Welcome to Pappy’s Porch! Pour yourself a drink or a cup of coffee, pull up a chair and light your pipe. Sure, go ahead and ask me questions. I’ll answer them the best I can, but remember, these are my answers and opinions. Other pipe smokers may have different answers and opinions.
It is an unfortunate truth that available pipe tobacco blends constantly change. Lost forever are old, revered tobacco blends. New blends go on sale. Then suddenly become hard to find or disappear. Old blends lost, new blends found is the constant we live with today.
Hundreds of old pipe tobacco blends dating back to the late 1800s have completely disappeared. Their owners closed or sold while some just vanished. Others decided to go out of business (I’m looking at you McClelland) and refuse to sell their recipes.
Some companies changing owners or manufacturers meant recipes changing, and the current blends only vaguely resemble the original blends. It is common for company “bean counters” to look at profit/loss margins and eliminate blends just because. Mergers are also an enemy of pipe smokers. Old established companies get swallowed up by a conglomerate that decides to stop making most of the blends. Would you be surprised that the decision to stop producing some blends are made before the first offer is made?
Progress and growth of a tobacco company is not always good for the pipe smoking community. Sometimes maintaining a high level of quality just isn’t feasible so companies just stop making a blend. And sometimes blends stop selling enough to be profitable.
Disclaimer: Some of the information in this post may not be 100% accurate but is based on my understanding of the facts. In other words, I may not have the full story or may just be speculating based on stories I have heard.
The Loss of McClelland
I personally can’t remember ever meeting or talking to the McNiel’s, owners of McClelland. The story I kept hearing though was that they were having problems acquiring the high-quality tobacco needed to make their blends. That, combined with the fact that they were just ready to retire, led to them closing McClelland.
I don’t know why they decided to not pass on or sell the blend recipes. My theory is that since sourcing the quality of tobacco they needed was impossible, they didn’t want anyone else trying to replicate the blends. I understand this. All the blends made under their label was their legacy. Having an inferior blend associated with the McClelland name was not something they wanted. I respect their decision.
Look at the Dunhill blends as an example. When Dunhill decided to get out of the tobacco business, they sold the recipes. After 1981(?), Dunhill blends were made by Murray. Some old timers I know say that the Murray blends were not the same. People who smoked and liked the Murray blends hate the current blends made by Orlik but with Peterson on the label.
Getting back to McClelland. I smoked through a bunch of Christmas Cheer and Holiday Spirit. I enjoyed all the Frog Morton series and still have a 100g tin of Frog Morton Cellar, unopened. Unfortunately, I didn’t explore more before the closed. It was only later that I stumbled on to four tins of McClelland’s Master Penman and tins of Piper’s Choice Black Tie, and several others. Except for the Frog Morton Cellar and two tins of Master Penman, those blends are now lost to me. One of these days I will have to smoke what I have left.
Since tobacco was first “discovered” by Christopher Columbus and taken back to Europe, it has been a commercial product. Even before that, indigenous tribes used tobacco for barter and gifts as it was used for medicinal and religious purposes.
By the 1600s, tobacco was used as a cash crop and the first tobacco shops in England were opened in 1614. The first American tobacco company opened in Virginia in 1730. As we all know, the purpose of a commercial business is to make money by selling what the customers want.
I will speculate that what people were putting into pipes or rolling into cigars in the 1600s was at the other end of the spectrum compared to the thousands of blends and cigars available since 1900. (Cigar smoking can be traced back to the Mayans as far back as 2500 BC.) New varieties of tobacco were discovered and new processing methods developed over the centuries.
To make money, the companies would engage in one-upmanship when it came to blends. The goal was to create blends that would outsell the competitors blends. That is why hundreds of blends sold in the early 1900s started disappearing before World War II. Anyone remember Seaport Flake, Tuxedo, Old
Briar or Ogden’s Midnight Flake? I imagine if they were better blends then we would still find them available much like we do with Prince Albert, Granger, Gold Bond or Half & Half.
