Test Driving A Falcon

[gord]

Well, my 3 day pipe fast is over and successful, and the tongue is just fine. So, took out one of my new Falcons (the traditional chromed aluminum straight), and baptized it with my own English. A perfect match.

Observations:

1. It smokes cool. The shaft doesn't get hot, but the bottom of the bowl does - I will not be wrapping my hand around the bowl as I often do.

2. because the mouthpiece is permanently attached to the stem, I cannot cant the mouthpiece slightly off center as I usually do, for purposes of "probing" taste areas. Have to adjust the angle of the bowl instead. No big deal. I'm not planning on smoking complex tobaccos in the Falcon.

3. The pipe was designed a long time ago, in the 1920's I believe, and I'm guessing that there were fewer tobacco types, and less complexity in the taste properties of each individual tobacco back then. Correct me if I'm wrong. As my English is simple, just plain Sir Walter in 7 parts, and 1 part Latakia, I just smoked it without much probing - as I said above, a perfect match.

4. It's super easy to clean. Just let it cool down, take off the bowl, and clean the sealed trough area. I thought, seeing what it looked like, that a Q-Tip would be perfect for the job, and it was.

5. The stem is very thin and a regular pipe cleaner will not go through. However, I do not think this will be a problem as no goop gets into the stem because of the sealed trough area.

6. As I bought it for fishing and having a pipe in the afternoon doldrums between the morning and evening hatch, and for smoking only one tobacco type, my afternoon English, the Falcon almost seems to be custom designed for me. It also brought forth a lot of comments from my friends. A winner in all regards. I will be using it with the bantam bowl, fairly small, which got me an easy 45 minute smoke. Perfect for the purpose.

Any suggestions from owners of Falcons would be appreciated, because it was only a trial run by a rookie. I'm looking forward to trying the other "International" style, tomorrow. As its stem is removable because it can take a filter (which I will not be using, having abandoned usage of those devices in all my pipes), I'll be breaking it in with a variety of tobaccos.

Thanks for looking in!

 

[OzPiper]

I had a black-stemmed Falcon which I bought in the 1970s. I gave it to a friend who was looking for one, as it was not seeing much use because of its small bowl.

Falcon make thin cleaners for their pipes

The aluminium shank and plastic stem lend itself to rinsing with water.

Easy peasy

 

[VDL_Piper]

When I read the heading I thought I was going to see pictures of something like this!

 

[BingBong]

Useful for more than just Falcons - I have other pipes that won't take a taper.

 

[Manawydan]

Well, my 3 day pipe fast is over and successful, and the tongue is just fine. So, took out one of my new Falcons (the traditional chromed aluminum straight), and baptized it with my own English. A perfect match.

Observations:

1. It smokes cool. The shaft doesn't get hot, but the bottom of the bowl does - I will not be wrapping my hand around the bowl as I often do.

2. because the mouthpiece is permanently attached to the stem, I cannot cant the mouthpiece slightly off center as I usually do, for purposes of "probing" taste areas. Have to adjust the angle of the bowl instead. No big deal. I'm not planning on smoking complex tobaccos in the Falcon.

3. The pipe was designed a long time ago, in the 1920's I believe, and I'm guessing that there were fewer tobacco types, and less complexity in the taste properties of each individual tobacco back then. Correct me if I'm wrong. As my English is simple, just plain Sir Walter in 7 parts, and 1 part Latakia, I just smoked it without much probing - as I said above, a perfect match.

4. It's super easy to clean. Just let it cool down, take off the bowl, and clean the sealed trough area. I thought, seeing what it looked like, that a Q-Tip would be perfect for the job, and it was.

5. The stem is very thin and a regular pipe cleaner will not go through. However, I do not think this will be a problem as no goop gets into the stem because of the sealed trough area.

6. As I bought it for fishing and having a pipe in the afternoon doldrums between the morning and evening hatch, and for smoking only one tobacco type, my afternoon English, the Falcon almost seems to be custom designed for me. It also brought forth a lot of comments from my friends. A winner in all regards. I will be using it with the bantam bowl, fairly small, which got me an easy 45 minute smoke. Perfect for the purpose.

Any suggestions from owners of Falcons would be appreciated, because it was only a trial run by a rookie. I'm looking forward to trying the other "International" style, tomorrow. As its stem is removable because it can take a filter (which I will not be using, having abandoned usage of those devices in all my pipes), I'll be breaking it in with a variety of tobaccos.

