A perfect Meerschaum pipe

“A perfect Meerschaum pipe is decidedly 

one of the choicest and rarest gifts of 

the gods; but like all choice and rare 

gifts, it is a source of considerable 

anxiety to the owner. Like women, its, 

‘name is frailty.’ As originally taken in 

hand, and presented to the lips, nothing 

can exceed the loveliness of its looks—its 

delicious smoothness, its graceful 

rotundity of form, and apparent innocence 

from everything that can tarnish a 

reputation. But, alas! you take it as 

you take a wife, ‘for better and for 

worse;’ and again, alas! it does not fare 

better with the smoker and his Meerschaum 

than with man and wife.”

-The Smoker’s Guide, Philosopher and Friend 

A Veteran of Smokedom, 1876 

Wade Pipe stand

A very nice Wade made in England Pipe Rest

I think i might retire my Hobo 1/2 a Dunny roll stand.

Alexander Briar ebauchon - grain investigation

Well, I was keen to find out what the grain was like in the Alexander ebauchons, bring out the sander! After a few quick licks on my hobo sanding disc, and a wipe with some water, I was mightily impressed. Mr Zavvos, you have a quality product sir :)

Hobo sanding disc...check. Briar ebauchon...check.

Tentative light sanding...check. Possibility of nice grain...CHECK (getting very excited at this point, heart pounding).

Light wipe with water...check. Possibility of jumping around the yard screaming 'WAHOO!'  check check check CHECK CHECK!

WAHOO! Close-up, what can I say, got to be happy :)

Briar ebauchons from Alexander of Greece

Well, the day is finally here - I have briar! Below is the unboxing. Later this afternoon I'll sand back the sides of a block and look at the grain.

A couple of weeks ago my mother and father in-law were visiting and we took them to a local lookout. Down the side of the mountain was a discarded bakers tray...yes I climbed down to retrieve it...yes I snuck it into my boot so that my wife would not know...yes my father in-law was privy to my escapades...yes my wife found out (after I got it home hehehe)...yes I had an idea for it as soon as I saw it, read on!

E-day has arrived, after all those years of thinking about it I almost can't believe it's actually here!

I wonder how many will end up as pipes and how many will have fatal flaws, or how many I'll not drill correctly... time will tell I guess.

Ah, baker's tray - don't you love it when simple ideas work out perfectly?

Well ventilated, dry, heat source (roof) and away from potential wood-eating insects...the best I can do at this point. This will also allow me to tip the tray forwards to select pieces of briar - without having to take the whole thing down.

Carnauba Wax: Making Blocks

Today I made a 400g block of pure carnauba wax. My wife lost a cake tin, I gained experience with this new beast!

First, I measured 400g into a cake tin and placed it in an oven preheated to 180 degrees Celsius. As soon as it formed a pool (i.e. some wax melted but not all) I reduced the oven to 100 degrees. After half an hour the remaining wax still hadn't melted, I think the oven just wasn't hot enough. It's an old analogue oven, the thermostat may not have been reading accurately.

I bumped the temperature up to 130 degrees and everything melted inside 10 minutes  I didn't want to overheat the wax as I wasn't certain if it would change it's chemical properties. Once everything had turned liquid I removed the pan from the oven and let the wax cool down to room temperature. Once again, I'll experiment with this as I'm not sure if slow or quick cooling is desirable. In one of the photo's you can see that the area above a hotplate (not on, just where I put the pan) that the tin was sitting on cooled faster. In the finished block this area is slightly lighter in color, closer to the original flake color  Next time I'll put the pan in the fridge straight from the oven and see what happens!

Whilst in flake form, during cooking and once cooled the wax had quite a nice odor. My eyes did become slightly irritated though when I was crouched in front of the oven looking through the door. Air from inside the oven was being blown out the front and into my face. Still, I don't think it is terribly nasty in any way...although you never know.

when all was said and done I was happy with the result. I had originally intended to use a muffin try to make little pucks, but each puck would only have been around 30g (I measured it). I decided that it would be easier just to make one big block and then to cut chunks off of that as required.

