash. So in a sense, every pipe will burn out with sufficient use, but it isn't the hole in the bottom flaw; it's just eventual burning away of the wall resulting in a crack. But this was done through long daily usage, took a year or two, and was what he entirely expected. He was a kid of the Great Depression and wasn't going to buy a rack of pipes. And he only smoked Granger. So some burnout is because of a flaw, but some is just time and use. Another oddity is that he wasn't hard-up; he worked in the municipal bond business, made a good living, and put three kids through undergraduate college. He packed for a two week vacation in a duffle. It was just who he was. In his off-time, he wore a lumberjack shirt.

 

thehappypiper

Can't Leave
Feb 27, 2014
303
0
My dad did that too. Had one, maybe two low-to-midrange pipes which he smoked all day until they broke or got so saturated that he just threw them away and bought another one on the way home from work. That was in the days you could buy a Peterson from a good newsagent. He mixed and matched tobaccos. Knew nothing or cared little about resting a pipe or ghosting. He just smoked it, clenched while working on his car, or even making dinner I seem to remember once! I think he smoked 35-50g per day at one point.

I went on a trip with him long after he'd given up the pipe and I brought an army medibag with me, specifically for my smoking. As I unzipped it, to reveal several high grade pipes along with a few choice tobaccos, he said "God sake son! You're like a woman with her make-up bag!"

Mind you, after dinner he did look enviously at my Dunhill and said "I always wondered what it was like to smoke one of these."

He was driving a Jaguar while smoking a pipe I would consider a "budget/beginner's" item.

I doubt I will ever be able to afford a car like that.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
'happy, I think my dad bought most of his pipes at newsstands. That was standard inventory. I'm perpetually curious to know which brands he bought, but there's no evidence left. I did inherit his pipe stand with tobacco jar, which he inherited from his dad. The newsstands in downtown Chicago carried a heavy inventory of tobacco products of every kind, and at a range of prices, in addition to newspapers, magazines, nail clippers, etc. etc.

 

tkcolo

Starting to Get Obsessed
Apr 30, 2018
240
328
51
Granby, CO
I bought a beautiful heavily rusticated ebay estate Tinsky from Italy, where the owner completely misrepresented the condition. It had a fractured tenon, thin walls, and heat fissure charing everywhere that could not have left 1/32" of good wood.
I was so disappointed that I didn't smoke it for a long time. I finally got brave repaired the tenon and repaired the fissures with fireplace mortar. I have been smoking it back very carefully. I mean I started surgically smoking this thing with partial bowls trying to build back some good hard VA cake. I'm 30 bowls into it, and I have to say that this pipe is turning into one of my best smokers. We will see in the long run, but I think I'll have this forever. I won't ever smoke it outside, or when I can't pay close attention to it.
Also, I'll say that trying to smoke it as cool as possible, has taught me how to slow down on all of them. The experience was a lesson in how much better tobacco can be when smoked super cooly.

 

thehappypiper

Can't Leave
Feb 27, 2014
303
0
MSO (I always see "miso" when I read your name)

I think most of us will agree that it is ridiculous that pipe smoking is so unusual these days, when it is so much better than cigarettes in ever respect

 
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