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Water Flush Cleaning Technique
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No issue is ever solved on a forum.
Instead one idiot talks to the next.
We are idiots but we forget this and post as if we have something to say.
Typically we post about something about which we complain or that we find negative.
So if you're going to post about that which you have no complaint, you're already on bad paper.
If it's not negative or the subject of complaint, the other degenerates that read this stuff, simply don't care.
Complain viciously and unjustly, or better still, start a bashing thread.
Unjustly darken the fortunes of those who process your order if it is in any way not what you find acceptable.
It's their livelihood but what do you care.
Instead one idiot talks to the next.
We are idiots but we forget this and post as if we have something to say.
Typically we post about something about which we complain or that we find negative.
So if you're going to post about that which you have no complaint, you're already on bad paper.
If it's not negative or the subject of complaint, the other degenerates that read this stuff, simply don't care.
Complain viciously and unjustly, or better still, start a bashing thread.
Unjustly darken the fortunes of those who process your order if it is in any way not what you find acceptable.
It's their livelihood but what do you care.
I've been a recent convert to water flushing over the past month or two and I like it, I think. A couple of notes:
1. It may be a bit pipe specific, but I do get a bit of gurgle with pipes that smoked dry before I started flushing. A major example is my Peterson Shannon 150. This pipe smoked wet when new, but after a lengthy break in, was quite a dry smoker using the traditional pipe cleaner, no flush cleaning. With the water flush, there are 3 or 4 times per bowl where I have to run a cleaner through, or cover the bowl with my palm, and snap my wrist like a Clayton Kershaw breaking ball to clear it. I tend to smoke these pipes nearly daily so maybe more rest/drying time would alleviate this issue some?
2. It has not really saved me any pipe cleaners. While flushing, I will typically run the water through for about 10 seconds at a time, and then run a pipe cleaner through it, repeating until the cleaner comes out clean. After that, I leave a cleaner in the airway and store until next use. Usually takes about 3 cleaners per cleaning.
3. Time will tell, but my pipes seem much cleaner. So far, I have felt no need to do any deep cleaning on my flushed pipes, even those I smoke every day. It also helps with the exterior of the pipe, the rims of my bowls and silverwork. Like Hoosier mentions in his OP, after the first flush/pipe cleaner, the airway is real clean, and any remaining gunk is from the area where the airway goes into the draught hole and chamber.
4. I have noticed no damage or issues to any of the pipes I flush clean. It has also not made my vulcanite stems any worse in terms of oxidizer ion, which was a concern I had.
So I will keep doing it, and experiment a bit. My main motivation was to greatly reduce the amount of deep cleanings I had to do, because I hate deep cleaning pipes and find it tedious as Hell. So far, it seems like it might be real helpful in that regard.
Just my 2 cents and personal experiences, of course. YMMV
1. It may be a bit pipe specific, but I do get a bit of gurgle with pipes that smoked dry before I started flushing. A major example is my Peterson Shannon 150. This pipe smoked wet when new, but after a lengthy break in, was quite a dry smoker using the traditional pipe cleaner, no flush cleaning. With the water flush, there are 3 or 4 times per bowl where I have to run a cleaner through, or cover the bowl with my palm, and snap my wrist like a Clayton Kershaw breaking ball to clear it. I tend to smoke these pipes nearly daily so maybe more rest/drying time would alleviate this issue some?
2. It has not really saved me any pipe cleaners. While flushing, I will typically run the water through for about 10 seconds at a time, and then run a pipe cleaner through it, repeating until the cleaner comes out clean. After that, I leave a cleaner in the airway and store until next use. Usually takes about 3 cleaners per cleaning.
3. Time will tell, but my pipes seem much cleaner. So far, I have felt no need to do any deep cleaning on my flushed pipes, even those I smoke every day. It also helps with the exterior of the pipe, the rims of my bowls and silverwork. Like Hoosier mentions in his OP, after the first flush/pipe cleaner, the airway is real clean, and any remaining gunk is from the area where the airway goes into the draught hole and chamber.