Enjoy the pics :)

No sissy blocks around here mate...let's rock.

Hmmm...time to up the temperature, oven must have cooled too much...

Melt already, dammit...

Fuzzy yes, but you can see how the area in the bottom of the tin cooled quicker where it was touching the cold  hot-plate underneath.

Liquid gold, I was tempted to dunk a pipe in there...next time perhaps...

If you rotate this 90 degrees clockwise I swear you can see a man smoking a pipe...Jesus in a muffin eat your heart out!

Smooth...and you can see the area that cooled quicker...hmmm...

Hmmm..lost a gram somewhere, with the tin on there as well it wavered between 1 and 2 grams under...

Pipe Spotting

Alfred Hitchcock Presents  s4e21 Relative Value 1959

THEY WHO DARE 1953

Tobacco's i have smoked so far

Hoots black Flake mid to strong nicotine Good taste ****

A small sample from Italy HH gave me mid nicotine Great taste ***

Peterson's Sunset breeze. mild nicotine Good taste ***

Borkum Riff Cherry Urinal cake. low nicotine No stars

Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey tongue bite low nicotine No Stars

Borkum Riff Vanilla Cavendish smokable if desprate Low nicotine No Stars

Mac Baren Plumcake never again tongue bite bad flavor No Stars

Erinmore Flake mid to strong nicotine ok taste ***

Gallagher's irish cake hard plug very strong nicotine strong flavor ***

Samuel Gawith Chocolate Flake mid to strong nicotine great flavor *****

Peterson's 3P plug mid nicotine ok flavor ***

Wessex Gold Brick plug mid to strong nicotine pure tobacco taste ***

Rattray's Black Mallory mid nicotine nice flavor ****

Blakeney"s Best Latakia Flake strong nicotine strong flavor ****

MacBaren Honey & Chocolate mid to strong nicotine good flavor ****

CAO Eileen's Dream  2008 Mild Mild Mild **

MacBaren 7 Seas 2010 good taste good nicotine ****

McClelland No 22 2008 Vintage Ok taste good nicotine ***

New Tobacco

It is a huge tin biggest i have seen 100g.
Smells great i haven't smoked it yet but fingers crossed.
Either way it has to be better than Borekum Ruff

Update i have smoked it i loaded my Stanwell Freehand.

I figure that its Danish tobacco so i will smoke it in my Danish freehands 

I can taste chocolate and the honey its slight but its there.

Nice and easy to light and it burns well

Amazingly it has a fairly high nicotine hit which suits me fine.

I hate smoking a bowl and feeling like a smoke when its finished.

I am happy now but i find that the truth comes out after you have smoked a few bowls.

Either way it was a bargain 2 weeks worth of smoking has good nicotine and a new tin for my expanding collection. 

    

Carnauba Wax

Well...this arrived today, 10.2kg of T1 carnauba wax in flake form, only supposed to be 9.4kg - go figure. Perched atop the booty is a Bayard billiard I received yesterday from Germany. It's there for scale, that's a big bag of wax...

Pipe Spotting

Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon 1943

Peterson

Look for the second pipe.

Restored Barling

All of the polishing was completely done by hand.
Wanted to see if i could do it.
I used the Dunhill pipe bowl polish on the bowl.
Polished it about 10 times so far.
Sanded the bit with 1200 grit wet and dry and hand polished it
with Dunhill stem polish.
The stem took most of the work and a fair bit of polish
but who cares when you are as polish rich as i am.
I have spent about 4 hours on the pipe so far and i will continue polishing it
every time i smoke it.

It will get better over time.
I have just packed it for the first time and it is smoking well.
As with all of my pipe pictures any specs are dam dust and not on the pipe.
Well worth the effort. 

Carnuaba Wax Flakes (T1 Grade)

Well, I needed a supply of carnauba wax...and then this came along. 9.4kg of T1 (highest grade) pure carnauba wax. I'll melt it in the oven in some muffin trays to make pucks for use with the polishing mop. I know even a little bit of this stuff goes a very long way, so this should be the only time - for MANY years- that I'll need to purchase carnauba.