It’s snowing to beat the band here. That may be normal where you’re at, but it’s pretty strange here in the Seattle area this time of year. It’s spring, right?
Coming from Indiana, I was used to this at this time of year, but living in the Seattle area now, it just torques me off!
Another great Saturday. 3 1/2 routes down. Looks like I get to drive to the plant again.
This week we had a vehicle accident. One of our vehicles was struck by a woman driving through a red light because she was loopy from a dentist appointment. Fortunately, she was charged for the accident.
Also had an Express failure. It’s been a rough week.
My wife has a doc appointment Thursday, so I’m working Monday, which is usually my day off, and taking Thursday off.
On the really grim side, today is my evil cat’s birthday. Zoe is a terror, and her litter sister actually gave someone a nervous breakdown. Zoe is one of these cats that will sit on a shelf and knock stuff off just to see what you’ll do. She’ll be 11 years old this year, I think. And she’s as evil today as she was when she was born. Evil. E-V-I-L.
Today is also the anniversary of my 2nd wife’s death. She died during a heart procedure. I’ve made sure she’s had flowers every year since 1987. It was really hard to deal with during the first years, but now I just get a little down. Sometimes I can remember her so clearly it’s like it was yesterday, and other times everything’s fuzzy. I do still miss her. I have a better portrait shot somewhere, I just can’t find it right offhand.
Is it time for a smoke yet?
Today we’re going to talk about tampers. A tamper is a pipe tool used to compress the tobacco as you smoke it. You do this to keep the tobacco burning, and to keep it burning cool. Without tamping, the tobacco may become too loose to continue burning, or the tobacco aerates enough to start burning hot, which makes for a hot smoke, and your pipe may crack from the heat. If you don’t think it’s possible, I ended up cracking three or four pipes when I first started smoking, and that gets expensive fast.
A tamper can be something as simple as a nail. In my case, it’s sometimes my pointing finger, which makes me walk around with smudges on my face. Nothing says “adult” like a face smudged with ashes. Fortunately, most of the time I do use a tamper. I get tired of my wife pointing out that my nose has a black smudge on it.
A tamper can be a tamper alone, or it can be part of a set of pipe tools. Usually your first tamper will be the three tool Czech gizmo. It has a poker, a tamper, and a small spoon. This remains my most used tool, as I can use the poker to loosen the tobacco if I’ve packed it too tight, the tamper to tamp of course, and the spoon thing to move around the tobacco in the bowl, like closer to the draw hole if necessary. I’m not sure what that spoon thing is actually meant to do, but that’s what I use it for.
Tampers can also be a collectible classy instrument, like high end pens. There are tampers made from exotic woods, pewter, formed steel; pretty much anything that can be made with a blunt end to tamp down the tobacco. These runs from the double digits, to hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. I’ll add here that the Czech tool runs about $3 depending on where you get it. Back to the fancy tampers…
You can find tampers by just Googling them. My favorite tampers are from Catnip Hill Trading Company. The drawback is that they are pewter and soft, and can be broken if not handled carefully. I got the 
Calvinist tamper as a humorous gift, and I ended up breaking the tamper. There’s no fixing it. Even if you melt the tamper pieces back together, it’s never as strong as the original. So these make good collectable tampers, unless you’re a careful person, or pick a thick tamper or short tamper unlikely to break. I told you I’m a klutz.
Again, I’ve been known to use anything at hand if I’ve misplaced my tamper, from my finger, bolts, the back end of pens, keys (they don’t work very well), multiple burnt matches, a thin lighter (not the smartest of things to do). I told you, I get desperate.
Sometimes I think I should make my own goofy tampers, out of wood or something metal. If you’ve made your own unusual tamper, I’d love to hear about them. It’d also be fun to hear about anything you’ve used as a tamper in desperation.
A quick review of Paragon Wax for the Pipe. I chose this product because it has a higher melting point than carnuba, it’s harder than carnuba, and it can be polished without using a buffing wheel. Also, it can be used on meerschaum.
You get 1 ounce for $10, which looks like a very small amount, but you don’t really need that much to do the job. You apply just enough to create a filmy glaze on your pipe, let dry, then hand buff.
