The Kilimanjaro - or- How to get more from a $3 Briar Block

[Frank]

I was contemplating my little pile of $3 briar blocks, not relishing the prospect of having to churn out the requisite 100 billiards before being admitted to the club. I decided "to hell with it", I don't have the time or patience so I'll take my chances with the Pipe Police.

I wanted to get more from the block than a small pipe, so I decided to combine the briar with an alternative wood. The zebrawood gave me the idea that the stripes might represent lava flow, hence the volcano shape. Being something of an experiment, I made a couple of screw-ups along the way (core hole bored too wide, two stems destroyed, etc.), but still thought it worth showing. I might go back and sand off the British Tan overstain in favour of Light Tan.

[Charl]

The zebra wood is quite cool, Frank! Wonder how it will smoke?

[kbadkar]

Cool idea, Frank! I'll admit I never thought of gluing an aggregate block. You've opened a new "can of worms", so to speak. I wonder how the glue joints will hold up to the heat, changes in moisture, and time. Did you use wood glue?

[Frank]

Cool idea, Frank! I'll admit I never thought of gluing an aggregate block. You've opened a new "can of worms", so to speak. I wonder how the glue joints will hold up to the heat, changes in moisture, and time. Did you use wood glue?

Thanks. The briar walls inside the zebrawood are about 1/4" thick, so hopefully that's far enough away from the glue surface. Kurt turned me on to using T-88 epoxy glue, so that's what I now use. I coloured it with some burnt sienna with a touch of raw umber powder pigment. I should have skipped the raw umber, it made the glue too dark.

[pierredekat]

Nice one, Frank. I love the zebrawood, and you've got me sitting here thinking about the possibilities with briar tobacco chambers surrounded by other types of wood. Cool idea.

[Frank]

Nice one, Frank. I love the zebrawood, and you've got me sitting here thinking about the possibilities with briar tobacco chambers surrounded by other types of wood. Cool idea.

Thanks Robert. I have a couple more ideas I want to experiment with on paper first.

[Alan L]

You should be okay with the T-88, unless you're a SERIOUSLY hot smoker. I use it to hold small metal parts while engraving them, and use heat to pop the parts off later. T-88 lets go at about 250-300 degrees, but gets soft and tacky around 180 F. O' course, the outside of 1/4" thick briar should never get quite that hot.

Just for giggles I once dropped a bare-wire pyrometer probe into the center of the bowl of my big Peterson 307 to see how hot it really is in there in the center of the burning ember. The answer: Smoking like you should, about 550 degrees F. Smoking like I do when I need a major 1792 head rush, peak temp around 750 degrees F! That's only on the frenzied, blast-furnace inhale, though, and drops back down to the 550-600 range in a few seconds. The outside of the (rusticated) bowl never exceeded the normal slightly warm to the touch realm during this experiment, or around a maximum of 110 degrees F or so.

[Nick]

Cool experiement Alan