Thanks for looking in!

@gord Thank you for this -- it is particularly timely as I just placed an order for my first Falcon system. I got two stems (one int'l, one 'twisted'), and three bowls of varying sizes. Have you tried the 'dry rings' (or make-your-own) yet? I am looking forward to trying it out!

 

[grimpeur]

@gord , well done, and welcome to the world of smoking with a Falcon!

Until just this year, with the purchase of yet more used bowls and stems from eBay, in over thirty years of using a Falcon I had never encountered a stem that couldn't take tapered cleaners. Now I have three stems that need slim versions; the B.J. Long regular cleaners do well.

In my experience, the airway of Falcons still need cleaning, but it is so much easier than a briar; aluminium isn't very absorbant!

One final point. When smoking your Falcon, take the pipe out of your mouth before looking up...the contents of the humidome can run down the stem remarkably quickly!

 

[gord]

I had a black-stemmed Falcon which I bought in the 1970s. I gave it to a friend who was looking for one, as it was not seeing much use because of its small bowl.

Falcon make thin cleaners for their pipes

The aluminium shank and plastic stem lend itself to rinsing with water.

Easy peasy

Thanks! Didn't think about water. Our tap water up here is really "tasty" - very hard and calcifies when it drys. I have a filter system installed but am still careful. I'll use distilled water in a bowl. Good hack! Thanks again!

 

[gord]

@gord Thank you for this -- it is particularly timely as I just placed an order for my first Falcon system. I got two stems (one int'l, one 'twisted'), and three bowls of varying sizes. Have you tried the 'dry rings' (or make-your-own) yet? I am looking forward to trying it out!

No, I haven't tried the dry rings, and probably won't. Apparently the system takes well to rinsing with water, and the Q-tips worked perfectly.

I'm in the habit of using readily available household items rather than costly items designed for specific purposes. Find they usually work as well or better. However, if they don't, then yes, I'll buy the costly items designed for specific purposes.

 

[gord]

@gord , well done, and welcome to the world of smoking with a Falcon!

Until just this year, with the purchase of yet more used bowls and stems from eBay, in over thirty years of using a Falcon I had never encountered a stem that couldn't take tapered cleaners. Now I have three stems that need slim versions; the B.J. Long regular cleaners do well.

In my experience, the airway of Falcons still need cleaning, but it is so much easier than a briar; aluminium isn't very absorbant!

One final point. When smoking your Falcon, take the pipe out of your mouth before looking up...the contents of the humidome can run down the stem remarkably quickly!

I'll remember that final point for sure! Thanks!

 

[gord]

When I read the heading I thought I was going to see pictures of something like this!
View attachment 324313

Nope. I did buy a new 1988 Mustang Cobra in 1988 during the panic stages of midlife crisis. Would blow the doors of anything on the road in those days. My love affair with muscle cars ended when I moved to Prince George and began to hunt and fish in earnest.

We did have a Ford Falcon station wagon back in the early 1960's as a family vehicle. It saw a lot of use, and Dad gave it to my sister as part of her graduation present. He hated it, but Jan drove it for about 10 years. She named it "Sludge Guts" and had it painted lime green.

After she'd finished with it, she bought a Toyota Camry, and gave the sludger to a cousin, who drove the fossil into the ground at 800,000 miles, if I remember correctly. They don't build them like that anymore, methinks.

 

[khiddy]

I have a few Falcons (none of the International version, sadly), and I really recommend using "dry rings" for the metal bowl, as it makes the stem cleaning that much easier because they sop up most of the goop that otherwise may wend its way down the shaft.

DIY Falcon Rings: wind a regular pipe cleaner around a pen shaft in a "spring" fashion (I typically wind around a sharpie marker, as I find the diameter is nearly perfect), then use scissors to cut through the pipe cleaner "spring". Voilá, you've made 5 or 6 DIY Falcon Rings all at once. I do this two or three times and have a few week's worth of rings ready to go.

