Ruminations on the Useful Life of a Pipe

[Briar Lee]

As the sun sinks lower in the west, I’m admiring a pair of my very high condition Lee Star Grade pipes I’ve been puffing on all day.

Up at my office I own two or three dozen more Lee Star Grades in even higher condition. These pipes had been obviously well used when I bought them for about twenty some dollars each, and cleaned them up.

The fairest maiden, in time will become old, gray, and stooped. A brand new car, with that wonderful smell and doors that sound like bank vaults shutting, will even if well kept and carefully driven, be hauled away to the scrap yard. All newness is vanity, and everything wears out if used enough.

I bought three other pipes recently that have been smoked more than I think I’ve seen any used pipe smoked, although they were obviously lovingly maintained. Even so, they are well on their way tk being decorator pieces.

When I apply grapeseed oil to those pipes they turn black on the bottoms of the bowls and the shanks. Years of smoking have caused tars to penetrate the briar. I used salt and everclear on two, and they smoke fresher. But that’s only temporary.

So how long does a briar pipe have a useful life?

I’ve known a lot of pipe smokers during the last fifty years that claimed to only have one, cheap briar pipe, and they smoked it all day, every day. Every one claimed they had to buy a new briar pipe every year, or at most two years.

So it’s my guesstimating that if abused, a briar is good for two or three thousand smokes.

But even if well maintained, I’d guess about ten thousand smokes and they are about all ready to display on a pipe rack as decorators.

I wonder, if anyone has ever conducted any kind of real research on this question?

Now I need to fill the little Two Star poker, and enjoy the close of another day.

 

[alan73]

I’ve pieced back pipes into smoking condition that were in multiple pieces . I used furnace cement and wood putty to reassemble the bowl … I don’t think there is an end date on any pipe . Two holes and a bowl . some of my Frankenstein pipe renovations were absolute great smokers . I don’t smoke em anymore , but I didn’t throw them out

 

[alan73]

I have cut an old caked up pipe bowl in 2 , zero penetration of the wood with tar , chambers were blackened but nothing else in the interior of the wood

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

If cared for properly and kept clean, I see no reason for the life of a briar pipe to ever end.

 

[sablebrush52]

So how long does a briar pipe have a useful life?

Until it doesn't. Same thing could be asked of people.

So it’s my guesstimating that if abused, a briar is good for two or three thousand smokes.

But even if well maintained, I’d guess about ten thousand smokes and they are about all ready to display on a pipe rack as decorators.

I wonder, if anyone has ever conducted any kind of real research on this question?

When it comes to "research" in the pipe world the standard is a little different than in the scientific community.

Certainly, many "experts" on pipes have offered up their opinions on longevity and Rick Newcombe recounts one such set of opinions in "In Search Of Pipe Dreams".

10,000 smokes is as good a choice as any, but by no means definitive.

I know people smoking pipes that are well over 180 years old, Meerschaums, and my oldest working briar is 140 years old.

 

[warren]

So far my pipes have lasted as long as I have. So, no complaints. How long they last after I'm dead really isn't a concern. I suspect my pipes, blends, etc. will end up in the bin soon after I've hit the trail.

 

[OzPiper]

It all depends on the person smoking the pipe and how much care he takes. And the usage.

The quality of the briar also needs to considered

I have pipes that are well over 100yo that are in pristine condition

 

[didimauw]

1 Grabow for 1 Year (8/2/19) :: General Pipe Smoking Discussion

Very impressive feat. Congrats are in order. If you settle in for the next meer for a year challenge I'll follow that too

pipesmagazine.com

Not quite the length you were talking but this pipe is just over 1000 bowls now, and if it had to do it then times over I think it could.

 

[irishearl]

Until it doesn't. Same thing could be asked of people.

When it comes to "research" in the pipe world the standard is a little different than in the scientific community.

Certainly, many "experts" on pipes have offered up their opinions on longevity and Rick Newcombe recounts one such set of opinions in "In Search Of Pipe Dreams".

10,000 smokes is as good a choice as any, but by no means definitive.

I know people smoking pipes that are well over 180 years old, Meerschaums, and my oldest working briar is 140 years old.

