Excuse me.. whilst I light this Cob with a Krieghoff. I’d prefer to use one of my Citori’s, but I fear its in possession of an inferior grade of walnut and I do not wish to offend the Cob.
School me About Ideal Humidity Levels in Briar
- Thread starter Briar Lee
- Start date
SmokingPipes.com Updates
Watch for Updates Twice a Week
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
Site Sponsors
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
- Status
Maybe
I know enough about wood to know, that sometimes wood just cracks. Artisans that I meet at the art shows, the guys who turn wooden bowls or make spoons will tell me that sometimes they just crack. So, this stock has been cracked since before you bought the gun. you place a lot of faith that it was caused by the humidity, which it could have been, but you don't really know with 100% certainty.
Transferring this to briar... what makes you think that briar works the same way? It is a totally different type of material than what we think of in wood, a whole different part of the plant. Briar is totally different from just wood. And, as I have posted several times now, we don't know if there has ever been a case where briar actually has cracked due to the humidity level.
Ever ponder how, that first briar pipe was made?
The Heath tree is a worthless shrub, an invasive nuisance around the Mediterranean region where it’s native.
Somehow, an artificer in wooden trinkets who’d already discovered the beauty of heath roots, decided to make a smoking pipe, and smoked tobacco in it.
That first bowl, tasted pretty rough.
I wonder how many times a briar pipe was made, and tossed after the first smoke because of the popping and nasty taste of burning briar, before somebody stuck it out and broke it in?
And in well over a century and a half of looking for better substitutes, Mediterranean briar is still the best material found to make a pipe from.
I’ve always wondered if the roots of an Osage Orange, might not equal or better it.
Maclura pomifera - Wikipedia
It is supposed to take a thousand hours of highly skilled labor to produce a “best gun”. I’ve heard this repeated so often there must be some origin to it based in fact.
The stocking time of a best gun is said to be about forty hours.
To have Rod Gates restock my Superposed would cost about $2,000, and the blank maybe only $1,000, since it’s not the best grade.
I own a restocked 16 gauge LC Smith made Hunter Special. The beautiful stock is so different from the fore end it stands out like a flare.
So to really fix my Superposed right, it’s $1,000 for the blank, and $2,000 for a restock and about $1,000 more to replace the fore end.
I paid $1,200 for it. It’s worth maybe $2,000.
Over in England today, craftsmen take a few dollars worth of briar and a few cents worth of vulcanite and fashion $1,200 pipes.
If the slightest crack appears in the briar, or the smallest sand pit, upon final inspection that pipe is condemned as not salable.
It matters like hell, to the makers of thousand dollar perfect pipes, to use stable humidity controlled briar that won’t crack.
But of course, in finishing the button of a thousand dollar pipe some mistake is made, about the only thing to do is condemn the pipe as not salable.
The buyer of a thousand dollar pipe demands and gets, perfection.The rest of us are happy, with slight flaws.
I have nothing of substance to offer. I'd simply like to say this thread has been an enjoyable read. Cheers.
Somewhere in Switzerland exists the maker of the most expensive watches on the planet.Noooooo... you are so wrong, ha ha ha...
Exclusive of the precious metals such as gold used, they take a few cents worth of raw material and add labor to produce a watch worth perhaps 8 million dollars.
The 21 Most Expensive Watches In The World: For When You Strike It Rich
Graff Diamonds Hallucination is the most expensive watch in the world (sold for $55 million), but Patek Philippe and Rolex dominate the list.
luxe.digital
Vulcanite is cheap, and a block of briar sells for only a few dollars, the very best of it.
What I admire are companies such as Orient, that manufacture and sell gorgeous watches that sell for $100 and keep great time and give good service.
Orient Men's 'Bambino Version 4' Japanese Automatic Watch - FAC08004D0 | eBay
Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Orient Men's 'Bambino Version 4' Japanese Automatic Watch - FAC08004D0 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com
A billionaire cannot buy a better smoking pipe, than any one of my Lee Star Grades.
Or whatever brand, you’re smoking.
