JackTales

I had originally titled this “Homemade Pipe Bombs,” but I thought that’d be in bad taste, and I’d get Googled by a swarm of 15-year old’s. Today, we’re going to take a look at a bunch of homemade pipe remedies that both worked and didn’t work.

I’ll start with something that did work. Cleaning meerschaum’s are a challenge in itself, but the simplest thing I’ve made that’s been really helpful was a toothbrush cut down to about 2 1/2″. It lets me scrub out the meerschaum without damaging the inside. It also preps the pipe for something that I’ll cover later.

Before you try any of these other meerschaum remedies, I’d suggest trying a beater meerschaum, something simple that isn’t a collector’s piece, and you’re more interested in smoking your meerschaum than in preserving it’s pristine state.

One of the worst things I’ve done came from the Internet. The idea was to accelerate the coloring process of the meerschaum. The idea was to coat the meerschaum in beeswax using cotton swabs or something like them, allow the wax to solidify, then heat the meerschaum with a heat gun, melting the wax off. It accelerated the coloring alright, but it also stripped the finish off of the pipe.

Since I don’t have carnuba wax or something like it, and a buffing wheel, I bought Paragon Pipe Wax, which doesn’t require a buffing wheel, and managed to restore the finish. I think meerschaums are immersed in these arcane wax mixtures that are hard to replicate, so the Paragon finish was much easier to apply and a simpler solution.

What’s important to know about a meerschaum is that you don’t want any cake to build up in it. Cake is good for briar pipes but very bad for meerschaums. If cake starts to build up, gently scrape the inside of the bowl. Do not ream it, or hack at it until you reach pure meerschaum.

I’ve read all sort of wacky ideas to keep the inside of your meerschaum clean, including alcohol swabs, not using alcohol swabs, antibacterial wipes, not using antibacterial wipes, using nothing, using this, and using that. Honestly, the possibilities are ridiculous. I decided to use something designed for pipes, and specifically designed to remove excessive buildup: Arango Pipe Spray. The way I use it is to spray all of the inside of the pipe surface, then use a couple of facial tissues to wipe the bowl out. You can also use the Arango Pipe Spray to spray out the inside of your stems. Ive noticed that even after using pipe sweetener to clean out the stem, when I use the Arango, a lot of gunk still comes out of the stem. Under no circumstances should you get the Arango on the outside of the pipe.

Another idea to accelerate coloring was to put the meerschaum in a jar with a lid, or a plastic container with a lid, and to blow smoke from another pipe into the container and seal it. I didn’t notice much of a difference, except my pipe stunk. And it make sense that it wasn’t terribly effective. Meerschaum colors as the tar and nicotine are leeched from the inside of the pipe. By attempting to color it from the outside, the finish would act as a barrier from the smoke blown inside of the container. I’m now interested in getting a coloring bowl and seeing how that works. Another product that looks interesting is Meerschaum Antiquing Compound.

Next stop, Briar Ideas That Did and Didn’t Work…

As you know, there are fewer and fewer pipe smokers. This can be explained using correlations.

First, 100% of all people eating carrots have died, or will die at some point.

There is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

And after much mulling over the subject, there appears to be a sharp decline in pipe smokers beginning in the 1970’s, about the same time that microwave ovens became available to the general public.

Therefore: Carrots cause death, the decrease in pirates causes global warming, and microwaves explain the decline in pipe smoking.

About, say, 6 months ago, I bought a Kirsten pipe directly from their brick-and-mortar store in Seattle on Nickerson street. What’s cool about the Kirsten is that you can “build it yourself” using pipe components they provide. The pipe is very unique, using a radiator stem to dissipate heat, and any liquids generated from smoking are captured in the stem as well. This is usually the liquids created when the pipe tobacco is moist, and the moisture condenses as the tobacco burns. Nobody wants to say “drool,” but you get the idea. Think of the burble you may hear while smoking your regular pipe. If you’re familiar with brass instruments, like bugles, there’s a “spit valve” that can be used to drain the pipe and if you don’t have time to drain the pipe, the valve can be turned so no liquids get into and escape out of the bowl.

I went to the store instead of ordering online since it wasn’t that far from where we live, and there’s something viscerally satisfying handling a pipe instead of looking at it online. Especially when it’s a funky pipe like the Kirsten. The store was comfortably cozy and not brightly lit, but had a large window providing additional light. The majority of the store is actually made up of smoking accessories and other pipes, but the Kirsten pipes are in the front case.

