School me About Ideal Humidity Levels in Briar

[Briar Lee]

Another thing about "Mr. Lee"...

He's supposedly from HUMANsville.

That's a town deep in the Missouri backcountry with a population of, like, three. Maybe ten if you count the dogs. (That's even smaller than the crossroads in Canadisia where Sas comes from)

Hmmmmm...

I've met Kevin a few times---enough to know he has a keen sense of humor---and, well, Imma gonna guess that claiming his experimental NON-human chatbot is from "Humansville" was simply too delicious to resist.

I was actually born and raised five miles West of Humansville in the Rosebud Community, and the nearest town was Bug Tussle. Bug Tussle had formerly been known as Hamlet, and before that was Sexton, when a post office was in operation.

Bug Tussle Missouri is listed on various location sites but Hamlet (same location, earlier name) is still being carried over from century old road maps.


Hamlet

Jefferson Township, MO 65785 Hamlet - Google Search - https://g.co/kgs/KFPrzN

Please note that Hamlet, Missouri had nothing to do with Shakespeare. A man named Sexton first owned the site, established a post office and store, and when Sexton died a man named Hamlet bought the store, and changed the name of the town to Hamlet.

A young man named Emmett Molder bought the Hamlet store, in the 1930s. A lively and ambitious business man, he adopted the humorous slang term of Bug Tussle for his store, which name it had when my grandmother Myrtle “Ma” Cahow Agee was shown the place in 1947 when her daughter, married my father.


Why this matters, is this.

Ma Agee wrote a humorous weekly column in The Index, published still today in Hermitage Missouri.

In the series she married off her beautiful daughter Saydee to a fine young boy who lived just South of Bug Tussle, and her and Pa were forever afterwards driving over past the metropolis of Humansville to visit her kinfolks by Bug Tussle, and getting onto various scrapes and adventures there.

Bye and bye a man named Paul Fleming adapted a television series based on Ma and Pa and their daughter Saydee and son Sy Thomas.

But because the owners of The Index owned every word my grandmother had ever written for thirty years, Henning induced her to write her own book, copyrighted in her name alone.

She made a decent living from royalties earned from that book so long as the Beverley Hillbillies (and companion shows Petticoat Junction and Green Acres) aired, and even some afterwards.

No bot, could know that Emmet Molder, was the real life Mayor of Bug Tussle, which never has had any street lights or traffic signs to identify.

MAYOR OF BUGTUSSLE

Bug Tussle is located in Cedar County, Missouri, and Emmett Molder and his wife are buried in Cedar County at Alder Cemetery.

Emmett G. Molder (1901-1988) - Find a Grave...

www.findagrave.com

Emmett and Dora closed the Bug Tussle store in the fifties after the paving of Route M caused the closing of the Rose Bud school and people in the Rosebud Community shopped in Humansville, instead.

Actually, I’m from Bug Tussle, a part of the greater metropolitan Humansville metroplex.

I just attended school, in Humansville.

 

[georged]

I see...

...that Kevin definitely checked all the Maximum Imaginative Pushback boxes when loading the chatbot software.

a.k.a. utilize the Spin Elaborate Yarns defense when cornered.

Anyone notice that after all that, the edible photos still weren't identified?

 

[jpmcwjr]

Well, good writing, but I now know more about rural SW Missouri than I care to!

Back to topic: The ideal humidity level for a briar pipe is exactly that in which it will be smoked.
Variances, unless to absurd extremes, are not worth any more thought than the price of beans in Chillicothe.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Come to think of it, I have a brother-in-law that just might be one of these chat bots.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

On topic…. Do guys who smoke briars in the desert have more than usual cases of cracks?…. What about Antarctica?
Research needs to be done!

 

[fireground_piper]

I still stand by temperature as a bigger culprit. I have digital temp and humidity gauges throughout my house, basement and shop so I’m are of my temp and humidity changes every time I enter a space.

My humidity goes down to 25-30% during the winter with the wood stove running and near 80% in the peak of summer without any notable difference. Temp impacts them very noticeably, they expand when warm and shrink when cold.

I have actually made a tenon to a stummel I had kept under heat not thinking about it and when I was done with everything it nearly fell out of the shank when left for about a week in 50-60 degree temp. The humidity under the heat was ~18% compared to about 35-40% at room temp when it loosened.

So lower humidity at higher temp swelled the briar compared to lower temp/higher humidity after. I did it twice with repeatable results. That’s my experience with actual gauges but I’m certainly tempted to standardize a test.

 

[telescopes]

On topic…. Do guys who smoke briars in the desert have more than usual cases of cracks?…. What about Antarctica?
Research needs to be done!

