GO AHEAD, MAKE IT HAPPEN! A 63' PICKUP IS PERFECT!

As regular readers might have guessed, this blogger occasionally works on briar smoking pipes which have seen better times. Back in the stone age new pipe smokers were told that the more they smoked their pipe, the better it would perform, and eventually become a true reflection of them, their chosen tobaccos, and their entire welt-anschauung and existential framework. In consequence of which there were and still are men out there with a sewer on a stick poking out of their face, an item which reeks from a room away and which should be consigned to a toxic waste dump and never again be touched by human hands. It is probably the sole reason why the space aliens won't contact us, being proof negative that we are nasty beyond salvation.

Except that it can be restored. Cleaned up, and with effort made nearly as good as new. Those dings can be carefully "steamed out", the horrible battered bowl rim from knocking it repeatedly against cinder blocks in an effort to give it "character" can be steamed and sanded a bit (taking it down a fraction and very slightly angling the edges so that it is crisp again), and the slime green carbon-rubber stem can be de-oxidized and buffed shiny and black.

The clogged and gurgling shank can be unclogged.

If the pipe is a lovely specimen and well-made, or a priceless heirloom and memory of a departed relative, it's worth having all that done, and if you promise to use pipe-cleaners regularly and never touch "watermelon-pineapple-elderberry" Cavendish again, and rest the pipe between smokes, you may enjoyably use the old thing for many more years.


Steve Laug shows the labour involved on his blog 'Reborn Pipes'.
He does marvelous, damned well miraculous work.


Briar, the wood most commonly used for tobacco pipes, is a lovely responsive material, and almost all tobacco blends on the market are based on the interaction with it; there are practically no blends for pipes made of other substances.


Oh, and Gandalf never existed, he's a fictional character, and his pipe was probably clay, and would have stunk to high heaven. Please understand that. Sherlock Holmes had filthy smoking habits and if he were around nowadays would have been locked up long ago as a dangerous loonie. An anti-social gunfreak psychopath and habitual drug-user with 'episodes'.


Three questions, posed rhetorically, by Trever Shane Talbert:

"But I found this big fallen pine branch in my back yard and I have some black iron pipe for a stem. Can I make a pipe out of this?"

"I have some leftover paving stones from our front yard walkway. Can I make a pipe out of them?"

"I inherited my late uncle's rusting non-running '63 Chevy pickup. Can I make a pipe out of it?"

My answer: Mmm, yeah, go ahead. Why shouldn't you?
Live with gusto, live for the day.
Knock yourself out.
Schmendrick.



By the way: Not all woods are reasonably safe, some are quite toxic, especially if inhaled as dust or smoke from combustion. And some cause serious allergic reactions in some people.

By the way number two: Trever Shane Talbert carves really lovely pipes out of briar. He's well-known in a rather narrow field. He's responsible for the popular weblog 'Giant Radioctive Lizards Eloquently Discuss Collectible Tobacco Pipes'.

By the way number three: A rusting pickup truck, especially one with such emotional meaning to the family, is perfect. As are the precious precious cinderblocks in the driveway on which it rested. You can make several pipes out of all these which you can give to your relatives at Christmas. They'll be deeply grateful.

TOBACCO INDEX


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