Ruminations on Error of Smoking Quality Theory
- Thread starter Briar Lee
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Normally I'm quite happy to remain a lurker, breezing through once in awhile to partake of @Briar Lee 's wit and wisdom.
Today I've learned why a law degree is quite different from a degree in maths, and why lawyers hire accountants: going from 6mm diameter to 8mm is an increase of 33.3%, not 25%.
As anyone who's had to buy rod stock of metal will attest to, the real increase is in volume; which is actually what we're dealing with here.
A Canadian king-size cigarette (happen to have a Benson & Hedges right here!) is 58mm long, excluding filter. At 6mm diameter that gives 16.4 cubic mm. At 8mm, the actual diameter, the volume nearly doubles at 29 cubic mm. That's a lot of extra tobacco to filter and cool a smoke, eh?
Today I've learned why a law degree is quite different from a degree in maths, and why lawyers hire accountants: going from 6mm diameter to 8mm is an increase of 33.3%, not 25%.
As anyone who's had to buy rod stock of metal will attest to, the real increase is in volume; which is actually what we're dealing with here.
A Canadian king-size cigarette (happen to have a Benson & Hedges right here!) is 58mm long, excluding filter. At 6mm diameter that gives 16.4 cubic mm. At 8mm, the actual diameter, the volume nearly doubles at 29 cubic mm. That's a lot of extra tobacco to filter and cool a smoke, eh?
I enjoyed reading this post and it lead me down the proverbial rabbit hole to read about Buchanan ( already knew about a bit), the Shady Nook and Humansville. I have always thought that your use of "Humansville" was a euphemism for the small town in which you were raised. It now is one of my favorite town names in the country!In Humansville Missouri sixty years ago was the Shady Nook Cafe, which Edgar Buchanan (Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction and a Humansville native son) remembered as the Shady Rest, which in his day stood on the same spot.
Louise Hornbeck ran the Shady Nook, and her husband John would come in to help her, between milking 50 cows morning and evening and also running the dairy truck milk haulers to Springfield.
John would look over at Louise and say It’s a lucky thing men have different tastes or else every man on this earth would be after my wife.
Louise would take off her glasses and smile coyly at John, when he said that.
And John Hornbeck is right.
If everybody had my tastes a Marxman would cost more than a Dunhill.
My Zig Zag roller came set to the standard 6mm size. If I’d not read the instructions I’d never have changed it, and I had to use my watch maker tools to change it. I had to depress the pin and cuss and fiddle with it until I got it raised up one notch.
The vast majority of these likely die set on the lower pin notch.
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But 25% more diameter does make a big difference in a hand rolled cigarette.
Camel Wides probably were 8mm.
I don't think it's a binary discussion. It will be a combination of both characteristics. It will certainly be difficult to build a palace with poor quality bricks, but it is completely true that with first quality bricks you can build both a palace and a pigsty.About thirty or so years ago, the owner of the Lead Mine General Store held back for me a Dr Grabow Grand Duke pipe her father had misplaced behind a cabinet in the store about thirty years before.
Marie White sold me that pipe for it’s price sticker of $9.95 and that pipe was the first awesome, over the top, way better smoker than the ordinary pipe I have been lucky enough to own. I’ve aquired a few dynamite good smokers since then
On this forum is a never ending debate between those who hold pipe construction is more important than briar and I’ve been firmly in the camp of it’s the briar.
(Getting the chance to buy a 30 year old brand new pipe at the Lead Mine General store never hurt a pipe’s smoking quality either. Some of smoking quality is psychological, between our ears, a chimera.)
My pencils all have erasers and I use those erasers. I’ve been wrong and will be wrong again about many issues. The hard part is admitting it.
Today I got in a Zig Zag rolling machine for my cheap bottom shelf pipe tobaccos and it has a 6mm and and 8mm size adjustment. The standard American cigarrete is about 6mm. I adjusted my roller to roll fat boy 8mm cigarettes.
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Increasing the diameter of a cigarrete rolled with cheap pipe tobacco 25% makes a profound difference in smoking quality.
I used the same paper, same tobacco, the only change was construction, there is no briar to factor in.
Since increasing the diameter of the cigarrete 25% means the tobacco used increases by much more than 25% the same thing would happen in a briar pipe.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Ancient briar grown way high on a mountain can’t hurt smoking quality, but maybe it’s the chamber dimensions combined with the draft hole that make the biggest differnce?