Yeah, 1 of the pipes in my regular rotation is 122 years old

 

[telescopes]

Nothing is forever. Personally, I think a pipe left to the elements or in an environment that is not controlled will leave the briar wanting in terms of resilience.

 

[didimauw]

Nothing is forever. Personally, I think a pipe left to the elements or in an environment that is not controlled will leave the briar wanting in terms of resilience.

Sounds like a challenge for @mikethompson

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

If properly maintained, forever.

 

[kcghost]

All I ask of a pipe is to stay with me as long as I last.

 

[mikethompson]

Sounds like a challenge for @mikethompson

 

[Briar Lee]

That the salt and alcohol treatment is so well known among devoted pipe smokers, if proof pipes do get sour.

It’s sort of magical seeing that pure white salt soaked in Everclear turn to brown and then coal black in a day’s time.

It’s sucking the nasty stuff from the briar. I wonder if there’s a salt solution replacing where the tars were?

I occasionally think I must do a salt bath to my pipes, but I notice, that although they are better afterwards, they are never again as good, as they were when they were fresh.

Which reminds me of an old country song, but most things in life do.

AFTER THE FIRE IS GONE

 

[craig61a]

 

[Chasing Embers]

That the salt and alcohol treatment is so well known among devoted pipe smokers, if proof pipes do get sour.

Also debunked if you clean a pipe after smoking it and wipe the chamber out with a paper towel to keep the carbon in check. Salt has also long been known to crack a pipe's bowl and many use cotton balls instead now and is primarily used for disinfecting estate pipes and removing ghosts.

 

[SBC]

Anecdotally, as you say, old timers who abused their pipes told us that they smoked one briar "all day, every day" for "a couple years" before they "had to get another one."

To put conservative numbers on this, let's say that this might mean something like 8 bowls a day, 6 days a week, for a total of about 5,000 bowls before it needed to be replaced.

Of course, this leaves many questions unanswered.

What does it mean that the codger "needed to get another one"? Had it burned through? Did it just taste filthy? Had he bent the tenon badly? Had it caked too thick to be functional?

If stem and shank are cleaned after each smoke, if stem is removed much more rarely, if cake is never permitted to grow too thick, if the smoker never torches the bottom of the bowl in an attempt to smoke dottle, if the pipe is never overheated, if the pipe is never knocked while the stem is held, if the pipe is not kept in an erosive or degenerative environment, and if this pipe is given rest between smokes as other pipes are used, well then, the life of that pipe may be longer than we or our great-grandsons need to worry about, practically speaking.

Still, no material thing will naturally last forever, so I appreciate this post as a reflection on the brevity of life and the vanity of "stuff." As stated, that damsel will age, and sometime between now and a million years from now, that car and that pipe will be no more. So enjoy your stuff with thanksgiving, but vest your deepest satisfaction in that which cannot decay.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Also debunked if you clean a pipe after smoking it and wipe the chamber out with a paper towel to keep the carbon in check. Salt has also long been known to crack a pipe's bowl and many use cotton balls instead now and is primarily used for disinfecting estate pipes and removing ghosts.

Yep. To me, even simpler is a trickle (or flood if you're wild and crazy) of hot water down the chamber and out the stem works wonders. Then whisk the chamber with a paper towel, pipe cleaner through the airway, and occasionally, Q-tip in the mortise.

It's hard to break away from habits and long held theories and practices.

 

[Briar Lee]

One of the most memorable sermons of my devout Campbellite youth (that I heard given many ways, at different times) was that that on that Great Judgement Morning, when all nations are gathered before the White Throne, that unless we labor a lifetime In His Service,,,,that the Master will turn to us and say, sorry I never knew you.

Think of the anguish, of eternity in hell, the preachers would thunder.

Then they’d lean low over the pulpit and whisper eternity is unfathomable to mortal man.

Out in the Rockies, there’s a huge granite mountain. And if every ten thousand years a bird sharpens it’s beak on that mountain,,,when the mountain is all worn away,,,

That, is a drop in the ocean, in the everlasting sea of eternity.

It sort of made us listen more for the wail of the widow and cry of the orphan, and heed their call, which of course was the purpose of such stemwinders as those.

A well kept Lee will last a very long time, but nothing made by man, is eternal.