My experience. No. But I can dry my tobacco fairly quickly.

 

[Briar Lee]

I still stand by temperature as a bigger culprit. I have digital temp and humidity gauges throughout my house, basement and shop so I’m are of my temp and humidity changes every time I enter a space.

My humidity goes down to 25-30% during the winter with the wood stove running and near 80% in the peak of summer without any notable difference. Temp impacts them very noticeably, they expand when warm and shrink when cold.

I have actually made a tenon to a stummel I had kept under heat not thinking about it and when I was done with everything it nearly fell out of the shank when left for about a week in 50-60 degree temp. The humidity under the heat was ~18% compared to about 35-40% at room temp when it loosened.

So lower humidity at higher temp swelled the briar compared to lower temp/higher humidity after. I did it twice with repeatable results. That’s my experience with actual gauges but I’m certainly tempted to standardize a test.

It occurs to me, sitting here thinking, that another blessing granted to the world bestowed by Mr Lee was the Lee Star Grade screw stem is nearly impervious to humidity changes that might either cause inferior imported pipes from cool and damp island climates to have a tenon to stem fit to become too tight, or too loose, according to humidity changes of the briar. The space age, atomic era aluminum Lee screw stem does not change according to temperature and humidity, although the vulcanite to briar surface joined might slightly be affected.

The Lee Star Grade pipes were synchronized, or another term is clocked, according to the average ambient temperature and humidity prevalent in New York City when made. For the early inlaid 7 pointed star production the stem is at approximately 11 to 11:30, yet the later (and I believe improved) inlaid 5 pointed star era production pipes are found almost precisely clocked at 12:00.

When you sit and think about it awhile, Mr Lee realized that in the 1950s that his well heeled customers were by then storing their pipes in temperature and humidity controlled homes and offices, thus the alteration of synchronization.

Of course my then Lefty Frizzell had recorded a ballad devoted to sitting and thinking, which might also have inspired the change.

SITTING AND THINKING

Most mysteries in life, could be solved by country music ballads.

It’s a pity more folks don’t listen to them, I think.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I still stand by temperature as a bigger culprit. I have digital temp and humidity gauges throughout my house, basement and shop so I’m are of my temp and humidity changes every time I enter a space.

My humidity goes down to 25-30% during the winter with the wood stove running and near 80% in the peak of summer without any notable difference. Temp impacts them very noticeably, they expand when warm and shrink when cold.
<< Snipped bits out >>

Excellent! Of course, neither temp nor humidity can be useful in a vacuum. To clarify that clumsy sentence: They are very interrelated.

I bought a Pete bent billiard in Santa Fe a number of years ago. I soon discovered the silver or nickel band was loose as a goose. When I got back to the Bay Area, time and a bit of smoking introduced enough moisture to expand the outside diameter of the shank so it's snug as a bug in a rug.

Do you ever attempt to use the RH of your tobacco as a guide to moisture content?

 

[JKoD]

This is becoming the most amazing thread that has no real point.

OP - can you expand on the gun stocks? I’d like to know how you are cracking the stocks in your wooden firearms ?‍.

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

You all go ahead and figure this out while I run to the store.

 

[fireground_piper]

Do you ever attempt to use the RH of your tobacco as a guide to moisture content?

I wish I had a moisture meter to detect immediate levels in objects. That, I do not have sadly at this time. It probably would be informative though to pick up!

 

[boston]

I purchased a Hiroyuki Tokutomi pipe many years ago, and I think at the time it was over $600. I had planned to smoke it for the first time on a special occasion. Many months passed and the pipe sat on a shelf with my other pipes in my study. One day lo and behold, a crack appeared in the bowl. Now this thing had never been smoked, and had hardly been handled, and certainly never dropped. So, these things can happen, and when it happens to an expensive pipe, it can be a bummer. The seller allowed me to return the pipe after a bit of discussion. My point was that a pipe is intended to be lit on fire and not crack. One would certainly expect it not to crack if it is simply sitting on a shelf. I have never had another pipe crack in the same fashion. I do have a number of fairly expensive pipes, and I've never really given thought to the humidity levels where they are stored. But I am giving it some thought now.

 

[Briar Lee]

This is becoming the most amazing thread that has no real point.

OP - can you expand on the gun stocks? I’d like to know how you are cracking the stocks in your wooden firearms ?‍.

Fine pipes and fine gun stocks share one thing in common- they must be made from certain species of wood grown a certain place and, that wood is perfect for the purpose and all else, are cheaper substitutes. A fine gun, must have an English walnut stock, Juglans Regia, preferably raised in the Caucasus Mountains in the Circassian region, which also is home to the most beautiful women on earth.

