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staining the chamber

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:51 pm
by Bear
i've been looking at my pipes and noticing that some are stained on the inside of the chamber and some are left without stain. does it matter whether you stain or not stain the chamber? or is it purely to the pipe makers choice?

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:08 pm
by Frank
As far as I know nobody deliberately stains the chamber. If stain does smear/bleed into the chamber, you have to remove it with sanding otherwise it looks very amateurish. Some folks use a rubber cork to plug the chamber while staining.

An alternative is to carbon coat the entire inside of the bowl. You'll have to ask someone to repost the formula for that. Contains weird stuff like eye of newt or some such.

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:34 pm
by Tsunami
Frank wrote:As far as I know nobody deliberately stains the chamber. If stain does smear/bleed into the chamber, you have to remove it with sanding otherwise it looks very amateurish. Some folks use a rubber cork to plug the chamber while staining.

An alternative is to carbon coat the entire inside of the bowl. You'll have to ask someone to repost the formula for that. Contains weird stuff like eye of newt or some such.
I think it was a Mongolian Eagle feather plucked at midnight , three toenails from a 3 toed albino sloth, mixed with urine from a peruvian tree goat and mixid together with a dash of ox eye. The mixture ratios are a secret but you do have to heat the "stew" over an alcohol flame for 13 minutes. Did I mention you have to do it naked and be listening to a Cat Stevens record backwards at 45 speed?

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:15 pm
by RadDavis
Some of the factory pipe makers dip stain their pipes, and it makes the first smokes in them taste pretty awful.

Don't stain the inside of the bowl.

Rad

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:35 pm
by wdteipen
RadDavis wrote:Some of the factory pipe makers dip stain their pipes, and it makes the first smokes in them taste pretty awful.

Don't stain the inside of the bowl.

Rad
Peterson's are most notorious for this. I just smoke the stain taste out of the pipe. Other's with sand it or leech it out with salt and alcohol before smoking. I'm not that motivated. As far as my pipes go, I sand it out if I get any in the chamber. You should too. It's a sign of poor quality and laziness, IMO. If I wanted that I wouldn't buy an artisan pipe. I'd buy a factory pipe.

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:35 pm
by Bear
thanks for the thoughts, that pretty much clears that up.