4. I have noticed no damage or issues to any of the pipes I flush clean. It has also not made my vulcanite stems any worse in terms of oxidizer ion, which was a concern I had.
So I will keep doing it, and experiment a bit. My main motivation was to greatly reduce the amount of deep cleanings I had to do, because I hate deep cleaning pipes and find it tedious as Hell. So far, it seems like it might be real helpful in that regard.
Just my 2 cents and personal experiences, of course. YMMV
So, your discontent has nothing to do with water cleaning? More about the emptiness of "bashing" threads, like "Whose Tobacco Stinks Worse Than My Armpits", or "Why Customer Service At Lint Picking Tobaccer.com Should Have Their Entrails Ripped Out Because The Avalanche Delayed My Delivery For 35 Seconds"?
This is totally and completely a half-assed theory by me.....but I've come around to assuming 'breaking in' (from a wet to a dry smoker perspective) is building up cake or carbon, or slightly charring/altering the wood around the draft hole, that changes air-flow for the better. Less that somehow smoking a pipe makes it more or less absorbent physically, etc.....but char/cake/carbon may help naturally fill in off-level/too-deep areas that trapped airflow/served as moisture collection sinks. Like a happy engineering accident/fix. I had some estates that came to me reamed that started wet and "dried out" when I allowed them to build some cake at the heel. When I cleared the cake...back to moisture. Some may see that a benefit to building cake and I dig it. For me...in most cases.... if it doesn't smoke dry from the jump (engineered correctly) out it goes. I do have some very cool vintage Britwood that I'm not going to cut my nose to spit my face in terms of lettings some cake happen to make it a dry smoker.....but new make/artisan? Good engineering on receipt please.
I don't build cake in my pipes, just a thin carbon. Water flushing doesn't impact that in a noticeable way.....but typically I read that it does flush looser cake for folks who build that (makes sense). So a long, winding way to say maybe it's less that moisture is being retained and more that water flushing clears some of the cake that was serving to mitigate the moisture traps in select pipes.
Posturing about flushing, to which I admit a lingering discontent, evolved into a more straight-forward criticism of bashing threads, governed not so much, I think, about legitimate complaint as the heady attraction of piling on.
We have improved, but for years I've seen bashing about Lakelands. One after another 15 guys will say more or less the same thing: "Eew, grannies panties" or"Eew, urinal cake." How eloquent! You have something so valuable to say that you merely parrot what the guy above you just said? I wasn't taking your meaning on the previous 15 iterations so thank you very much for that.
I used to see this quite a bit, including on this forum, but it's been awhile. I mention Lakeland bashing to comment on vendor bashing, which I think is more important as it diminishes the reputation of the vendor and tarnishes his ability to earn a livelihood. pipesmagazine has 22,795 members, and for every registered member the many who lurk. When someone says Vendor X sucks, and the page count of the thread notches up, how many thousands will read that negativity, and how much damage will be done to the vendor's business?
On this board P&C bashing (and I know they make more bonehead mistakes than others) had gotten so bad that every n00b felt it his duty to do a order review.
I hope Kevin's new rule helps.
We have improved, but for years I've seen bashing about Lakelands. One after another 15 guys will say more or less the same thing: "Eew, grannies panties" or"Eew, urinal cake." How eloquent! You have something so valuable to say that you merely parrot what the guy above you just said? I wasn't taking your meaning on the previous 15 iterations so thank you very much for that.
I used to see this quite a bit, including on this forum, but it's been awhile. I mention Lakeland bashing to comment on vendor bashing, which I think is more important as it diminishes the reputation of the vendor and tarnishes his ability to earn a livelihood. pipesmagazine has 22,795 members, and for every registered member the many who lurk. When someone says Vendor X sucks, and the page count of the thread notches up, how many thousands will read that negativity, and how much damage will be done to the vendor's business?
On this board P&C bashing (and I know they make more bonehead mistakes than others) had gotten so bad that every n00b felt it his duty to do a order review.
I hope Kevin's new rule helps.
