School me About Ideal Humidity Levels in Briar

[Briar Lee]

One of my other hobbies is shotguns, and much ink has been used discussing the proper drying and humidity levels of Circassian walnut, which is what we’d all use for stocks if we were rich. Certain blanks of the finest walnut sell for thousands of dollars, and the humidity levels of those blanks are critical, lest cracks develop.

Whether the pipe is a Dunhill or Dr Grabow or whatever, the part we use to smoke is made from cured and (ideally) aged Mediterranean briar. We’ve all seen cracked briar in pipes, sometimes in prestigious brands.

I have an almost new condition Lee Two Star carved pipe that is extremely dry. As much grape seed oil as I apply it drinks right up and looks better each time I apply it. The pipe came from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and may have spent over sixty years in an arid climate.

I have cigar humidors where I try and keep my cigars at about 70% relative humidity. It’s trouble, and requires watching the humidity levels. They like 70 degrees Fahrenheit too, which is no trouble at all to keep.

Dunhill makes and sells thousand dollar production pipes.

What’s the ideal humidity to keep a briar pipe, if there’s any?

 

[ron123]

Here's some schoolin' for ya

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

I don't see how you can compare gun stocks to briar. You don't put tobacco into gun stocks and light it thereby heating the wood. And if you think your pipe is absorbing so much of the oil, cut it in half and look at a cross sectional view. I suspect it will have penetrated a minimal amount. Every time you smoke a pipe, you're exposing it to moisture from the tobacco as well.

I doubt the relative humidity makes much difference to the briar especially if it isn't at either extreme.

 

[Morrison Jeremiah]

I never give it a thought to be honest.
I just leave my pipes in a rack in my lounge, where the humidity varies from 25 in winter to 55 in summer.
No problems, no cracks.

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

I have several musical instruments that I place wet sponges in a plastic container in the cased during Winter when I am using gas heat. You could do the same if concerned. That said, my humidity level presently is 75.

 

[burleybreath]

If briars were that complicated, I'd throw them over a cliff and resort to cobs only.

 

[Briar Lee]

I don't see how you can compare gun stocks to briar. You don't put tobacco into gun stocks and light it thereby heating the wood. And if you think your pipe is absorbing so much of the oil, cut it in half and look at a cross sectional view. I suspect it will have penetrated a minimal amount. Every time you smoke a pipe, you're exposing it to moisture from the tobacco as well.

I doubt the relative humidity makes much difference to the briar especially if it isn't at either extreme.

Here’s why, humidity levels matter.

There are about two thousand hours in the average work year, today.

For those two thousand hours Dr Grabow must pay something like sixty thousand dollars total. For Dunhill they might pay 100,000 pounds. Labor today is expensive, relative to materials.

Back before and right after WW2 there is no way, that Dr Grabow had to pay a thousand dollars for two thousand hours of labor. Dunhill paid less then, in equivalent money. Labor has risen fifty to a hundred times in eighty years.

I have a friend who is a master gunsmith. He will charge about two thousand dollars to restock a double gun, for the labor. To have a Purdey restocked might cost five thousand for the blank and more, for English labor.

A tiny crack in the stock of a double gun destroys it’s resale value. As a consequence “best guns” are kept in special humidity and temperature controlled vaults.

My $30 carved Lee pipe cost as much as a Dunhill when new, $10 sixty five years ago. Today the cheapest new Dunhill is maybe $600? Many cost a thousand.

The grape seed oil I apply to my Lee makes it look nice, but it doesn’t penetrate a hair’s breadth into the wood. That wood is dry as a bone.

This morning my heated garage is 68 degrees and the humidity is 30%. In my chicken house it’s 40 degrees and the humidity is 60%.

I may own 200 pipes that average $25 each, or maybe $5,000 total. Only a few might crack and I’ll buy more, or keep smoking them.

There are men that own a bunch of thousand dollar Dunhills.

I was just wondering how careful they are of their humidity and temperature where they keep them.

It would matter, if a cracked pipe was a thousand dollar loss.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

^This is written like a beginning Public Forum Debater who realizes he only has one small point left to refute his argument before he loses, but he has to fill a four minute block.

How many times have you cracked a briar? In the rare instances that I have seen a cracked briar, it was also filled completely up with cake. Cake destroys briar. A cleaned, well maintained briar will last forever. I will give the rest of my time to Briar Lee to tell us another story that has nothing to do with the prices of tea in China.

 

[briarbuck]

I keep my pipes in a humidor with a couple of stay dry packets so they stay dry.

My 1908 Parker sit in a case in the basement, not in any controlled environment.

I used to keep my guitars at certain humidity levels, but don't any more. They find a sweet spot and stay there.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Taylor Guitars used to suggest 45-55% and I try to keep mine around 50%. I've never had a gunstock crack ever and some have seen some pretty severe fluctuations in temps/humidity, but I'm sure it would be a big problem to have a cracked stock on an heirloom gun. I'd assume without knowing if you are in that % range consistently for humidity and avoid large fluctuations in humidity and temperature you shouldn't have any worries. I can't imagine the combination of extremes that would make the pipe so brittle it would be in danger of cracking or whatever from being used, for example, but they would seem avoidable.

 

[fireground_piper]

Never experienced an issue with humidity, but heat/cold swings will expand and contract your briar and in effect tighten or loosen the fit to your tenon at the extreme ends.

 

[Morrison Jeremiah]

The only thing I find wrong with @Briar Lee's above post is that he didn't give us a music video.
I really enjoyed the Dolly Parton the other day.
Apart from that that it was Purdey interesting ?