Circassian beauty - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

—-
Typical sales pitch for high dollar Circassian walnut blanks

WALNUT PRODUCTS​

Due to its remarkable characteristics, Circassian walnut has been used in many industries for centuries. Some of the world’s finest guitars, furniture pieces, and many other top-quality products are made of this type of wood. However, it is rifle stocks where Circassian walnut shines in its full glory. The beauty, stability, and durability of these stocks made them very popular with rifle and gun buyers. Add the incredible workability to this, and you can see why Circassian-walnut stock blanks are on high demand as well.
Color of Circassian-walnut stocks varies quite a bit, mostly in relation to its geographical origin. It can be straw (pale yellow), light brown, red, dark brown, or even almost black. However, the color most typical for the Circassian-walnut trees that grow on the Caucasus and other regions around the Black Sea (e.g. Bulgaria) is brown. It is a rich deep shade of brown that gives a distinctive look to any weapon. As this wood polishes very well, the effects of such color get even more impressive. Very fine and tight grains stretch along the entire length of the stock, in perfect harmony with the direction of the line of the barrel.

Circassian walnut trees live very long, often 200 years or more. They can grow over 25 meters (80 feet) tall and reach more than 1.5 meter (5 feet) in diameter. Due to very old age, and due to the harsh cold climate of the Caucasus Mountains from where this tree originated, blanks made from it are very resilient. Strong, compact internal structure, combined with a decent elasticity, makes these rifle stocks very stable and almost impossible to break. Circassian walnut has remarkably fine grain, which results in checkering of up to 32 lines per inch. Result like this is probably impossible to find in any other wood.
—-

Like a fine briar pipe, the most expensive gun stocks are natural in color, using no stain or filler. Only hand applied boiled linseed oil is used for finishing.

Gun stock blanks must be dried, either naturally or in a kiln, and ideally aged.

The price of my Grade I Belgian Browning Superposed shotgun rose to $400 by 1964. It is a thing of rare beauty, and only worth about a couple thousand dollars due to a weather crack in the left back part of the stock, hardly noticeable, and not worth repairing.

Today, Browning takes a $25,000 deposit plus extra for engraving, and puts you on a two year waiting list for a Superposed.

This is the bargain of truly fine guns, as a “best gun” made in London England by Purdey, Holland and Holland, or Boss costs in excess of one hundred thousand pounds. The finest Italian guns are priced accordingly.

The 10 most expensive guns

Tempted to spend the school fees on a side-by-side? You will be after reading our list of the 10 most expensive guns in the world

www.thefield.co.uk

Every truly fine gun, only uses English walnut, of the highest grade. High end old Pre 64 Winchesters used a high grade of American Black Walnut, but only because it was cheaper than the best English.

Although it wasn’t in the 1946 article, Lord (soon to be Baron) Inverchapel undoubtably owned a matched pair of London best guns, stocked with magnificent English walnut, when he searched for English made pipes on his tour of the Western states. At that time an English best gun was about a thousand dollars each, plus a ten per cent extra fee for a matched pair.

Our man Earnest Hemingway was wearing out a fifty dollar Winchester Model 12, stocked with plain American black walnut, chasing submarines with his yacht, fighting bulls, burning through multiple young wives, going shirtless and getting in brawls in Cuban dive bars. He wrote that he almost wore it out.

It’s not recorded, but if Hemingway smoked a pipe, it would have been at least a Kaywoodie, if he couldn’t obtain a Lee.




I’m not saying Lord (later Baron) Inverchapel wasn’t a tough guy.

But he’d have to get up really early to match Hemingway.

Archibald Clark Kerr, 1st Baron Inverchapel - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I purchased a Hiroyuki Tokutomi pipe many years ago, and I think at the time it was over $600. I had planned to smoke it for the first time on a special occasion. Many months passed and the pipe sat on a shelf with my other pipes in my study. One day lo and behold, a crack appeared in the bowl. Now this thing had never been smoked, and had hardly been handled, and certainly never dropped. So, these things can happen, and when it happens to an expensive pipe, it can be a bummer. The seller allowed me to return the pipe after a bit of discussion. My point was that a pipe is intended to be lit on fire and not crack. One would certainly expect it not to crack if it is simply sitting on a shelf. I have never had another pipe crack in the same fashion. I do have a number of fairly expensive pipes, and I've never really given thought to the humidity levels where they are stored. But I am giving it some thought now.

