Better Piping: The Head Bone's Connected to the Neckbone

[Mister Moo]

OK you rookies! Wake up! It's all connected, one thing to the other.

When you're learning how to smoke a pipe or, as everyone says, when you're in that "be patient" period, it's easy to miss how it all comes together. Well, it all comes together for those who pay attention and, for most of us, it won't happen overnight. This is a glace at the order of things; I don't think there is that much of a priority of one thing over another - if one part fails then the rest of it gone right may not make up the difference.

1. A well chosen pipe (including a $5.00 cob over and above a certain $35.00 basket briar soaked with varnish loaded with stain in the bowl and a poorly located airhole) will draw easily and take a pipe cleaner from end-to-end without a battle. The wrong pipe can make everything else be a bit more of a struggle. And don't forget - even the best of pipes may smoke a little hotter and a little wetter until broken in with some of that fine cake folks talk about. Cake builds slowly; if you start with a new pipe then you have to earn it.

2. Pipe tobak, neither too wet nor too dry (be patient - you'll figure it out) needs to be stuffed into a bowl with some degree of precision. Too wet a tobak might gurgle you to death and too dry a tobak might incinerate your mouth. Either way, the right amount of moisture in a tobak makes the whole thing go better. My experience is, too wet is the worst. When you pinch a bit it mostly ought to spring back and recover a good deal of it's natural looseness.

3. You have to stuff a pipe with some concept that the stuffing is, to a great degree, setting the stage for the whole show. Whatever packing method you pick it's a sure thing that, badly done, it'll affect the quality of the smoke that follows. You can read scads of stuff about how to pack a pipe but, whichever method you select, stick with it and get it right. Let the final pack allow for an easy draw; jamming a bowl tight will not execute as a good smoke - it will make you suck your lips off, which is bad. Too loose a pack can be tamped into submission; too tight a pack is a waste of time - forget about that pointy thingie on the pipe tool to correct for smooshing 10# of tobacco in a 5# bowl. The reward of a well-packed pipe is immediately obvious upon lighting.

4. Lighting smoke-ready tobak in a well packed pipe will have some quick, obvious results - an easy ignition and an even light across the top of the bowl. You have pretty much arrived when you've stuffed a pipe and set fire to it with resulting easy light and even burn. No splotchy start, no crescent moons, no orange ring with a dark center (or orange center surrounded by an dark ring). An evenly lighted pipe (following a good pack, following selection of properly moist tobacco, stuffed in a well-chosen pipe) will probably burn evenly to the bottom - no battles to prevent one side of the pipe from getting hot while the other side is cold.

5. A well lighted pipe, following everthing else, will need little tamping and virtually no correction. Tamping, as described by EvanS should "collapse" the ash stack rather than compact it. This collapsing thing is a great observation - it means that the tobacco has not overexpanded on down in the pipe during the smoke, thus it was properly moist and evenly/correctly packed from the get-go. Less tamping thru a smoke is a good sign that all the precusors were in order. A well burned bowl of tobak with no more tamping than necessary will create a cooler smoke and more cake.

6. Welcome to fish hook. Probably nothing much left in the bowl except ash. Sure, dottle happens, but when it all comes together more of your smokes will end with a gentle tap (to remove the remaining ash) than not. There are less gobs of gooey dottle to gouge out with the scraper when the knee bone is properly connected to the leg bone.

It's a process. Each thing depends on the other for the most enjoyable pipe smoke of your life. As you start to experiment with pipe smoking don't lose the forest in the trees and imagine it's all about stuffing leaves in a pipe. It is a more delicate and coordinated activity then that. If you sweat the details without getting too weird about it then everything falls into place. There is a very nice light at the end of the tunnel.

[Slow Triathlete]

Nicely put. In words that only you could string together!!

[Crunkleton]

Awesome...

I'm pretty new to pipe-smoking and it gets better with each smoke; as I break int he pipe and get a feel for the tobacco moisture/bowl packing thing.

Good stuff, I love pipe smoking!

[Mister Moo]

Originally Posted by Slow Triathlete

Nicely put. In words that only you could string together!!

Thanks Scott. I used to just string words together in free association without punctuation or caps but Joe (Mad Hatter) is way into the appreciation and use of commas so following his good example I started using them after a while just for the fun of it and now they've become almost, well, second nature.

Yeah but... it can be troublesome to smoke a pipe for the first time. Or the first week, or month, or two. Like the perfect golf swing or a well BBQ'd rack of ribs, the great conclusion demands a sequence of well executed subset activities not always obvious to the casual onlooker.

I have attempted, while BARELY speaking in tongues, to illuminate the sequence of heretofore super-secret subset activities for the novice pipers and pipettes who wander these hallways. Poor bastards.

