pipemakersforum.com

Just came across this weird-looking system on ebay. Seems rather strange to me. Any opinions?

Alex

That's a rather infamous system. Some think it works great, others swear that it's another snake-oil system designed to part fools with their money.

Personally, I think it's just plain dangerous.

I've not read anything that indicates to me that this thing really works as advertised. The good old salt and acohol treatment is far less dangerous, and has been used by many folks with great results.

Is it the alcohol boiling system? I cannot see a pic or a link. If it is then I have used it more than a couple times and find that it works well. It speeds up the time it takes to get the initial grime out.

That being said, it is potentialy dangerous. Redrilling the stummel with a bit the same size (or just a millimeter or so bigger) than the current airway combined with scrubbing with alcohol and a shank brush would be just as fast without the whole "boiling a tube of alcohol in my hand" thing.

It was an ebay auction way back when, so the link in my posting does not lead anywhere anymore… But there is a link. Maybe Kurt might change the code for the text links in the CSS files, so they are a bit more prominent visually…

I agree on that. I sand estate bowls' interior down to the wood. I do not redrill the airway (might try that one time), but I do drench the whole thing in Alcohol for sometimes days and use some pipe cleaners, so the gunk gets out.