P-lip how-to?

[OleFattGuy]

Hi all, don't know whether this has been discussed before but here goes:

Since I have only been making a handful of pipes and some of them were disastrous smokers, I have had to buy some pipes to be able to smoke as much as I like.

A year ago I started to gravitate towards Petersons pipes and especially their tankard variety. After having hovered around this pipe until payday came around I went and bought a beautiful specimen, equipped with the Peterson invention, the P-lip.

When I stumbled out into the sun with my loot I was eager to try it on, and found a reasonably sheltered place where I could stuff it with Peterson's University Flake and puff away.

I immediately felt uncomfortable when I put the P-lip in my mouth. I tried to bite around the stem behind the button, but it felt loglike and very round, not comfortable at all. It also easily slipped deeper into my mouth than I wanted it.

I tried another approach and put my lower teeth in front of the lower button on the curved area there, and this felt slightly better, teeth-wise. However this gave the pipe an upward angle that I soon was to find out helped distribute any goo or juice straight into my mouth.

I also looked like a disgruntled Popeye with the pipe in this angle.


Now I have found out that this pipe works reasonably well if I sit at home and hold it with the upper front teeth in front of (towards the stem as it were) the button and the lower teeth in that curvature. It is not really a relaxed attitude but I can let go of the pipe for short periods of time until my jaws feel clenched, as long as I dont make any hasty moves sideways with my head.

Help me out here fellow pipesters, how am I supposed to hold a P-lip???
Do you use one, and if so, how?

[JHowell]

I've met very few fans of the Peterson P-lip. Most Peterson stems are rather round, and filing top and bottom -- not enough to risk hitting the airway, but enough to create flats for your teeth -- can help. The button can be modified somewhat. Turning the upward-shooting hole into more of a slot can make it possible to get a pipe cleaner through and lessen the tendency for the pipe to make a hot spot on the roof of your mouth. I've heard of people filing the rounded protrusion flat and working the airhole into a regular slot. Peterson does make regular buttons, too, so it may be possible to get a replacement stem without the P-lip.

[OleFattGuy]

Thanks Jack!
I failed to mention that tendency that it has of shooting the smoke straight up in what dentists refer to as the alveolar ridge, the bump just behind the upper front teeth when held in "normal" position. I think I'll try one or two of your suggestions and if nothing works I´ll order a regular stem and give up on the P-lip thingy altogether :think:

[hazmat]

My first Peterson had a p-lip magillicuddy... it lasted about one smoke before I replaced the thing. Like you mentioned, couldn't hold it in my teeth and I didn't like how it distributed the smoke upward into my mouth. Nefarious little buggers.. I'm wondering what kind of "tabaccy" these guys were smoking when they came up with this idea.