What's the Deal with Bowl Coatings?

[Recon Paul]

People used to put camel shit on a pin, blaze it up and cover it with a drinking glass... or so I’ve heard. ?

I made the mistake of googling this subject. Not sure about the use of the pin, but dung smoking is definitely a real thing.

 

[Merton]

There is a beauty in a an uncoated bowl I think. More importantly, when you buy certain brands (Castello, Radice and some others) who use very good wood there is a pleasure in tasting the briar itself. While it probably does not make a difference in the long run, there are some makers, even fairly high end ones, who appear to put coating on with a trowel. Eltang, whose pipes I like, sometimes has too much coating for example.

 

[DAR]

I agree that there is a beauty in an uncoated bowl. It's part of breaking in a new pipe for me. I like the taste of the briar upon the first few smokes. It may be why I enjoy the first few smokes more than any other time with a pipe but a coated bowl certainly doesn't keep me from buying a pipe I like. I prefer an uncoated bowl but I'm really not concerned with what the coating is when I run into a coated bowl. Dung? Ok. Sounds crazy but I like the pipe. It's like enjoying a certain alcoholic drink and worrying about how the bottle was made.

 

[edwardadios]

I got my Tom Eltang without coating. I never like pipes with coating and now after 9 months, it still smokes better than the rest of my Eltangs. No burnout whatsoever but that’s probably because I’m careful but trust me, it’s way better without a coat especially if you’re smoking VA. Pipe is just a tool for me and I want to taste my tobacco the way they should be.

 

[anotherbob]

I have noticed that many pipes from European countries sport the bowl coating;
I've found thread here and there mentioning the topic and people's likes and dislikes of it but can someone elaborate on 1 what the heck it's actually put on there for? What it's typically made of? I wasted 10 minutes of my time on youtube watching a guy wipe it off a Chinese Pipe - stating that he's concerned of what's in it...(maybe he should stick to civilized countries, don't mind me ) Anyway, should they be sanded, alcohol swabbed until gone or left alone?
When you see some jobs in person they look daunting, that ugly uneven grey matter spread all over like gunky sludge

I think the bottom line is they're putting their product out to a wide range of people. Some people smoke like freight trains and can burn out a bowl easily. I've known more then a few smokers that do this. Protecting against that cost them less. As long as it continues it's because the people making the pipes are seeing some type of advantage to their business. It's basically their insurance against people who abuse their pipes right out the gate.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Possibly more is written about this than most fixable problems, and passions can run high, threads run long.

There will be many more of these, so closing this one.