I’m going to smoke another Willie Nelson size hand roll and ruminate on it some more.
But if we view it backwards--as margin vs mark-up, so to speak-- 6mm is 25% less than 8mm. I've no doubt whatever that that's what brother BL had in mind and was just momentarily distracted by the deep thoughts in which he is everlastingly ensconced.
In increasing the diameter of the hand roll you have decreased the ratio of paper and increased volume of tobacco. I’d imagine same gauge cigarette but with paper snipped by 1/3 would produce same quality of smoke there. I prefer Lanceros, Lonsdales, coronas ets especially with Maduro wrappers in play.
Nor can it be proven.
I'll grant you that, but could not care less about cigs.
Better than what?? Please don't answer....
One post in eight years! I hope this is the start of something new. Welcome!
Indeed it is. I do hope this topic gets wrapped up soon!
I was planning on saying almost the same thing. Basically it all makes a difference.
reminds me of my habit of drinking juice out of a flask for a couple of months until the teachers just let me do my thing for a while.
Also reminds me of how I got into nasal snuff at first because I found a way to make a pinch look and sound like a small nose blowing.
Our other two famous persons are Dr. Alonzo Hamby and Zoe Akins.
When I was in the second grade Edgar Buchanan wrote the school a letter, which was read aloud to all the grades, of how much he treasured his memories of Humansville.
But while I was born at the Dimmitt Memorial Hospital in Humansville, a gift to the town by a wealthy executive of JC Penney in 1929, I was raised up a half mile or so South of Emmet Molder’s Bug Tussle store, which sat in the town of Hamlet, formerly named Sexon.
Hamlet (Cedar County, MO)
Local information and community profile for Hamlet (Cedar County, State of Missouri). Contains: area code, time zone, elevation and much more.
It was universally referred to as the town of Big Tussle.
Emmett was a next door neighbor and a relentless promoter of Bug Tussle, who was called the Mayor of Bug Tussle.
Yes, the same Bug Tussle as where Uncle Jed struck oil shooting at some food:
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If a bigger cigar does, and a bigger cigarette does, a bigger pipe should smoke better.
Shouldn’t it?
It's both. You could have the finest piece of briar ever known to man. If the drills and stem are off, I wouldn't enjoy the smoke. The quality of briar could never overcome poor construction.
Take two perfectly constructed pipes, I think it's obvious the better briar would smoke a bit better. Of the 2, I think it's obvious the construction is far more important. After some period, cake builds up. A nice layer of cake will negate the impact of the briar on the quality of the smoke.
Take two perfectly constructed pipes, I think it's obvious the better briar would smoke a bit better. Of the 2, I think it's obvious the construction is far more important. After some period, cake builds up. A nice layer of cake will negate the impact of the briar on the quality of the smoke.
Hardly anything about pipes is provable to a certainty. It’s all opinions and individual preferences.
There are people who prefer tiny chambered pipes that hold a gram or so of tobacco and gluttons like me who think they should start at six grams.
My latest C size Marxman Jumbo cost $10 during the Great Depression when that would have bought a Dunhill. It weighs sixty grams and has a bore diameter of .870”.
The Bruck Bros “GIANT” that came packaged with it weighs 45 grams and also has a .870” bore.
Both are excellent smokers that hold over three 2 gram flakes of PS Luxury Navy Flake or Luxury Twist Flake, and neither get hot to hold while I smoke them.
The briar quality those pipes have, might not govern how well they smoke.
It might be chamber dimensions.
And if it’s chamber dimensions, then a high dollar, high grade pipe only smokes better in our imagination.
Any wood would do as well.
There are people who prefer tiny chambered pipes that hold a gram or so of tobacco and gluttons like me who think they should start at six grams.
My latest C size Marxman Jumbo cost $10 during the Great Depression when that would have bought a Dunhill. It weighs sixty grams and has a bore diameter of .870”.
The Bruck Bros “GIANT” that came packaged with it weighs 45 grams and also has a .870” bore.
Both are excellent smokers that hold over three 2 gram flakes of PS Luxury Navy Flake or Luxury Twist Flake, and neither get hot to hold while I smoke them.
The briar quality those pipes have, might not govern how well they smoke.
It might be chamber dimensions.
And if it’s chamber dimensions, then a high dollar, high grade pipe only smokes better in our imagination.
Any wood would do as well.
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@grimpeur is a man of few words, like maybe 2 a year.
Even the greatest novel started with a word or two....!