My maternal step-grandfather’s daily blend was George Washington, a R.J. Reynolds blend. In the mid-1970s a decision was made to reduce their pipe tobacco portfolio and George Washington was one of the last blends to be cut. I was once told that it came down to either George Washington or Prince Albert had to be eliminated, and Prince Albert won the coin toss.
Most recently we have seen tobacco manufacturing companies like Kohlhase & Kopp split into. Kopp has kept the pipe tobacco side of the business while Kohlhase is pursuing the cigar side. Other companies are in the process of downsizing their portfolios if rumors are to be believed.
The biggest recent loss must be the result of Sutliff and Mac Baren being bought by the Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG). The vast majority of Mac Baren and Sutliff tinned blends were discontinued as well as all but a few of Sutliff bulk blends. This has also impacted the local and regional tobacconist who produced their own blends from tobacco bought from Sutliff.
Under the Obama administration, the FDA introduce deeming regulations with the intention of crippling the cigar and pipe tobacco industry by making it harder to introduce new products and by increasing the excise taxes. On the one hand, taxes went up. Better news is the deeming regulations are on hold.
Companies rushed various new blends into production before the published compliance dates. Tobacco companies like Cornell & Diehl and tobacco shops like The Country Squire, Watch City Cigars and Ken Byron Ventures, to name a few, have continued introducing new house blends. Of course, these are shops which used Sutliff as a source for their blending tobaccos and are now scrambling to find new suppliers.
Additionally, we have seen an increase in the number of European blends being distributed in the U.S. Eighteen different HU tobacco blends are available as well as eight blends from Kopp (six Caribbean Blue blends and two limited edition blends). It leads me to hope they will eventually expand their distribution.
© J. Gibson Creative Services. May 15, 2025
So, you decided you don’t like walking. Well, If you’re going to ride, you will need a bike. How hard can find a bike be?
“It’s as easy as riding a bike.”
The intent behind that quote is basically, once you have learned to ride a bike, you never forget. An article in the New York Times stated once we learn to ride a bicycle, we never forget. It explained we use one part of the brain for learning skills and another for learning knowledge. Since the skill learning portion of the brain isn’t used as heavily, it is easier to recall the skill.
After reintroducing my body to bicycle riding at 71.5 years of age, I would amend that statement. I think it is easier to relearn the basics of the skill but takes slightly longer to regain the confidence earned from the experience of riding a bike. Yes, it takes time to regain the confidence you need to ride. But I will get to that shortly.
If you haven’t ridden or owned a bike for over 45 years, there are a few things to know before heading down to the big box store and just buying a pre-assembled one off the rack.
Growing up in the 1960s, we had single speed bikes from companies like Schwinn, Huffy, Murray and Western Flyer, etc. These ranged from “full” size bikes with fat tires to what we called 10-speed bikes or “English Racing Bikes”. Kids also had short bikes with banana seats and high handlebars like the Schwinn Stingrays. Some of the Stingray styled bikes even came with multiple gears. I remember a friend who had a bike with the shifter mounted on the top bar of the frame instead of the handlebars. Basic, single speed bikes were the big sellers. We now called them cruisers – one speed, with coaster brakes (the kind you backpedal to stop).
Let’s talk buying a bicycle. With all due respect to bicycle shop owners, you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money on a “starter” quality bicycle. I bought a used one for under $75 when I restarted bike riding. Why? I wasn’t sure if I was going to stick to riding. I decided to try it out and if I found I liked it and wanted to continue, then I would shop for something newer.
While I found that I did like riding, I didn’t necessarily like the used bike I had purchased from a good, reputable bike shop. As I rode the used hybrid bike, I found I just wasn’t as comfortable as I wanted to be. Now, part of this was because I was just restarting and had yet to regain my confidence and balance. In fact, after I bought my current bicycle, I gave the used one to one of my grandsons and he uses it to ride around his college campus.
What I did learn from the used bike was that I wanted a good hybrid bike that I fit on and that wasn’t above my budget. Sorry, bike shops, but spending over $300 for basically a beginner bicycle is not something I endorse. My logic is, “Don’t buy a really expensive bike until you know for sure you are going to like riding a bike.”