Last edited:
My wife has one and she doesn’t smoke anything. Come to think of it all God’s children gotta crack. I’m sure somewhere Dr. Seuss had a draft of a book based on cracks - seems like a natural for his style.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!
If anyone ever accuses me of digression……….Somewhere in Switzerland exists the maker of the most expensive watches on the planet.
Exclusive of the precious metals such as gold used, they take a few cents worth of raw material and add labor to produce a watch worth perhaps 8 million dollars.
The 21 Most Expensive Watches In The World: For When You Strike It Rich
Graff Diamonds Hallucination is the most expensive watch in the world (sold for $55 million), but Patek Philippe and Rolex dominate the list.
Vulcanite is cheap, and a block of briar sells for only a few dollars, the very best of it.
What I admire are companies such as Orient, that manufacture and sell gorgeous watches that sell for $100 and keep great time and give good service.
Orient Men's 'Bambino Version 4' Japanese Automatic Watch - FAC08004D0 | eBay
Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Orient Men's 'Bambino Version 4' Japanese Automatic Watch - FAC08004D0 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!www.ebay.com
A billionaire cannot buy a better smoking pipe, than any one of my Lee Star Grades.
Or whatever brand, you’re smoking.
Keep ‘em coming!
Interesting. I’ve just never really encountered many people who have cracked wood stocks on firearms unless they were an idiot or experienced a catastrophic failure due to poor design. I’m not a collector - I only have a collection of firearms that I use.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.
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.
A truly fine firearm does not have to have English walnut.
This is a truly fine firearm - no wood.
Last edited:
From the time Adam left Eve alone a few minutes to come back and find, that he should have came back sooner, until only about a century and some years ago, the average guy couldn’t carry around an affordable time piece.
Waterbury made the first dollar watch, but Westclox likely made the first really good one. From 1899 until 2001 they made a decent pocket watch that even at the end, was less than a day’s pay.
Westclox Watch Company History
Brief history of the Westclox Watch Company, maker of the 'boy-proof' pocket watch.
www.pocketwatchrepair.com
My father owned 320 acres of land, milked 25 cows, and rented another 170 acres of farmland. Daddy only owned two watches, a Hamilton “pie pan” my mother bought him when he lost the works of his Hamilton watch he’d received on his 21st birthday while pushing a truck out of a ditch in 1958, and as one Westclox Scotty quit he’d buy another.
We fortunate offspring, are so spoiled.
My father also used all the tools in his one toolbox, and I have so many tools and toolboxes I can’t begin to remember where they all are.
A year ago, in spite of not knowing how many wrist watches I own already, and many fine pocket watches, four of which are railroad grade, I saw this watch on eBay and bought it.
That is an Orient Bambino 2nd Gen White Dial that is a dead ringer for my father’s 1958 Hamilton Thin O Matic. It keeps phenomenally good time, as good as any of my railroad watches, looks like a million dollars, even the band is nice calf leather. The watch movement was totally fabricated in house by Orient Watch Company in Japan. They took a few cents worth of materials and made a hundred dollar wrist watch.It cost about a hundred bucks, which is probably what my mother paid for the Hamilton in 1958.
For religious reasons, Middle Eastern oil sheiks purchase 8 million dollar stainless steel watches instead of gold ones.
——
This Patek Philippe timepiece is based on the brand’s reference 5016 and is an exquisitely complicated and wondrously high-end creation. While the Ref. 5016 fell out of production around 2011, the company decided to resurrect it for this occasion. The reference is already incredibly rare and this one-off is totally unique, hence the willingness of watch fanatics to dig deep to secure it.
The timepiece features a minute repeater, a tourbillon, and a perpetual calendar with a retrograde date—three of the most cherished watch complications. It also comes with a distinctive blue dial made of Grand-Feu enamel and the movement is housed inside a small 36.8 mm case.
—-
What amazes me is that 7.9 million dollar watch has a reference number, which likely means you could order more than one, perhaps with a different colored dial. They would take a few cents worth of materials and make another 8 million dollar wrist watch.
