Hello and welcome back to another article in our series of Puff Glossaries, where we hope to uncover the most common – and uncommon – words that help describe our favorite topic: smoking. This is the second part to our series for January and in it, we will look at standard English, some old school lingo, and pepper in a bit of slang to boot. So put on your learning glasses and prepare to beef up that vocabulary.

As I stated in the first part of this particular series, in the past I have focused heavily on cigar smoking glossaries, providing definitions for the cigar lover. For this article I want to take a slightly different approach. I feel that our pipe smoking brethren have been left out of the loop in this series, so I think it is time they felt the spotlight shine upon their interests as well. Besides, there is something about pipe’s that makes them go hand and hand with a good verbal command.

We left off on the Letter “E” in our last article, so we will pick up where we left off here with the letter “F”. There is a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get going!

Ferrule – Made from materials such as acrylic, bone, and silver (among others), the ferrule is the band that wraps around the shank of the pipe.

Fill – As pipe’s age and wear, the form flaws, and those flaws are covered up by filling them with a wood filler. Think of when you hammer a nail into a board and then fill the top of the nail head with saw dust. It is a similar concept.

Finish – Just as you might apply finish to a coffee table, pipe’s too get finishes. When we use the word finish in pipe lingo, we refer to the methodology, the actual stain used, and wax as well. There are different types of finishes, such as smooth and sandblasted.

Fire Cured Tobacco – This type of tobacco is cured inside of barns filled with wood fires burning inside (the fire is not a full blaze fire, but more akin to an ash fire), which serves to add a smoky flavor to the tobacco.

Flake – This is a type of tobacco that is sliced into thin strips by a guillotine-type cutter.

Flue Cured Tobacco – This type of tobacco is cured in an enclosed building, where a system of heat and ventilation are used to “cure” the tobacco to the proper color and consistency.

Freehand Pipes – Every once in a while you will see a pipe that does not fit into our standard view of how our pipes are supposed to look. These pipes are known as freehand pipes and do not conform to pipe standards.