Is this pipe too far gone????

[Hendu3270]

What do you guys make of this?

It’s a Dr. Grabow that I picked up on Ebay awhile back. It was cheap and I have no issues just scrapping the pipe. The reason I bought it was based entirely on the looks of it. It’s a rusticated poker pipe with a straight stem. I did the salt cleaning method and got all the gunk out of it. I’ve smoked it a few times now and it smokes extremely hot! All I’ve smoked in it is Carter Hall, and my experience with CH is it usually smokes very cool. Anyway, after I cleaned it up I noticed the inside walls of the bowl looked like coals that have gone out. It’s like a campfire when you have a half burned piece of wood in the fire…if you flip the wood over, the underside is segmented by cracks, (if that makes sense). If I scrape the walls with a knife, what I get appears to be nothing more than charcoal dust. I’m assuming that someone has smoked this pipe incorrectly and actually started to burn the walls of the pipe itself. The pics below show what I’m talking about. There is also a couple of spots that are a little deeper. Does this pipe look to you guys like something I should just discard? Should I get to work sanding the crap out of the walls until I do actually get to good wood? Of course if I do sand it down to good “un-charred” wood, it would obviously be even thinner walled than it is now and would burn even hotter I guess.


This is the pipe in question.





Here's some of the "cracked" look of the wall. I don't believe this is cake I'm looking at. If I scrape my knife across it, it powders like charred wood will. Also, if I'm looking straight down from the top into the pipe, the inside of the bowl actually widens a little as you enter the bowl as if some wood is gone now.


(click for upclose pic)



Here's another one that shows some more charring and some burned spots.


(click for upclose pic)

Any thoughts?

[Mad Hatter]

If I liked it I wouldn't scrap it. If its smoking hot there might be another reason for that which contributed to the pipe's demise from earlier on. My solution for a burnout or low heal is Durhams water/carpenters/wood putty. It works like a meerschaum lining, builds cake and I've never had a problem with these fixes once the putty hardens, and being a smoker of mid-grades I've used it on a lot of heals.

[Hendu3270]

Thanks MH! Is it something that is available at Lowes?

[d_day]

Originally Posted by Hendu3270

Thanks MH! Is it something that is available at Lowes?

Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty should be available at Lowe's. If not, it's available damn near everywhere else. It really is fantastic stuff.

[Hendu3270]

I just did a search and after seeing the product online just now, I'm pretty sure I've seen it at Lowes as well.

[Mad Hatter]

Originally Posted by Hendu3270

Thanks MH! Is it something that is available at Lowes?

You're welcome. Hope it works out for you.