Pipes, shotguns, and watches are mature technology. Some lucky 1950s man probably got this $15 Three Star Brandy for Christmas about 1958, and I paid $32 for it last month. You could take $150 today and buy a very nice pipe, which would be about the same present worth of $15 back then.
The old Campbelitte preachers of my youth used to lean low and stage whisper over the pulpit, half the people on earth sleep every night under a thatched roof, and are hungry, and drink from cisterns,,,and you ask God for a better car.The cars we drive today are beyond any wild dreams better in every measure, than the cars we wished for back then.
We live in a gilded age, and pine for a past not as good as tomorrow is certain to be.
Last edited:
Ok, check out how much a ebauchon of briar costs, and also a rod of vulcanite. It's not just a few dollars.Somewhere in Switzerland exists the maker of the most expensive watches on the planet.
Exclusive of the precious metals such as gold used, they take a few cents worth of raw material and add labor to produce a watch worth perhaps 8 million dollars.
The 21 Most Expensive Watches In The World: For When You Strike It Rich
Graff Diamonds Hallucination is the most expensive watch in the world (sold for $55 million), but Patek Philippe and Rolex dominate the list.
Vulcanite is cheap, and a block of briar sells for only a few dollars, the very best of it.
What I admire are companies such as Orient, that manufacture and sell gorgeous watches that sell for $100 and keep great time and give good service.
Orient Men's 'Bambino Version 4' Japanese Automatic Watch - FAC08004D0 | eBay
Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Orient Men's 'Bambino Version 4' Japanese Automatic Watch - FAC08004D0 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!www.ebay.com
A billionaire cannot buy a better smoking pipe, than any one of my Lee Star Grades.
Or whatever brand, you’re smoking.
I've also been a jeweler for almost 50 years. You are sort of right about watches, however, there are jewels set at each moving part of the watch. But sure, you always paying more than what the raw materials cost. When you buy a ring, you always are paying more than just what the gold and stone is valued at on wholesale level.
I just don't want someone new to come to your thread where you say all of these little things that are dead wrong, within your posts. Yes, pipemakers all whine and complain about the costs of briar and rods, and NO, they are not nearly as expensive as a piece of jeweler, or even most other sculpting materials. But, if you were to buy a hunk of briar and rod, it would definitely cost more than what Dr. Grabow sells their rinky dinky's for. So, just tossing offhand that they cost merely a few bucks is not doing pipes much justice... but I guess since you think these Briar Lees are so great, maybe the shit he used was just the cheapest in the world.
:::sigh::: now go ahead and give us your spiel on how Briar Lees cost a quarter back when a quarter was worth more than the finest Dunhill on the planet. Jeesh... ha ha.
Now, don't get me wrong. I do enjoy your ramblings. If I didn't, I wouldn't read them. I sort of enjoy proofing them for all of these little ignorances. So, just know that I appreciate your posts... enjoy them even.
Oh, if it were just his science that was wrong, that wouldn't be a big deal. But, I was thinking that if someone reads on here that briar and rod stock is cheap, about a dozen new members would gleen that and then reproduce that idea in various other posts, and then there would be a whole host of other clean up jobs to get done again.
If you mean the fact that no one really has lost pipes to humidity that anyone has heard of, and can specifically declare that humidity has cracked their pipes... fine. A few really OCD pipesmokers who start storing their pipes in humidity controlled humidors is kinda funny.
Nope. I mean that suggesting that the LOTRs movies by Peter Jackson suck because he left out some of the story narratives found in the books is NUTS. I see no difference between this idea and the many others suggested throughout this and other threads. Opinions. Just an observation.
Funny how grown men will argue about these kids books that I read back in 5th grade. Star Wars also... they are meant for like 7 year olds. WTF. There's not even any real sex or violence in them.
L
Kind of like how they argue over pipes and tobacco, LOL.Funny how grown men will argue about these kids books that I read back in 5th grade. Star Wars also... they are meant for like 7 year olds. WTF. There's not even any real sex or violence in them.
- Status