 

[sablebrush52]

This is an essentially unanswerable question. But before I explain why, I should enter into lengthy discourse over the history of the use of briar for making pipes, it's various antecedents going back 14,000 years, and the phases of the moon.
But rather than do that I point out the obvious. All briar blocks are different, one from the other, with their individual flaws, varying densities, and structural patterns. You can dry briar to the consistency of particle board, and it will crumble, and there's no going back from that. So somewhere north of that should work.

 

[sasquatch]

Briar, like all woods, moves with change in humidity. If you put calipers on a briar block and the relative humidity is high, like 65% in the summer, that block can change by pretty surprising amounts as you drift into winter (here the relative humidity in winter is usually below 10% outdoors, it's obviously higher indoors where pipes are stored, but it's still more dry). The practical result is that if you ship a really dry pipe to a really wet location, like from Phoenix to Georgia, the briar can take on moisture and expand, and the stem gets loose. Conversely, going the other way, the stem can get tight.

Now, before anyone yells at me and tells me I have this wrong, the reason smoking a pipe with a loose stem may help to tighten the fit is that the moisture gathered is applied only to the inside of the mortise, which does indeed expand - toward the tenon.

So we do occassionally see a pipe with a too loose or a too tight stem, depending on where the pipe came from, how it was set up originally, where it's been for 20 years, or whether it's just a very humid summer any given year.... you see people with these problems all the time. Certain cuts of wood, certain curing methods (oil curing would have the biggest impact on cellular stability) etc tend to be more stable, but I think all pipes move a little in different climate.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

A lose tenon is one thing, but has anyone ever heard of a pipe just cracking because it is too dry or too wet?
A tenon is recoverable.

Besides, his best pipes all have those really nice, luxury screw in tenons, ha ha.

 

[hauntedmyst]

I don't think it matters with pipes as I don't think briar is very senstive. People take briar and burn tobacco in it. Then some of them take the same bowl and run it under running water to clean it only to light its contents on fire again the next day. I really don't think it matters.

I understand concerns. I had a hand made walnut air rifle stock crack from simply sitting in the basement. We need to humidify the room with my wife's grand piano. However, those are completely different animals and wood.

 

[cigrmaster]

When I used to own my cigar humidor, I kept the temp at 65 degrees and the humidity at 63 percent. Smoking in the humidity of Florida was not conducive to 70% .

My cabinet was a pig for water. If memory serves I had too add two jugs of distilled water to the reservoir every other day or so. Hell I don't think I drank that much water in a couple of days.

Pipe tobacco is simple compared to cigars. I keep my house at 73-74 degrees and I have a whole house dehumidifier which keeps the house humidity at a constant73-74%. I never have to worry about a bug problem. I bury my tins and bulks in cool dark places like under my bed or in a walk in closet. my system has worked for over 2 decades and I have yet to loose a seal on a single tin and have never seen a spec of mold.

Knock on wood.

 

[Briar Lee]

Many, many years ago my parents bought me a pair of real binoculars, and inside the box were a couple of packages of desiccant labeled DO NOT EAT.

I don’t think I’d have munched on them anyway, but it got me curious as to why those desiccant packages were (and still are today) in binoculars, and it’s to avoid moisture from permeating the inside. If it does, you have much trouble, and especially if mold or fungus begins to grow.

Preventing Lens Fungus and Mold in Binoculars and Telescopes

Mold in binoculars and in optical instruments will destroy them. Preventing lens fungus on optical instruments is essential to maintain functionality.

bestofbinoculars.com

The finer toys of life such as binoculars, real watches that have balance wheels, pianos, guitars, cigars, fine guns, and even automobiles and trucks have a certain humidity range they should be kept.

I own a Martin HD-28 guitar that would cost $3,000 to replace with a Martin, and a playable Chinese copy is only $300, or even less.

I suppose the same cautions about fine musical instruments would apply to briar pipes, as well. The ideal humidify for storage is 50%:


TYPICAL EFFECTS OF HUMIDITY CHANGES ON GUITARS
AT 60% RELATIVE HUMIDITY OR ABOVE
High levels of humidity can be detrimental as well. Typical symptoms are tarnished frets and strings, corrosion to nickel, chrome or gold plating material on tuning machines, swelling of the top and other wood components, high action and loose braces and bridges.
AT 50% RELATIVE HUMIDITY
All guitars in store are in good condition.
AT 40% RELATIVE HUMIDITY
Guitars may begin to show sharp fret ends. The area of the fingerboard that extends over the body may begin to develop a small crack from the 12th or 14th fret down toward the soundhole.
AT 35% RELATIVE HUMIDITY
Tops begin to shrink; the surface of the soundboard may look and feel rippled or “dried in.” Sharp fret ends will
be more evident. Instruments just arriving in the store do not show these symptoms since they have not been exposed.
AT 30% RELATIVE HUMIDITY
A guitar or two may crack, but even those that are not cracked have lost a considerable amount of moisture and the tops are sunken. Often a higher saddle is necessary to make the guitar playable.
AT 25% RELATIVE HUMIDITY
More guitars crack. A lot of fret filing is needed

https://martinguitar.com/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-MartinSharedLibrary/default/pdf/2020-humidity-bulletin.pdf

A well maintained HVAC system with humidity control for a home or office keeps the inside temperature at 70 degrees and between 40 and 60 per cent humidity year round, at about 50% average.

We don’t worry about the humidity of our pipes, probably because our homes are ideal storage places for them in most cases.

Start storing pipes in attics, sheds, basements and garages, and it might be a problem, but not much of one, as problems go.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I like how the OP of your post's ramble all over the place, so that people can post about loose tenons, the way they store their tobaccos, their cigars, without once touching on the cracked briar question. Ha ha.

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

I keep my fine pipes in a cardboard box in a van down by the river.