For cleaning the stem, I found some super thin (and really long) pipe cleaners at Walmart in their craft section, they're like 3mm thin, and they fit very well through the Falcon's stem. Actual Falcon-branded pipe cleaners are *very* difficult to find in the USA lately. After an exhaustive search, I ordered the last pack in stock from a B&M's online store, but they ended up subbing a pack of Dill's as it turned out they did not actually have the Falcon brand in stock. "The Dill's are very thin as well," the hand-written note said. NOT THIN ENOUGH, DUDE. (Though I did later discover that it was a problem with the mouthpiece being slightly crushed that kept the cleaner from passing through, not specifically the thinness of the cleaner. But still, I ordered from that B&M specifically to get my hands on some Falcon-branded cleaners, and was disappointed...)

One last piece of advice: don't smoke from a Falcon when the weather is in excess of 90 degrees. The metal will not cool down between puffs, and you'll risk burning your hands trying to hold the dang thing. Don't ask me how I discovered this!

 

[gord]

I have a few Falcons (none of the International version, sadly), and I really recommend using "dry rings" for the metal bowl, as it makes the stem cleaning that much easier because they sop up most of the goop that otherwise may wend its way down the shaft.

DIY Falcon Rings: wind a regular pipe cleaner around a pen shaft in a "spring" fashion (I typically wind around a sharpie marker, as I find the diameter is nearly perfect), then use scissors to cut through the pipe cleaner "spring". Voilá, you've made 5 or 6 DIY Falcon Rings all at once. I do this two or three times and have a few week's worth of rings ready to go.

For cleaning the stem, I found some super thin (and really long) pipe cleaners at Walmart in their craft section, they're like 3mm thin, and they fit very well through the Falcon's stem. Actual Falcon-branded pipe cleaners are *very* difficult to find in the USA lately. After an exhaustive search, I ordered the last pack in stock from a B&M's online store, but they ended up subbing a pack of Dill's as it turned out they did not actually have the Falcon brand in stock. "The Dill's are very thin as well," the hand-written note said. NOT THIN ENOUGH, DUDE. (Though I did later discover that it was a problem with the mouthpiece being slightly crushed that kept the cleaner from passing through, not specifically the thinness of the cleaner. But still, I ordered from that B&M specifically to get my hands on some Falcon-branded cleaners, and was disappointed...)

One last piece of advice: don't smoke from a Falcon when the weather is in excess of 90 degrees. The metal will not cool down between puffs, and you'll risk burning your hands trying to hold the dang thing. Don't ask me how I discovered this!

Thanks! Some good and useful hacks here. I did try paring down a regular churchwarden pipe cleaner, but it still wouldn't fit. I'll give making a ring or three with your described method asap. Cheers mate!

 

[huntertrw]

Test Driving a Falcon

Here's what Motor Trend magazine had to say about that...

 

[gord]

Here's what Motor Trend magazine had to say about that...

What a great article! Thanks. PDF'd it and put it in my files

 

[anotherbob]

Instead of a dry ring you can also use a cotton ball just fluff the sucker up and it will do the same thing. A lot cheaper too.

 

[grimpeur]

An issue that can arise when using dry rings, Falcon or home made, is that due to minute variances in fit, the ring can slightly inhibit the draw. Sometimes, not so slightly.

There are two ways around this. First, slightly round the edges of the draught-hole. This is something I do to most of my bowls, as it reduces the amount of moisture (I assume due to better airflow), and allows trouble-free usage of dry rings.

Like this:


Pardon the dust.

The other way to avoid the issue is to not use the cursed things at all; a quarter-turn of the bowl, flick the stem, replace the bowl, and all's well. For the use the OP is thinking of, fishing, what could be easier?

 

[Manawydan]

My Falcon order arrived today! Looking forward to trying these out, and appreciate the timeliness of this thread!

 

[gord]

Looks like a clone of my first order! Here's my dynamic duo!

​

 

[Manawydan]

Looks like a clone of my first order! Here's my dynamic duo!

View attachment 324563​

Awesome! Have you found that you prefer either stem or bowl yet?

 

[gord]

Awesome! Have you found that you prefer either stem or bowl yet?

Yes. For plain and simple tobaccos, the chrome aluminum. It's stem cannot be adjusted for probing taste areas as easily, so I'll be using it when I'm fishing with a simple English.

The Interntational version has a detachable stem and can be manipulated to access the taste receptors much more readily, so I'll be treating it like any other 6" straight pipe. Except for the smoking system itself which is unique!