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!
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!
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