Ah! Finally! A guy who puts smoking experience in direct opposition to the four-flushers, addicted to a technique leaning on the pentagram. They will come to you in all innocence, and although what they want is to convert another to four-flushing, their method is to get you to do so is to post to a thread such as this, such that when you see your post in the company of a myriad of other four-flushers, the occult technique will taker over your mind, and you will then be a four-flusher forever after.
Vauen
Then there are those that say they don't care how others clean their pipes and follow by condescending those that won't do it their way.
Aside from standard cleaning with cleaners dipped in alcohol, I also frequently do water flushing on almost all of my pipes except for the brand new ones.however with the newer pipes, I reckon It may be advisable to break them pipes in properly allowing tobacco tars to saturate inside a bit before proceeding with water flushing, Haven't had any ill effects with water flushing nor using cleaners dipped in booze(no alcohol into Acrylic stems,at least not often )
I suspect I joined afterwards. I'll have to look for the threads. ?
Ha ha, this always cracks me up, along with guys who are just plain old scared. It's like asking someone scared of heights to clean your gutters or someone who is just a wimpy scaredy cat to deal with a bully. Fear makes people weak... and that makes me laugh.
These pipes:
The stummel is briar, of course, and it takes the water cleaning just fine, I even applied some dish soap to the exterior and rinsed it quickly: no issue. It is absorbent, it dried pretty quickly.
The stem is beech, however, and that's a completely different matter: it cracked. Water soaked in through the bottom (and probably the top too, through the small crack where the mouthpiece meets the wood)
which is unvarnished and made the wood expand.
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I think I'm just going to start swirling my pipes around in the swimming pool...
Forum threads remind me of nothing so much as my mother's weekly Mahjong sessions with "da goils". It's mostly chatter with an occasional bit of purposefulness. Nothing wrong with that. This is a social gathering, not a lecture hall.
I held off using the water method for a year before deciding to give it a try, when I realized how illogical it was to be afraid of it. Every time I smoke a pipe I'm sucking super heated steam through it. If water was a problem for briar, we'd all be screwed.
I like the results better than using alcohol. My pipes taste fresher. I've never had a problem from using water. Some of my pipes may need a little more drying time before reassembling than others, but that's about it. As a method, it works. Anyone who hasn't used it and says that it doesn't work is talking out their ass.
I use alcohol for cleaning vulcanite stems and warm water with mild unscented dish washing gel for cleaning out lucite or acrylic stems.
I don't overthink it, or try to calculate the change in subatomic phase shifting brought on by a water flush. Life's too short.
Try it. Don't try it. Whatever.
I held off using the water method for a year before deciding to give it a try, when I realized how illogical it was to be afraid of it. Every time I smoke a pipe I'm sucking super heated steam through it. If water was a problem for briar, we'd all be screwed.
I like the results better than using alcohol. My pipes taste fresher. I've never had a problem from using water. Some of my pipes may need a little more drying time before reassembling than others, but that's about it. As a method, it works. Anyone who hasn't used it and says that it doesn't work is talking out their ass.
I use alcohol for cleaning vulcanite stems and warm water with mild unscented dish washing gel for cleaning out lucite or acrylic stems.
I don't overthink it, or try to calculate the change in subatomic phase shifting brought on by a water flush. Life's too short.
Try it. Don't try it. Whatever.
So, as a fearful, flat-earther, jerk who is such simply because he does not want to do the water flush...I say the following.
@sablebrush52 @jpmcwjr Thank you for letting me know that I am such a terrible person just because I disagree with you. You say "I don't care what way you clean" but whenever someone says "I am not a fan of water flush", you can't leave them to their own style, you must let us know how fearful, uneducated and stupid we are. I am realizing how horrible I am because of this. Thank you.
@sablebrush52 @jpmcwjr Thank you for letting me know that I am such a terrible person just because I disagree with you. You say "I don't care what way you clean" but whenever someone says "I am not a fan of water flush", you can't leave them to their own style, you must let us know how fearful, uneducated and stupid we are. I am realizing how horrible I am because of this. Thank you.
To go along with the above, do what you do. Please stop trying to tell me how awful I am because I don't do the same as you.
I am rarely in the pool without my pipe.
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