A Mercedes and a Kia will both get you from Point A to Point B in relative comfort. The difference being that high-end cars should provide a more comfortable ride for a longer time. I think high-end bikes will be more durable and hold up better to heavy usage. That’s not saying big box brand bikes aren’t worth the money. You can still buy a good Schwinn or Huffy for less money. You just need to trust the store to assemble it correctly.
I now own an Ozone 500 Black Canyon 7-Speed hybrid I purchased at Academy Sports. I paid under $200 and have been riding it since mid-September. In six months (I didn’t ride in December), I have put 470 miles on this bike. My average speed has increased from 7.4 mph for a five-mile ride to 9.4 mph for a 6.6-mile ride. The only alteration to the bike has been a slightly wider gel-filled saddle and a mirror mounted at the end of the handlebar.
At the beginning I mentioned regaining the confidence to ride a bicycle. Let me explain my experience back in September. I was able to get on the bicycle and ride, but it wasn’t exactly a stable, steady ride. My balance was shaky at first and I had to get used to being on the bike, riding in a straight line and maneuvering around people on the biking/walking path while also staying out of the way of speed-demon professional bike riders. I fell four times in the first two weeks of bike riding.
The first time was me oversteering while taking a turn faster than I was comfortable with while trying to get out of the way of another bike rider.
The second time was when the front wheel was attacked by a rabbit jumped out of a bush and surprised me.
The third time was missing a turn while coming down a 7-foot incline.
The fourth time was emergency breaking to keep from getting hit by a pick-up that refused to stop at a stop sign. He had the stop sign, I didn’t.
I have managed to not fall off my bike since then.
There is nothing mechanically wrong with my Ozone 500, but I have bought a new bike. While the fit was “comfortable” when I sat on the seat, just my toes touch the ground. I have had a couple of near falls because of this. The aftermath of back surgery 25 years ago, leaning the bike over to swing my leg across is also an occasional problem. That slight difficulty in getting on the bike and not being able to put my feet solidly on the ground was the deciding factor in buying a new bike recently.
© J. Gibson Creative Services. April 30, 2025
(Warning: Even though I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express many times, I am not a medical professional. The following does not constitute medical advice, it is just a recounting of what I have done over the past 10 months to be more proactive with my physical and mental health.)
One of the things I have learned in my 72 years on this planet is “Life is tough.” Sure, there are times when life is easy but sometimes it just slams you into a wall. Life decided to slam my head into a brick wall last Father’s Day. It hit me in the kidneys with a baseball bat and ripped a hole in my soul. Unexpectedly losing your wife on a day when family is supposed to be celebrating you is cruel and unusual punishment.
I could have just curled up in the deep hole life tossed me into. But I’ve been called stubborn in the past. Some have even accused me of enjoying doing things the hard way. Instead, I recognized that I had too many people who needed me. I had to be strong for myself. I had to be strong for them.
Part of that (and now we get to the crux of this meandering) meant taking better care of myself physically. While I have been passively following my doctor’s “requests” that doesn’t mean I was doing everything I could or should have. I came to realize, I had to do more.
To be honest, the first step was a by-product of grief. I lost my appetite and was barely eating. When I did start regaining my appetite, I found that I could live without a lot of starches, so I cut back on rice and potatoes. I decided to start eating more salads.
The next thing to happen was reaching out to someone who once worked for me in the Coast Guard, he left the service, went to seminary school and became a Lutheran priest just before 9/11. He immediately joined the Army’s chaplain corps and retired last year. Anyway, he suggested I started “rucking”. I looked it up, rucking is walking 10 miles in the wilderness with 20 pounds of rocks on your back. I decided I would start walking instead.
The point of the suggestion was that exercise is good for your body, your mental health and your soul. So, I started walking. I bought an Apple Watch to help keep track of my fitness (yes, there are other devices that can also do it and probably less expensive). I started out working a little over one mile a day. By mid-July I was doing just over two miles a day. Time wise, I went from doing a mile in over 20-minutes to 2.25 miles in 22 minutes.