I used a microfiber cloth to polish the pipes. The wax itself is a grainy texture when you apply it, and not recommended for rusticated bowls. I also wouldn’t use it for detailed, ornate meerschaum. They have another product, Halycon II for those.
I do use Arango Briar Pipe Wipe, so my briar pipes aren’t real dingy to start with. The Paragon Wax did a nice job of shining them up. I’m no expert, but they looked like they had a much stronger polish than what the Pipe Wipe left. I did have one pipe that I was really interested in. The finish had chipped and cracked away as it’s a favorite frequently used pipe, and I am a klutz. There, I said it. Klutz. I’m frighteningly familiar with the sound of a pipe bouncing off the ground. Anyway, while it did do a great job polishing the pipe, alas, the scars of battle remained on the pipe, and the damage to the finish looked about the same.
That brings me to my meerschaums. I have two smokers, and one decorative. I don’t touch the decorative, don’t ask me to, it’s my big skull pipe you’ll find elsewhere in this blog. One of the smokers is a Kirsten bulldog and the other a simple egg meerschaum. The Kirsten is charred from my many attempts to light the dang thing with a lighter instead of a match. The egg meerschaum was the victim of the Internet.
Here’s the explanation about the Internet thing: When I had smoked the egg meerschaum for a while, it didn’t seem like the meerschaum coloration process was happening fast enough. I’m a very impatient person. So digging on the ‘net, I found a couple of methods for accelerating the coloration process. While I won’t go into what I tried, I will tell you that I ended up completely removing the meerschaum’s finish. The surface was not glossy at all. If you’re a meerschaum user, you know what the finish of a new meerschaum should feel like. I don’t give a good description here, but let it be said that I did completely screw up the finish.
I bought the Paragon for the express purpose of trying it on my meerschaums. I tried the egg meerschaum first, following the directions. Yes, I RTFM’d this time. Anyway, almost immediately, an awful stain spread across the bowl. I flipped out, and took extremely, extremely fine grit sandpaper to the stain. I figured I had already ruined the bowl, it didn’t really matter. Once the stain was gone, I tried it again, and a new stain appeared. Again, I took some sandpaper to it. I did it a third time, and the same thing happened. Disgusted, I set the pipe aside.
I decided to try the Kirsten as I think it’s made of pressed meerschaum dust instead of carved meerschaum, so the meerschaum wouldn’t color anyway. Again, figuring it was a lost cause, I tried sanding the rim a little to take away the scorch marks. I applied the wax just to the rim of the pipe, waited, polished, and was surprised to see that the finish looked new. What I hadn’t removed with the sandpaper was still there, but the finish still looked like it had just been applied. Wow!
I happened to glance over at the egg meerschaum, and the ugly stain had vanished. What the heck?! I rubbed off the glaze, amazed to see how shiny the meerschaum became. The stain was gone, and while it didn’t look new, the finish look great. I decided to try applying a second coat to see what happened.
I put the wax on, and again, the pipe developed ugly stains. Then I watched the pipe, and the stains faded within a few minutes. I shined it up again, and it looked even better! I don’t know if the stain appeared appeared because of the near complete lack of finish or what, but it seems I had panicked hastily. Even the areas where I had sanded looked great.
I’ve applied numerous coats to my meerschaum and the finish has improved each time. And I might be wrong, but the coloration process looks like it’s accelerated a little. Maybe in drying, the glaze pulled the nicotine outwards. I don’t know, but like I said, knowing the complete disaster I had started with, I’ve been amazed with the results.
So that’s my experience with Paragon Wax.
I’d post pictures of the pipe, but I don’t have a good “before” picture so it’d be kind of pointless. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
Ah, another Saturday. Three routes down, and it looks like I get to drive to Tukwila with the mail again. Our other two offices won’t fare much better, so I’m having them bring their mail here, and I’ll save the PO money by running up there with a single car. I’m such a hero. Makes for a 13-14 hour day for me.
Another 40 minutes and our Window closes. If you’re postal and want a peek, it’s intranet addresss is
http://seattle/sites/webcam/Viewer.cfm?qField=Location&qValue=31
I still have eRMS to do, but that’s about it until the carriers get back. My big excitement will be lunch. I wonder if there’s anywhere I can nap around here. Maybe the custodial closet…
I hear a pipe calling…
