Strange that after 4 years of smoking, I've never asked this question, but just why is the briar the wood of choice for making pipes? Is it because it is especially heat resistant (and what makes it so?), other reasons?
Duane is indeed not porous... I've heard he's quite dense. :nana:Duane, not porous.
The silicate content in the wood provides heat resistance. Briar varies both in density and porousness.Is it because it is especially heat resistant (and what makes it so?)
I blame the Viagra. Ha! :rofl:Duane is indeed not porous... I've heard he's quite dense
And so do some of the members here...Briar varies both in density and porousness.
I blame the Viagra. Ha! :rofl:
I laughed at the first one, and then I choked on some cheese.... you do NOT want cheese stuck in your nose.Just call me "Woody". :mrgreen:
Because if you don't have meerschaum, it's the next best thing.Why is Briar the Wood of Choice?
He goes on to mention a few other woods.Cherry-wood has many of the required qualities, and is especially sweet-smoking, even for the first, but the interior of the bowl will never carbonize well and the wood lends itself only to a rough shaping.
A certain amount of Australian Myall-wood is used in France and some hard "Congo wood" at Vienna, but neither of these is widely popular. In Germany, before the coming the meerschaum, the wooden pipes carved by the peasents of the Black Forest had a consierable vogue. These were made from close-grained and gnarled root of the dwarf-oak, the wood being hard enough to resist fire, and the charring very slowly. Such a use of a root anticipates the wooden briar, as does, in a cruder fashion, the countryman's gorse-root pipe...