Finding a safe place to walk was easy. I like walking in Heritage Park a well maintained park with an inner (ring) that takes eight laps to make a mile. An outer ring requires only three laps to make a mile. and, if you get bored walking around in a circle, there are two “offshoots” that walkers often use to add variety. A part of the walkway is along Bayou Liberty – a nice scenic little waterway.
I admit that I was tired of walking the same paths after six weeks. I needed a change of scenery. Driving another two or three miles took me to Camp Salmen – a former Boy Scout area turned into a parish park. There are multiple nature trails in addition to a paved biking/walking path. That path is also connected to the Tammany Trace, a 31-mile rail trail running from Slidell to Covington along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
Walking the trails and the walking path gave me incentive to keep walking. Seeing people also riding along the path made me think, “I wonder if I can still ride a bike?” I mean, I used to ride a bike to and from school when I was in junior high. Me and my friends would spend hours riding our bikes around on the weekend and during the summer. My first couple of years in Seattle, I spent a lot of time riding a 10-speed up and down some of the hills and around Green Lake. (For those who don’t know, a 10-speed was what we had before they created road bikes with 21 or more gears.)
I mean, it had only been about 45 years and a back surgery since I rode a bike. Surely, I could hop on one and pick up where I left off?
© J. Gibson Creative Services. April 28, 2025
Hello again.
Remember me? I used to write about several different topics like pipe smoking, fishing and life in general. Then, I stopped.
Life started getting in the way. Sometimes I just got busy. Occasionall I would start to write but stopped because I felt that I had nothing to say.
Sometimes, I would have ideas but not the words to express them.
For someone who has spent most of his adult life on writing, I was unable to consistently put thoughts on paper. I found that I lost that ability. Then, I lost something more important.
My wife passed away last June (June 16, 2024). We met in April 1975 and married four months later. While many people marry their high school sweethearts and find themselves divorced, I proposed to Sharon three months after meeting her and were just two months from our 49th anniversary when she passed. It may not have been love at first sight, but it was close.
Oh, it wasn’t always easy. I was still on my first enlistment in the Coast Guard, and it took an additional 18 years for me to finally retired. There were many times my duty took me away from home. There were times I found myself in dangerous situations. These were times that were hard on my wife – as they are on all military spouses. But we always worked through the problems created by my service. She always found the strength to support me.
To lose someone who has been a part of you for 49 hard. It grabs you by your soul and rips your metaphysical being in half then lets it float away. For me, it created a void that will never be filled again.
That was 10 months ago at this writing. Now I fill my days with finding ways to cope. At first, I started walking at least one mile a day, then two miles. In September, I decided to try riding a bicycle – something I hadn’t done if about 40 years. I bought a used bike, fell a few times as I regained my bike riding balance, and two weeks later decided to buy a new bike.
From June through November, I walked 115 miles and rode 226 miles for a total of 341 miles. So far in 2025, I have ridden 191.34 miles and walked 2.18 miles. (I skipped recording anything in the month of December because Santa Joe was busy.)
So, where does that leave me?
I am going to attempt to start writing again. As I was advised to start walking/riding as a coping mechanism, it has recently been suggested to start writing again. At first, it may all be about me and navigating through my grief. My intention is to let this lead me into documenting my pipe smoking journey as well.
Coming soon: Riding and Walking to Better Health.
© J. Gibson Creative Services. April 27, 2025
The truth about Stanwell Danish Star Pipes is elusive. If I was to have a nightmare about pipes, it would be me sitting at a table and a famous carver, like Sixteen Ivarsson, sitting there yelling, “You can’t handle the truth!” like Jack Nicholson did in “A Few Good Men.”
Take, for example, the three Danish Star pipes I just finished cleaning for resell. According to the shape chart I located on pipedia.com (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Stanwell_Shape_Numbers_and_Designers), all three were shapes created by Sixteen Ivarsson – created, not carved. With the exception of the individual pipes he carved and handed to Poul Nielsen, Ivarsson may not have carved another of these shapes.