[Mad Hatter]

Originally Posted by Mister Moo

It is a more delicate and coordinated activity then that. If you sweat the details without getting too weird about it then everything falls into place. There is a very nice light at the end of the tunnel.

Nicely put Dan. My mad hat is off to you. Funny you should mention me because I was about to rib you for abusing the word then and ignoring the word than. (Excuse me please. I was an english major before life set me on an altered course)

Anyway, its not so complicated. When I learned my 13yo nephew had taken up cigarettes I gave him a pipe and a tin of C&D. I showed him how to pack and made sure to tell him to put some air down there with the tobacco. A month later he was back asking for another tin. Now if a kid can do it..................

[Cheeto]

Moo I think your way explaining things comes from some magical element you've found in coffee.

great post

[uncballzer]

I thought this was going to be an anatomy lesson?

[Mister Moo]

Originally Posted by Cheeto

Moo I think your way explaining things comes from some magical element you've found in coffee.

Or mojitos?

Sorry about those then/thans, Joe. Darn spelt checker is goof fur Nanking.

[Sovereign]

I still can't get the hang of packing and lighting right. I've done a good bit of reading and tried various ways to pack and light but just can't seem to get it right. Any advice?

[Mad Hatter]

Originally Posted by Sovereign

I still can't get the hang of packing and lighting right. I've done a good bit of reading and tried various ways to pack and light but just can't seem to get it right. Any advice?

Its better to pack too loosely than too tightly. Try crumbling up your tobacco then gravity fill your bowl until it is full. Tap the side of the pipe with your hand until the tobacco settles then gravity fill again. Push the tobacco until the top is level but below the rim and then light it. Have you tried that yet?

[Sovereign]

Originally Posted by Mad Hatter

Its better to pack too loosely than too tightly. Try crumbling up your tobacco then gravity fill your bowl until it is full. Tap the side of the pipe with your hand until the tobacco settles then gravity fill again. Push the tobacco until the top is level but below the rim and then light it. Have you tried that yet?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but I've tried something similar. I generally use the method explained in the Pipe 101 sticky. So far it's worked the best for me, but this and every other method I've tried will not stay lit or burn evenly.

[Mad Hatter]

Originally Posted by Sovereign

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but I've tried something similar. I generally use the method explained in the Pipe 101 sticky. So far it's worked the best for me, but this and every other method I've tried will not stay lit or burn evenly.

Maybe you can try drying some tobacco really dry and see how that goes. Also for me, a layer of cake makes a big improvement because it doesn't leech away the heat from your tobac the way an uncaked chamber will. Also it could be the drilling on your pipe. Does the airway where it enters the chamber sit at a level with the bottom of the chamber. Is the airway an open draw or is it tight enough you can hear the airflow? Also does the airway where it leaves the shank sit in line with the airway where it enters the stem or is it offset? I had all of these problems with a pipe of mine and it was a horrible smoker until I finally fixed the problems.

[Sovereign]

Originally Posted by Mad Hatter

Maybe you can try drying some tobacco really dry and see how that goes. Also for me, a layer of cake makes a big improvement because it doesn't leech away the heat from your tobac the way an uncaked chamber will. Also it could be the drilling on your pipe. Does the airway where it enters the chamber sit at a level with the bottom of the chamber. Is the airway an open draw or is it tight enough you can hear the airflow? Also does the airway where it leaves the shank sit in line with the airway where it enters the stem or is it offset? I had all of these problems with a pipe of mine and it was a horrible smoker until I finally fixed the problems.

I'll try drying out the tobac and seeing what happens, though I don't think it's too moist since most of what I have I got from the newbie sampler thread. But as for the other questions, I believe they are good pipes. From what you described, they fit the bill. I think the problem is mostly likely my packing as I can't seem to get it right

[Mister Moo]

Originally Posted by Sovereign

I still can't get the hang of packing and lighting right. I've done a good bit of reading and tried various ways to pack and light but just can't seem to get it right. Any advice?

I mostly fill with the three-stage method; it works fine for me. I agree with Joe that erring to a too-loose pack is easier to correct.

This may sound a little silly but a shiny lighter helped me get tobacco packing and lighting tuned in. I use a chrome-finish Zippo; immediately after lighting the pipe I can angle it over the bowl and use it like a mirror during the first few puffs to see exactly how even the burn is. It clearly shows if the initial light is burning evenly across the top of the bowl (good packing technique) or not. The trick showed me the error of my ways pretty clearly.

[Phlegmatic]

As a novice, my biggest problem is that I allways end up with, say, half a teaspoon full of tobacco in the bottom, that wont keep lit!?