pipemakersforum.com

I was planning on getting the classic bjlond brand cleaners, but I read that their quality isn't the greatest.

What brands do you use? Would you recommend foam brushes instead?

I've been at this a long time and not found anything better / more suitable than pipe cleaners.

Factories use brushes, but the staining station does hundreds of stummels a day. Guys like us would spend more time cleaning a brush than the job itself took, as well as consume a lot of solvent (which adds up).

Any old pipe cleaner works fine for stain/shellac as you will be wiping the pipe afterwards anyway.

I bought 10,000 extra long pipe cleaners on ebay years ago. They are cheap and cheerful but they work well for applying things to pipes etc.

I buy BJ longs, dunno about current production because I buy them literally years and years worth at a time, like I by 2500 or 10000 or something, I can't even remember. But if you can drop 90 bucks, it buys a fuckton of pipe cleaners, and it's well worth it to do so. I use about six on each pipe for various finishing, polishing, cleaning etc processes.

Somewhere along the line I bought a bulk bag of leather dye daubers. Makes sense that they work great for applying dye, but the handles all get hooked together. When calculating in the PITA factor, I'm not so sure they're worth it lol.

I like women’s make up pads (several hundred in a large packet)because you can rub and even the stain or shellac as you apply, but they are wasteful of stain and shellac.
I might consider pipe cleaners after realizing this, and maybe just use one pad after applying the stain with cleaners..
DocAitch

PCs hold lots of juice which is good for stain. For smooth finishes, a little pad or rag is better for leaving less lines/ridges etc with shellac or oil. I like PCs on rustics and blasts for getting into little nooks.

Thanks for all the replies, I ended up buying about 300 pipe cleaners from Peterson's tapered pipe cleaner line.

They looked like some of the better pipe cleaners and they were pretty cheap!