What Was Used Before We Had Pipe Cleaners?

[carolinachurchwarden]

I just came back in from having a nice bowl of LBF in my L.P.N. Freehand and while I was standing at the sink, rinsing my bowl and stem, I started to think about the cleaners I've used and how I'll likely need more once the Charatan I bought arrives and I need to get her all cleaned up and polished back to life. I believe, based on markings and the stem itself, that it's potentially a pre-1960 pipe. That got me to thinking about the fact that I don't believe pipe cleaners existed back then, did they? Even if they did, there still had to be a time before them that gents used something different to clean their pipes. I mean, I'm sure they didn't just leave them. They'd surely clog after a while. So, for those of you that might have used something different yourselves or watched your fathers or grandfather's use something other than pipe cleaners, what was it? Was it some kind of fancy contraption that was supposed to revolutionize pipe smoking or was it... A chicken feather?

 

[warren]

I was building things out of pipe cleaners as a kid in the late 1940s. Can't speak to before that as I was sentient.

 

[mikefu]

According to Maigret in the novels, it was indeed the technology laden feathers of fowl.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Grass or other plant stems. String with a tiny weight on the end, rather like cleaning a shot gun barrel. Piece of wire. Thin knitting needles.
But they've been around for over a century.

After a bit of research on the web I found that they were invented by John Harry Stedman (b. 1843, d. 1922) & Charles Angel in Rochester, New York in the early 1900’s. Stedman was a creative inventor who throughout his life invented not only the fuzzy pipe cleaner but also the streetcar transfer ticket in 1892. He sold the pipe cleaner rights to BJ Long Company who has continued to make them for over 60 years and still makes them today.

 

[weezell]

it was indeed the technology laden feathers of fowl.

True it is...

 

[Chasing Embers]

What Was Used Before We Had Pipe Cleaners?

A new pipe.

 

[sablebrush52]

What Was Used Before We Had Pipe Cleaners?

A corn cob...

 

[glpease]

Interestingly, this is exactly the "problem" Dunhill endeavored to solve with his (in)famous Inner-Tube. Early Dunnies were stamped with a size marking indicating the appropriate tube, and stockists kept them on hand, possibly to be bought by the dozen. When the smoking experience began going pear-shaped, it was a simple matter to simply replace the thing, keep calm, and carry on. Whether or not most people actually did this, and whether or not they dunked them in a glass of spirits to clean them is a question left for pipe archaeologists.
An benevolent side-effect of the tubes is that they ensured a straight shot from bowl to stem, eliminating the potential for gurgle caused by odd airway geometry and significant expansion chambers - the gap between the tenon's terminus and the mortise's floor where moisture accumulates. It also required that a pipe be drilled with some precision so that the airway through the shank and that of the stem remained coaxial. Maybe Dunhill was onto something after all.
Chicken feathers also work, and are more effective than bullfeathers...

 

[danielplainview]

From the pages of the 1912 BBB catalog.
[url='https://postimg.cc/image/ypzkq11rr/' t=_self]

[/url]

 

[npod]

Neat topic. Thanks guys for digging up the research data.

 

[Civil War]

Interesting topic, thanks for the info.

 

[carolinachurchwarden]

@jpm, I just found the article you quoted that from. Quite an interesting read. I must have glossed over it last night as I was browsing myself. It would be really interesting to get a glimpse of all the different inventions and methods used through the years to clean out a pipe.
These two looked rather interesting:

It's always fun for me to see the way things were done "back in the day". I love history and discovering all the old ways is always amazing to sit back and look at how far we've come.
@dave g, Awesome book you have there! I think I might have to pick up some of these old books for myself, sometime. I would love to see the old catalogs and be able to flip through them to see all of the things they sold in days of old.
@glpease, That's a very interesting idea as well. Would love to find some images of how that worked. I love those old schematics that provide a breakdown of the technologies of the pipe.

 

[bnichols23]

"technology laden feathers of fowl" -- Bleeding-edge-tech chicken? Mike, you're a mess.
"A new pipe" -- Yup, same deal as underwear. Don't wash; buy new.
Thanks-also from here, gents. Always like finding out about age-old solutions to age-old problems.

 

[mso489]

daveg, wow what a find! A feather doesn't seem stiff enough, but there we go. I was going to guess that clay pipe smokers and early briar smokers might have used broom straw. My late wife's mom kept a clean new broom in the closet to use as toothpicks, and old time cake testers were broom straw--break off a straw and stick it in the cake; if batter adheres, it isn't done yet. A think reed or twig might also do. String threaded through on a thin wire probe. People continually made and repaired things, so I'm sure they figured out good pipe cleaner substitutes while coming up with pipe cleaners.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I once saw an illuminating video on YouTube about a factory in the States that makes pipecleaners. Well worth digging out as it shows all the processes involved....and there are many.
Regards,
Jay.

 

[mikethompson]

Can you imagine going from feathers to a pipe cleaner? Or how transformative a pipe cleaner was?

 

[jpmcwjr]

Equally interesting is the bit- seems it's canted upwards a good deal, "to prevent saliva" from entering.
If I ever had such a problem it was so long ago that I've forgotten. My drool never gets into the stem.
Does this happen with any of youse guys? Is it a real thing? (Anonymity will be protected. Or you can report on "a friend".)

 

[carolinachurchwarden]

Does this happen with any of youse guys? Is it a real thing?

I know that there are in fact some people that produce excess saliva. Not abnormal at all, just more than most other people do. For some of them I have heard that clinching a pipe makes it more pronounced than not, so I can see that it happens for some guys. Hell, it happens to me once in a while if I bend over for a longer than a minute while clinching my pipe. I do realize when it happens though and can pass a cleaner into the stem to draw it out. Also depends on how delicious the smell of the wife's cooking is that night. She can make a man drool with the scent of her fried chicken.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

When I first read through this last night, before the exerpt was posted with a diagram of using a feather on just the stem, I was thinking that I had never seen a chicken feather long enough to go down the full length of a draft. And, I have cleaned many a chicken. But, breaking a pipe down first makes sense. Plus, chicken feathers aren’t very absorbent. Junk might just stick to it if gummy, but it doesn’t immediately lend itself to absorbing moisture. Maybe if you had particularly fuzzy chickens. I would have probably have guessed goose feathers, or maybe a turkey.
On the business of saliva... since the nicotine has to be absorbed by the small blood vessels of the mouth, I wonder if salivating a lot means that person isn’t getting much of anything out of smoking when drooling, because he saliva gives more protection to the blood vessels? But, not to digress...

 

[crashthegrey]

There are certainly better poultry for pipe cleaning feathers than chicken, but I imagine that their availability made them the norm. I have plenty of poultry, but I think I will continue to buy pipe cleaners.