My first Neerup, did some weird things too. The very first time I smoked it, about half way through the bowl, the thing started making cracking sounds, loud, like ice melting on a frozen lake. My wife could hear it. I could feel the vibrations from this crackling sound. I quickly emptied the bowl, and checked it out thoroughly. No signs of any damage, outside the bowl, inside the bowl, nor in the draft.
So, I just came to the conclusion, it's a cheap pipe, no worries if it gets split apart, so I reloaded it and just smoked it. It made singular cracking sounds on the next two bowls, but it has never made that sound again. It's not a huge chunk of briar, the walls are rather thin, and it is very lightweight. I still smoke the hell out of it, with no problems at all. This has been quite a few years ago, and no more sounds. I have over 100 pipes and I have never experienced anything like that.

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

Beware anytime anyone says “must” !!

 

[JKoD]

Fine pipes and fine gun stocks share one thing in common- they must be made from certain species of wood grown a certain place and, that wood is perfect for the purpose and all else, are cheaper substitutes. A fine gun, must have an English walnut stock, Juglans Regia, preferably raised in the Caucasus Mountains in the Circassian region, which also is home to the most beautiful women on earth.

Circassian beauty - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

—-
Typical sales pitch for high dollar Circassian walnut blanks

WALNUT PRODUCTS​

Due to its remarkable characteristics, Circassian walnut has been used in many industries for centuries. Some of the world’s finest guitars, furniture pieces, and many other top-quality products are made of this type of wood. However, it is rifle stocks where Circassian walnut shines in its full glory. The beauty, stability, and durability of these stocks made them very popular with rifle and gun buyers. Add the incredible workability to this, and you can see why Circassian-walnut stock blanks are on high demand as well.
Color of Circassian-walnut stocks varies quite a bit, mostly in relation to its geographical origin. It can be straw (pale yellow), light brown, red, dark brown, or even almost black. However, the color most typical for the Circassian-walnut trees that grow on the Caucasus and other regions around the Black Sea (e.g. Bulgaria) is brown. It is a rich deep shade of brown that gives a distinctive look to any weapon. As this wood polishes very well, the effects of such color get even more impressive. Very fine and tight grains stretch along the entire length of the stock, in perfect harmony with the direction of the line of the barrel.

Circassian walnut trees live very long, often 200 years or more. They can grow over 25 meters (80 feet) tall and reach more than 1.5 meter (5 feet) in diameter. Due to very old age, and due to the harsh cold climate of the Caucasus Mountains from where this tree originated, blanks made from it are very resilient. Strong, compact internal structure, combined with a decent elasticity, makes these rifle stocks very stable and almost impossible to break. Circassian walnut has remarkably fine grain, which results in checkering of up to 32 lines per inch. Result like this is probably impossible to find in any other wood.
—-

Like a fine briar pipe, the most expensive gun stocks are natural in color, using no stain or filler. Only hand applied boiled linseed oil is used for finishing.

Gun stock blanks must be dried, either naturally or in a kiln, and ideally aged.

The price of my Grade I Belgian Browning Superposed shotgun rose to $400 by 1964. It is a thing of rare beauty, and only worth about a couple thousand dollars due to a weather crack in the left back part of the stock, hardly noticeable, and not worth repairing.

Today, Browning takes a $25,000 deposit plus extra for engraving, and puts you on a two year waiting list for a Superposed.

This is the bargain of truly fine guns, as a “best gun” made in London England by Purdey, Holland and Holland, or Boss costs in excess of one hundred thousand pounds. The finest Italian guns are priced accordingly.

The 10 most expensive guns

Tempted to spend the school fees on a side-by-side? You will be after reading our list of the 10 most expensive guns in the world

www.thefield.co.uk

Every truly fine gun, only uses English walnut, of the highest grade. High end old Pre 64 Winchesters used a high grade of American Black Walnut, but only because it was cheaper than the best English.

Although it wasn’t in the 1946 article, Lord (soon to be Baron) Inverchapel undoubtably owned a matched pair of London best guns, stocked with magnificent English walnut, when he searched for English made pipes on his tour of the Western states. At that time an English best gun was about a thousand dollars each, plus a ten per cent extra fee for a matched pair.

Our man Earnest Hemingway was wearing out a fifty dollar Winchester Model 12, stocked with plain American black walnut, chasing submarines with his yacht, fighting bulls, burning through multiple young wives, going shirtless and getting in brawls in Cuban dive bars. He wrote that he almost wore it out.

It’s not recorded, but if Hemingway smoked a pipe, it would have been at least a Kaywoodie, if he couldn’t obtain a Lee.

View attachment 113394


I’m not saying Lord (later Baron) Inverchapel wasn’t a tough guy.

But he’d have to get up really early to match Hemingway.

