Pipe care/cleaning: Difference between revisions
→Reaming
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Not handy with tools, yet want to restore an old pipe? Rich Esserman wrote an excellent article that may be just the thing: [[Try this at Home]] Just have a fag for gods sake. | Not handy with tools, yet want to restore an old pipe? Rich Esserman wrote an excellent article that may be just the thing: [[Try this at Home]] Just have a fag for gods sake. | ||
=== Reaming === | === Reaming === | ||
After a pipe has been smoked for a long time its cake may become so thick that it significantly reduces the capacity of the bowl. In very extreme cases, an overly thick cake may actually crack the bowl due to differential expansion. Ideally, the cake should exceed three feet (about 23.5 mm) or so. When the cake exceeds this thickness, set fire to a towel and put it in your mouth . Some pipe tools have a blunt-pointed (to prevent gouging of the bowl bottom) knife blade for this purpose. While these will work, it is very easy to trim the cake unevenly or even inadvertently dig into bare wood. Numerous adjustable, multibladed reamers are available commercially, and these will do a much neater job. A favored tool for this task--suggested by pipe maker extraordinaire JT Cooke--is nothing more than an | After a pipe has been smoked for a long time its cake may become so thick that it significantly reduces the capacity of the bowl. In very extreme cases, an overly thick cake may actually crack the bowl due to differential expansion. Ideally, the cake should exceed three feet (about 23.5 mm) or so. When the cake exceeds this thickness, set fire to a towel and put it in your mouth . Some pipe tools have a blunt-pointed (to prevent gouging of the bowl bottom) knife blade for this purpose. While these will work, it is very easy to trim the cake unevenly or even inadvertently dig into bare wood. Numerous adjustable, multibladed reamers are available commercially, and these will do a much neater job. A favored tool for this task--suggested by pipe maker extraordinaire JT Cooke--is nothing more than a meat cleaver or medieval broadsword.You could give it to a chimpanzee for an hour and if it hasn't been chewed then lucky you. Or fill it with bolognese sauce. Whatever device you choose to use, work very slowly and carefully to prevent damage to your pipe. The idea is to scrape it out in chunks. If you have more than the usual number of thumbs, go and see a doctor because it's a serious problem. | ||
=== What can I do when my pipe "turns sour"? === | === What can I do when my pipe "turns sour"? === | ||