SP estate pipes; ghosting is to be expected?

[Chasing Embers]

I smoke Ennerdale in a Moretti Magnum.

 

[crashthegrey]

I'm feeling an Ennerdale chimney in my future. That sounds amazing or awful, but I need to know.

 

[thefishguy]

I’ve purchased several estates from SP, so far only one with an aromatic ghost. A Big Ben Barbados of which I have two. I’ll probably send it back with several other pipes that I don’t smoke to get store credit.

 

[swilford]

I'm amazed they are letting their customer service recommend blowing in an alcohol filled bowl. That is my biggest concern here.

Yes, I think there was a little confusion on the part of the CS agent. Using alcohol, or salt and alcohol, can help in more extreme cases, but whether you’re trying to remove nasty ghosting, or simply cleaning you pipe regularly, you should be very careful not to get alcohol on the outside of the pipe, or there’s risk of damaging the finish.
My advice would simply be to smoke it if you otherwise like the pipe. The problem with ghosting (like lots of pipe things) is that it is very much dependent on what you (the new pipe owner) smoke and something very much best solved through further smoking. Yes, you can use salt/alcohol or alcohol swabs and bring the cake all the way

down (which is stuff our Restoration guys do), but in my experience the best way to remove ghosting is to run a half dozen bowls through it of something you do like to smoke.
In semi-unrelated news, eight of us were able to get into the C&D building today (by canoe; I'm not making this up; this was my first experience commuting to work in a canoe) and everything, sort of miraculously, is just fine. Water came within a fraction of a inch of getting into the building, but there was literally none in there. It was like nothing had happened. And A/C (important for tobacco) was running the whole time. We'll document on one of the blogs at some point, but I wanted to share the good news somewhere.
We're fine at the other building. Water didn't get that close (a few hundred feet away). The biggest problems continue to be closed roads that just make getting around

the county really difficult.
Sykes

 

[mikethompson]

As for the ghosted pipe, definitely try the coffee ground route. It worked wonders for a Dunhill that I bought off some guy locally.
Secondly, great news about the water not reaching the building!

 

[pianopuffer]

Glad to hear, Sykes. Best of luck to you and the team.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yes, good to hear that C+D waded through the problem.
Coffee grounds won't shrink much at all if it's a very fine grind, as in espresso.

 

[lordofthepiperings]

Lakeland ghosts are so notorious, even SP should make note of it in pipe descriptions since Lakeland aromatic ghosts don't exorcise

I've never ran across an estate with one, and in my own pipes after a couple of bowls of a heavy Latakia blend they are gone.

I accidentally had a half of a bowl of Ennerdale flake once. It took about three salt treatments and two dozen bowls of Escudo to get the ghost out of it.

 

[Chasing Embers]

How do you accidentally smoke a lakeland?

 

[mothernaturewilleatusallforbreakfast]

In semi-unrelated news, eight of us were able to get into the C&D building today (by canoe; I'm not making this up; this was my first experience commuting to work in a canoe) and everything, sort of miraculously, is just fine. Water came within a fraction of a inch of getting into the building, but there was literally none in there. It was like nothing had happened. And A/C (important for tobacco) was running the whole time. We'll document on one of the blogs at some point, but I wanted to share the good news somewhere.

This is great news! A miracle of sorts.
Lakeland ghosts are the only ones that have given me issues. Otherwise, reaming to bare wood, cotton balls and alcohol, coffee grounds, etc... have always worked for me. Estates are a crap shoot no matter where they're purchased from and buying one always comes with the chance that it may contain a ghost.

 

[woodsroad]

A lot of estate pipes have found their way to me over time, and almost all of them have had a tale to tell of tobaccos they’ve enjoyed. I can tolerate all but the much-dreaded 1Q Ghost. A pipe well saturated with 1Q Juice is damned near impossible to rehabilitate. So I have a ziploc bag of pipes somewhere, awaiting some as-of-yet undiscovered cure for for the deadly One Qadaffi infestation.

 

[philobeddoe]

Sykes, very glad to hear all is well at C&D and at SPC. I hope that the your home and the homes of your employees were able to avoid damage as well.
I’ve never bought a pipe that was ghosted beyond redemption, as others have said several bowls of something else will usually do the trick. I use Briar Fox to break in new and new to me pipes and it is light enough that I can tell when the ghosting has been neutralized.

 

[craiginthecorn]

Good news, Sykes. Glad to hear that your facilities weren't damaged.
Regarding ozone treatment, it's not a magic bullet. I'll avoid recounting my whole tale, but I sent two dozen high grade unsmoked pipes for ozone treatment to resolve a problem with a musty aroma. Even after a week in the cabinet, it didn't make a dent. I've never tried it for other types of ghosts. Fortunately, I smoke enough different styles of tobacco that if I encounter a stubbornly ghosted pipe, I just continue smoking something similar to whatever seems to have been smoked in it before.
I've had good luck with coffee grounds, by the way.

 

[Briar Baron]

I guess one aspect to consider here is that estate pipes would be given a clean up but depending on the ghost, one may need a 15min clean-up and another could need hours spent over several days and as such it may not be economically viable?
Also is the fact that we all perceive ghosts differently, one piper may barely notice it and another find it significant.
I have bought new, estate (unsmoked) and estate (smoked) from SP and always they are accurately described and for the smoked pipes, none ghosted as far as I could tell.
The other aspect is after cleaning maybe the only way to determine a true ghost is to smoke it and check the taste and as such this test is beyond what SP could do anyway?
The OP was not having a go at SP in my opinion, just posting as we all do.
Glad the canoe trip worked well also!

 

[metalheadycigarguy]

If the pipe is that heavily ghosted you might try a Necromancer to see if that helps. :twisted:

 

[5star]

I’ve never had a ghosting problem with any SP estate I’ve purchased. At most, they all were described as lightly or barely smoked, however. - - I did buy an estate (from a different forum classifieds section) that had a faint Lakeland ghost. It became my dedicated Ennerdale pipe.
@Sykes - I was wondering how you folks are doing. That’s great news about the water not getting in.

 

[mikethompson]

I hope that the your home and the homes of your employees were able to avoid damage as well.

good call Phil, hope there was good news all around.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

When you guys use coffee grounds, is it used grounds after you have brewed a bot or fresh grounds. Just want to understand your process.
Coffee is interesting. Someone told me a few years back that they used warm black coffee to clean the rims of their pipes. They very lightly dabbed a cloth into the coffee and ran the cloth around the rim. I tried it on a relatively inexpensive sandblasted estate pipe (in a light tan colour) that I purchased that had pretty bad blackening around the rim that I couldn't remove with other methods and was stunned to see that it took the tobacco staining right off the rim and didn't impact the stain on the pipe at all. Not sure why it worked, or if you guys have any thoughts on doing that, but work it did. Haven't had occasion to try that method again.

 

[lordofthepiperings]

How do you accidentally smoke a lakeland?

Nobody warned me of the hazard that Lakeland blends are. If I had known it was going to taste like old lady perfume and Ivory soap and ghost my bowl like crazy I would have just passed on the blend entirely.
Glad to hear the SP headquarters and the C&D factory are unscathed from Florence. I hope all employees houses escaped the flooding as well.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I use spent grounds, wet but not sopping. Since I have an addiction to two cups of cappuccino in the morning, I have a ready supply of that, and the size is right (smaller the better).
I usually leave the pipe for days to dry out. Last night I emptied a Ryan Alden author of dried coffee grounds but didn't rinse it out. There was a light brown coating in the chamber, but didn't taste a thing.