These are the four basic components of the pipes: the stem, the mouthpiece, the bowl, and the valve. The first three can be intermingled for the most part to create the pipe, but the valve depends on the style of the stem. There are also smaller parts that may eventually need replacing. This includes screws, adapters and “o” rings. Just guessing here, but I’m thinking that the “o” rings would wear out first. As it is, these rings should last a long time.

After playing with the parts for an hour while my wife rolled her eyes, I chose a quarter-bent stem with a large bulldog meerschaum. My thoughts were that this combination should make for an extremely cool smoke, and it does just that. However, on hindsight, because of the slightly different characteristics of Kirsten bowls, the bulldog meerschaum is starting to remind me of a toilet bowl. All it needs is a little water tank. It doesn’t occur to most people, but I think it’s kind of odd. According the Kirsten website, the meerschaum bowls are carved, not pressed.

It’s a great smoke, but the stem’s a little strange looking, like Falcon pipes.

Perhaps I’ve mentioned this, but I smoke hot. That’s why I wanted to try the Kirsten. Because I smoke hot, the smoke itself is cool because of the stem design and meerschaum bowl, but I gotta tell you, that stem gets hot! I end up gripping the mouthpiece, because it’s the only part of the pipe that stays at a comfortable temperature when I start puffing like a choo choo train.

The mouthpiece is interesting. It serves a function beyond just drawing the smoke. It actually has a ramrod extension, and it’s to accommodate cleaning the stem. You want to drain the stem before you clean it. This gets a 10 on the gross factor. You pull out the stem, and tip the pipe forward, and way more goop comes out than you’d imagine. You look at it and think, “Holy crap! That’s what’s stuck in my regular pipes when I smoke!” To clean the stem, you disassemble the stem, leave the valve out, wad a tissue into the stem, and use the ramrod to push the tissue all the way through the stem. It’s like cleaning the barrel of a gun.

The mouthpiece presents a challenge to the normal pipe cleaner. The hole to the stem isn’t open like a normal pipe. The ramrod creates a slight obstruction at the tip. This makes the pipe cleaner get stuck at the bottom of the mouthpiece. In less rambling words, it’s hard to put a pipe cleaner through the entire mouthpiece. But it can be done. You put the pipe cleaner in until it stops. Then, carefully, you move about 1/8″ of an inch up the pipe cleaner and firmly push it in. You do this a couple of times, and eventually enough of the pipe cleaner sticks out of the bottom of the stem and you can just pull it through.

If you have nimble fingers, you can take the bowl off before you clean the stem. The bowl is just finger-tightened onto the stem. Putting a bowl on the stem proved challenging for the granddaughter of the man who started the company, but I was able to do it pretty easily. There are three holes you want to keep clear. One is on the valve, and assembled, sits in the stem, under the bowl. Then there’s the hole in the stem itself, and if you separate the bowl from the stem, there’s the hole in the bottom of the bowl.

As you might have figured out by now, cleaning a Kirsten pipe can be a little more complex than cleaning your average pipe. Still, if you’re not real picky, you can clean it quick. Pull out the valve and the mouthpiece, and run a tissue through it. Easy money. I just like taking all the parts off, and reassembling them. It makes me happy.

Oh, and this meerschaum bulldog bowl design does not like being lit with a lighter. This is a pipe that I can only light with matches. It won’t light easily any other way. Also, because I did end up buying about one of the most expensive of combinations of their pipes, they threw in a briar second for free.

The bowl designs are not your normal bowl shape. The interior of the Kirsten is conical. This conical design requires the bowls to be a non-standard shape. I’ve read of pipe-makers making regular bowls for the Kirsten, but it kind of defeats the purpose of owning the Kirsten. Anyway, because of this conical design, if you ever have to ream the thing out, you’ll need their custom reamer. Also, the bowls aren’t as deep because of this design, so they don’t smoke as long as my regular pipes.

All the hooha aside, here’s my key points. The pipe’s components can be mixed and matched. The stem works to cool the smoke and collect moisture normally caused by smoking moist tobacco. It’s kind of a pain in the ass to clean depending on how much effort you want to invest in it. The bowls interiors are conical and this makes the bowls shaped uniquely. The bulldog meerschaum looks like a toilet bowl, and requires matches to light. All that said, it’s still a cool, comfortable smoke and I like it.

Odd, this doesn’t look the way I remember it…