Sooooooo. My first Pete was a
Newgrange XL90 that i bought at one of the fairly recent Smokingpipes sales.
View attachment 416429
Loved the look and feel. Especially dug the spigot vs the dark stain. And the muted reds with the blacks and browns in the stem material were more appealing to my tastes than the brighter reds in the Dracula line. Personal preference. Bowl size was decent, although i'd like it even bigger, if possible. I'm not a fan of thin bowl walls, due to smoking a lot of flakes, and so i was always checking dimensions of chamber bore vs outter diameter to ensure thick enough walls when choosing this model. This would be about my minimum threshold.
Problem was on day 3, smoke 3, it started a burnout on me. A pit formed in the chamber and an ashy discoloration occurred on the exterior of the bowl corresponding to that spot.
View attachment 416430
I sent it back, they determined it was a weak spot in the briar - it happens - and since they have a refund policy on damaged goods, rather than replacement, i got my money back. But by this time the sale was over, and i couldn't bring myself to pay more money for the same pipe.
So i bought a
System Deluxe PSB 3s with P-Lip from a fine member here to give that direction a shot instead.
View attachment 416438
Again, beautiful pipe, still liked the stem set-up, although i thought the spigot was nicer. Bowl size on this one turned out to be a little small for me and then the cleaning of the dry well, in addition to the p-lip and draught hole was a bit of a chore. I know: whine, whine. Anyway, i didn't reach for it often enough and turned that one around, too.
So now, to my question for the Pete geeks. With said details in mind, any suggestions on a direction i should look in the future when considering trying for the 3rd time, a Peterson pipe?