Huh. So, how do you crack your wood stocks on your firearms? Anything made with wood requires the correct type of wood.

 

[Briar Lee]

Huh. So, how do you crack your wood stocks on your firearms? Anything made with wood requires the correct type of wood.

The crack is barely discernible, about an inch long, at the left rear of the stock. It’s not a quarter inch deep. If it was a pipe, I’d put filler in it. It was caused by changes in humidity from where it was aged and where it was used. You’d not likely see it if I didn’t point it out.

I was shown the crack by the previous owner, Lenard Elliot, who’d bought the gun as a demo from the Browning dealer Ray Ekert who was the first user, for $350 in 1966.

It was there when he bought the gun from Ray Ekert, he said. Ray Ekert was a professional wrestler who obtained a Browning dealership, in 1958, retired in 1988, and died in 1996.

Ray Eckert - Facts @ Wrestlingdata.com

Ray Eckert - Facts

www.wrestlingdata.com

For 55 years my Superposed has only been handled and shot by Ray, Lenard, and me. Lenard drove to Arnold to have Browning open the bottom barrel to improved cylinder, and I drove to Jordan to have Rod Gates open the top barrel to a Gates Choke (a very tight improved cylinder) and I purchased a good Browning cloth and leather case for it.

Such things as tiny cracks in stocks where they were cut to add buffalo horn butt plates is why, the very next year, Browning made the utterly disastrous decision to substitute salt dried fake English walnut grown in the State of California and thus the Salt Wood Browning debacle occurred. (Comparisons of the Mission Briar used by Kaywoodie during the war are appropriate).

Browning Salt Wood Explained

Dear Technoid, Please discuss the Browning Superposed salt problem and how to detect this defect. I have not been able to find any reference to it in the shotgun literature. Bill Dear Bill, The bes…

shotgunreport.com

There is a moral, to this sad story.

A fine briar pipe must be made of the highest grade of briar root properly cured and dried from the Mediterranean, such as any Lee Star Grade, or some other pipes made overseas in limited numbers, some even sand blasted.

And a truly fine gun must use properly dried and aged English walnut from close to that region, as well.

You may search for substitutes, but it’s like overlooking an orchid, while searching for a rose.

 

[Briar Lee]

My first Neerup, did some weird things too. The very first time I smoked it, about half way through the bowl, the thing started making cracking sounds, loud, like ice melting on a frozen lake. My wife could hear it. I could feel the vibrations from this crackling sound. I quickly emptied the bowl, and checked it out thoroughly. No signs of any damage, outside the bowl, inside the bowl, nor in the draft.
So, I just came to the conclusion, it's a cheap pipe, no worries if it gets split apart, so I reloaded it and just smoked it. It made singular cracking sounds on the next two bowls, but it has never made that sound again. It's not a huge chunk of briar, the walls are rather thin, and it is very lightweight. I still smoke the hell out of it, with no problems at all. This has been quite a few years ago, and no more sounds. I have over 100 pipes and I have never experienced anything like that.

I’ve experienced slight cracking sounds from several briars, in the almost fifty years I’ve smoked a pipe, usually near the bottom of the bowl.

One certain Bari Hand Made produced loud enough sounds, and the pungent aroma of burning briar, enough my wife feared my pipe would catch on fire, although it did not. Eventually I broke in the Bari and it’s part of my obscenely large accumulation of pipes today, and a cool, sweet smoking pipe.

When briar root is dug up from heath trees the root is still green, and part of a living shrub. It’s filled with water and saps and nasty tasting tannins. To become usable for making pipes, the root must first be soaked or boiled in water to remove most of the saps and tannins, then air or kiln dried to a workable level of humidity.

We know that Mr Lee purchased the briar for his first pipes in 1946 at auction, in bags of briar blocks. This briar would have been boiled in water, and would have dried somewhat while in custody of the war era holding company that had stored it for several years.

A certain famous English make of pipe had oil cured briar before the war. Mr. Lee took his bags of briar and boiled them in some unknown sweet oil, then likely kiln dried them before carving.

OIL CURING PIPES

While Mr. Lee used an oil curing process for his Star Grade pipes, and perhaps a lining of honey or other sweet tasting oil, that made a Lee Star Grade a very pleasant pipe to smoke from the first smoke, you do see 7 point star Lees occasionally with cracked briar, perhaps due to kiln drying, but it’s impossible to say for certain about used pipes.

A CRACKED LEE

I think the popping or cracking sound a new briar pipe occasionally makes is made by tiny balls of sap or resin that suddenly pop like popcorn when heated. Eventually they all go off, and the pipe is silent.

if that’s not true, how else to explain it?

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

Could it be happy flatulence?