Again, according to pipedia.com and other sources, Ivarsson lived in Denmark during World War II. When his pipe stem broke, Ivarsson went to Suhr’s Pibereparation to get it repaired and wound up working as a repairman. Story is, he also starting carving pipes and soon became locally known as a pipe carver. Then, Nielsen, who was managing (or owner of) Kyringe (another wood working factory) visited Suhr, he became enamored with the pipe shapes being carved by Ivarsson. This led to Ivarsson creating pipe shapes for Nielsen. Nielsen changed the name of his factory to Stanwell (and later changed his name to Stanwell, as well). That cooperation between Ivarsson and Stanwell lasted for decades.
The problem, for me so far, is that I haven’t been able to pinpoint the date when Stanwell created its Danish Star line of pipes or when the dropped the line. Ivarsson died in 2001 and that meant no new shapes were possible from him, but that doesn’t mean Stanwell had to stop using those shapes.
I’m making a supposition here (a pure guess, is more like it), but I think the Danish Star pipes were above average in quality – not a mid-range pipe, but not a top line pipe for Stanwell either. The pipe shapes were created by legendary carvers like Ivarsson, Anne Julie and Tom Eltang. (Anne Julie, by the way, was the wife of Poul Rasmussen. She started carving pipes are Rasmussen died at the age of 47). To me, it looks like Stanwell wanted to capitalize on the name of the carvers who created the shapes.
The Danish Star 30 and 127 are smaller pipes with thinner stems. The 30 is a
strawberry shape, bent pipe. The Stanwell logo is present on both stems, but the white paint is missing.
A “strongly bent” pipe, the 127 shank is more than 3/4-bent. A little more bend and it would be close to an Oom Paul shape. While some consider the bowl as “egg shape”, I think it is closer to an acorn shape.
My favorite shape of the three, is the Danish Star 124. The bowl is a freehand but looks like an egg. What grabs my attention is the long, conical shape of the shank and the short saddle stem. I see an elegance about this pipe.
Anyone interested in more photos or information can contact me by leaving a message using the contact form on the Greetings page.
© J. Gibson Creative Services. March 3, 2020
Searching antique shops & malls has always been a hit or miss situation. You go hoping to find something worthwhile and you get nothing. Or, you walk in not looking and you find treasure. Last week was definitely a “finding treasure when not looking” one for me – mostly, anyway.
My wife collects salt & pepper shakers and pie birds, and I while every place we go seem to have them, not all are ones she wants.
https://pappyjoesblog.com/collecting-estates-what-i-look-for/
About two weeks ago, we visited The Pink Elephant in Baton Rouge and I looked at several pipes in a couple of display cases. The rough condition made the asking prices too high for no-name basket pipes. In explaining this to the lady helping me, she mentioned that she had just purchased a number of pipes in an estate sale and but hadn’t put them in her booths yet. I made a note to stop back in on the drive to Texas the following week.
She had added 10 pipes and while most weren’t of interest to me at the prices she was asking, I did find a Savinelli 614 for $34. The stamping – Bayou Tobacco over Savinelli Product – caught my eye though. This made it a house pipe for Bayou Tobacco, a Baton Rouge brick & mortar store that closed down in 2018. Even with the heavy charring on the rim, the pipe was in good condition. A new 614 retails around $100.
The next day, while visiting a sister in Lumberton, Texas, we decided to check out a few antique malls in the area. For a pipe collector, the pickings were slim, but I did find a small Scottie Dog pipe rest. I passed on a six-pipe rack with a ceramic jar because the jar just didn’t seem to fit the rack and there were no markings on the jar.
Remember I said I often find treasures when not expecting too? That was the results on Saturday in the little town of Vidor, Texas where my other three sisters and their families live. A small “antique” shop had opened since our last visit there and we decided to see what they had. Usually finding flea market quality items, the shop had a good mix of antique and vintage items. I found a small Brighton #3 tobacco cutter priced at $99 first. I considered it too high for a reproduction piece.
The cutter looks like one made by Wrightsville Hardware Co. of Wrightsville, PA in the early 1900s and re-issued by John Wright Co. in the 1970s. Originally unpainted cast iron with tobacco leaf designs on the handle, the paint was added in the re-issue.
Tabak Jar
Next, I found a ceramic tobacco jar with a surprising price of $15. I’ve tobacco jars priced in the $50 – $75 range but with cracks. (This doesn’t include porcelain jars I’ve seen priced over $100.) Since this one was in good shape and the word “Tabak” on it, I decided to bring it home with me.
Here’s where I got a good deal. I mentioned the cutter to the shop owner, and he said he would look at it and see if he could reduce the price. He dropped it to $60 and I took it. He also cut the price on the jar to $8. That was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
I mentioned that Bayou Tobacco had closed last summer earlier. A few weeks ago, I received a notification from their Facebook page that the phone number was updated. I sent them a message and found out the owner was in the process of re-opening. Anytime a tobacco shop opens – or, in this case, reopens – is good news. Unfortunately for pipe smokers in Baton Rouge, the shop is being moved to Tylertown, Mississippi, about a two-hour drive.
Pipe smokers keep asking me how I keep finding good pipes at antique shops, malls and junk shops. My answer is always, “Just dumb, blind luck,” and that is the Truth. I’ve come to the conclusion, that I go looking for a pipe, I don’t find one. For some reason, I seem to have more success just going into a shop without expectation of finding anything.
That’s how I found a motherlode of estate pipes (relatively speaking) the last week in April while in northeast Tennessee. We were in Johnson City, staying with our teenage grandsons while our son and daughter-in-law were out of town. With the boys in school, we visited antique shops and malls in the area. On Thursday, we drove the 23 miles to Kingsport to look around.
Our first stop was P&J Antiques (204 Broad Street) https://www.facebook.com/pandjantiqueskingsport/.
This place is very big and antique hunters can easily spend three or four hours wandering around the two-floor shop. Less than five minutes and maybe 50 steps from the entrance I found a display case with about 20 pipes. Another 30 feet down the aisle and another booth had a case with another 20 pipes. I also saw another five or six pipes in other booths.
As usual, some of the pipes were Medico’s, Grabows and Kaywoodies, but there were enough other pipes to warrant having the shop manager open the cases. The first pipe I picked up was a big, old Nording freehand priced at $99. The case also had a Barling, a Peterson and a Savinelli with $39 or $49 price tags. I then picked up a pipe with a Vulcanite stem. It was a Dunhill Red Bark 415 and the asking price was $59. I told the shop worker I would have to think about it, and she said, “I’ll give you a discount…”
Without a doubt, I bought the Dunhill. I guess that’s why I didn’t look at the rest of the pipes more carefully and didn’t see the Comoy or the Sasieni 4 Dot pipes in the next case. The Sasieni and another pipe was purchased the next day by a New Orleans Pipe Club member who lives between Kingsport and Johnson City.
P&J’s isn’t the only antique shop in Kingsport or in that area, but it did have the best selection of “estate” pipes I’ve ever seen outside of a cigar & pipe shop. The Tri-City area of Kingsport, Bristol and Johnson City has a goodly number of antique shops, malls and flea markets and many of them have some type of tobacciana collectibles. One shop, in Bristol, had two nice, wooden tobacco stands with copper-lined humidors, for example. I also saw a number of vintage tobacco tins and some pipe stands with tobacco jars. My only other purchase was a 3-pipe stand with a marble base though.
The Dunhill Red Bark I bought, had me doing some research at first because the stamping on the bottom didn’t completely match my expectations. It is stamped Dunhill over Made in England16 and the numbers 415, but there are no other marks. I expected it to have ODA and F/T also stamped on the bowl, but it didn’t. That being said, I had it confirmed as being a Group 4, Tapered Stem, Dublin.
The restoration of the pipe to smoking condition went quickly with most of the time spent waiting for the two bowl treatments to do their thing. After a good reaming to remove the rough cake in the bowl, I used cotton balls soaked in alcohol for almost 24 hours. I followed that with packing the bowl with damp coffee grounds for another 12 hours. This left the bowl with a slight coffee smell but no old tobacco odor.
In the meantime, I soaked the stem in a warm Oxyclean solution to soften the oxidation. My method of removing the oxidation started with 600-grit wet sandpaper and working my way up to 12,000 grit micro-mesh pads. The final step was applying Walker Briar Works Pipe Stem Deoxidizer/Cleaner and Carnauba Wax Polish/Sealer.
I thought it was only fitting to open my tin of Dunhill Apertif for my initial smoke in the pipe.
© J. Gibson Creative Services. May 5, 2019
Even a blind squirrel finds an occasional acorn. That’s how I feel sometimes when I walk into a junktique shop (the signs usually say “Antique & Collectibles) and finding something worth adding to my collection. A recent Saturday expedition to one of these shops uncovered 15 or 16 usual Medicos, Dr. Grabow’s and Kaywoodie’s damaged beyond consideration.
I found the acorn – or in this case, a bent Dublin Ascorti KS – laying next to a cigar box. Carved before 1984 according to Roberto Silvana Ascorti, the pipe was in good condition. The stem only had some light tooth chatter and no oxidation. The bowl had a thin cake build-up and still smelled of tobacco. Priced at $38, I decided I couldn’t pass it up. (I did get a 10% discount on it though.)
The next day I started working on the bowl with a light reaming with my pipe knife. I then used strips of sand paper around my index finger until the cake was just barely visible. After a quick rinse, I worked on removing old smells from the bowl. I dipped two cotton balls in some vodka and stuffed them into the bowl for 24 hours. I left the stem in place to keep the vodka from leaking out of the shank.
A good sign was the next day when I pulled out the cotton, it was just a light tan color. I took this to mean that the pipe itself had never been heavily smoked. After a quick rinse, I packed wet coffee ground in the bowl and the mortise and set aside for eight hours.
To clean the stem, I mixed about a tablespoon of Oxyclean with warm water in a pint mason jar. I dropped both the
stem for the Ascorti and a stem from a small Peterson in the solution. (One of my sons recently found a Peterson System Premium 314 at an antique shop.) I set the timer for one hour. Soaking in the Oxyclean does not remove the oxidation on the stem but it does bring it more to the surface and soften it.
I use micromesh pads (starting with a wet 3200 grit pad) to remove the oxidation. It takes time and effort but by working up to the 12000-grit pad, I can remove most of the oxidation. I then rinse the stem under warm running water for several minutes before working on the airway.
What works for me is wetting a bristle pipe cleaner and then applying toothpaste to at least a third of the pipe cleaner. After working the cleaner through the stem four or five times, I repeat with a soft pipe cleaner and then rinse thoroughly again. Be sure you rinse thoroughly and run a dry pipe cleaner through the airway otherwise you will taste toothpaste the first time you smoke the pipe.
I head to the buffer for the next two steps. My buffer has two wheels and I use one for applying green buffing compound (purchased from Mark Tinsky at American Pipes) to remove any remaining oxidation. I use the second buffing wheel for applying carnauba wax. These steps may sound simple, but it takes practice to get the technique down right. You can easily send the stem flying out of your hand if you apply too much pressure.
After applying the wax, I do a final polish with a clean terry cloth rag to bring out more of the shine. Did I say final polish? I have one more step for the stem. I rub the stem with a couple of drops of Obsidian Pipe Stem Oil and let it sit for at least 30 minutes before buffing with a soft cloth. It may be a little overkill and I may have a few unnecessary steps in my method, but I like the results.
Remember the bowl? After the coffee grounds have set in the bowl for 8 hours, I dump them into the sink and give the pipe another good rinse under warm water. Occasionally I use a pipe cleaner in the mortise to get all the grounds out, but it’s worth the effort. Don’t worry about any residual coffee taste in the pipe as it will disappear after a puff or two.
Now, you can’t immediately smoke the pipe after a cleaning like this. I recommend letting the pipe dry out for at least 24 hours before smoking.
© J. Gibson Creative Services. May 2018
The topic keeps resurfacing on pipe smoking forums. Do the higher priced, premium pipes really smoke better than less expensive pipes?
There are some pipe smoking snobs who claim the more expensive pipes do smoke better. But how does that explain the thousands of pipe smokers who collect and swear by the smoking qualities of Kaywoodies and Dr. Grabow’s for example?
I decided to test some of my pipes to see if I found a difference. My one Dunhill is a 3/4 bent billiard made in 1926, so I chose bent pipes for this test. I smoked the following for the test: Dunhill 151 Inner Tube, Rinaldo Triade YYY 1, Stefano Santambrogio (not a full 3/4 bend, but close), Stanwell Hans Christian Anderson Smooth Dublin, a Savinelli Dry System 2622, an Italian briar with the only stamping being Christmas 1988 and a Borkum Riff pipe.
The tobacco for the test? Dunhill My Mixture 965 so there was no variance because of the tobacco blend. I measured out 2 grams for each bowl, straight from the tin without any additional drying time. I packed and smoked each bowl using the same technique.
Four of the pipes were new when I received them (One purchased, two contest prizes, one included in an on-line tobacco purchase deal). Two pipes I rescued and the last was a gift to me. All seven are in good smoking condition.
Part of the premise that more expensive pipes smoke better, is that the engineering and quality of workmanship makes a difference. I settled for examining the drilling of each pipe and stem as a comparison in engineering. A perfectly drilled pipe should smoke better than a poorly drilled pipe, in my opinion. To check this, I performed a “pass a pipe cleaner” test on each pipe. By “pass a pipe cleaner,” I mean I can insert a Dill’s pipe cleaner through the bit and it goes all the way into the bowl.
In my opinion, a perfectly drilled pipe has three things: 1. Draught hole dead center in the mortise, 2. Hole and airway in the stem perfectly aligned (will pass a pipe cleaner), and, 3. Draught hole and airway the same diameter.
If the draught hole is not perfectly center in the mortise, then the airway in the stem will not line up properly. It won’t necessarily prevent the pipe from being a decent smoker, but it won’t be a great pipe until you get it re-drilled. If the airway in the stem is larger than the draught hole, you may hit briar when inserting the pipe cleaner and must wiggle the cleaner to get it into the draft hole of the bowl. Conversely, if the draught hole is bigger than the airway, it should pass the pipe cleaner more easily.
When setting up for my test, I shined a bright LED light into the mortise of each pipe I used. Surprisingly, none of my pipes were what I would call perfectly drilled. The drilling on my Savinelli Dry System 2622 looks more like the drilling on a Cavalier. For example, the draught hole is drilled into the top of the airway and there is a space at the bottom of the mortise where moisture can collect. This is part of the engineering design of a Dry System pipe. It’s a very good smoker and I’ve never notice it gurgle.
On the other hand, the Borkum Riff bent pipe is just badly drilled. An cleaner inserted into the mortise bottoms out in briar. Shine a light in the mortise and you don’t see the draught hole. Run the cleaner along the top of the mortise and it does slide into the draught hole. Of all the bent pipes I tested, this was the worst in my opinion.
My unscientific method of measuring the size of the airway and draught hole was equally as simple. A single pipe cleaner fits into the draught hole and the stem airway. Five of the pipes did this. The Savinelli and the Dunhill have larger bores. The Savinelli is a balsa filter pipe and the Dunhill originally came with an aluminum inner tube (hence the name, Inner Tube). I don’t use either. I can easily insert 2 pipe cleaners at one time in both pipes.
Next: The testing…
(© J. Gibson Creative, April 19, 2018)
Comments
Hello Joe, I remember you from the Mike Norton and Grey Fox Online days. Good to see you are still plugging along pipes and all.