Another *** ****** thread
Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 11:45 am
I've been curious about *** ******, as so much is made of pre 68 dunhills, and other *** ***** pipes (Ashton, etc), and I enjoy my Randy Wiley, so I thought I might horse around a little bit.
So I did some reading, asked some questions, put a few things together, and had a crack. I mixed ********* and ********* **** together in a ratio of **:** and heated them to a temperature of ***F (***C), in which I immersed a bunch of clean offcuts of briar - all PME Algerian, which I think is Yazid's stuff (right?). I kept the pieces in for differing amounts of time, removing the first piece after about * hours, and putting it in an oven (after wiping the *** off). The temperature of the oven was ***F (***C) and absolutely nothing happened. So I continued to increase the temperature of the oven (meanwhile removing blocks periodically from the hot ***). Finally, at a temperature of ***F (***C) it became apparent that the *** was interested in coming back out of the briar. So I maintained that temperature for a few hours and wiped the residue off the blocks until I became tired of the whole thing and went out to the shop.
The net result is this: Nothing. Nothing at all. This process amounts to a chemical extraction of resins from the wood - only, that's been done already. I was expecting/hoping that the *** bath would radically change color, and taste like burnt tires or something, but the fact is, the *** that came back out of the briar was the same as what went in.
What this means, as far as I can tell, is that the briar was well boiled and cured, and doesn't have anything left to yield up to an extraction process. I suspect that crappy briar would have leached more yucko into the bath.
At any rate, I think I convinced myself that for the briar I buy, this process is a waste of time, and probably would do more harm than good. I think my chances of building a rancid pipe are pretty high, and I ain't spending 2 weeks wiping these stupid things as they weep, and also my wife needs the oven for what we in the industry call "supper".
So there you have it. The complete *** ****** Primer.
YMMV
So I did some reading, asked some questions, put a few things together, and had a crack. I mixed ********* and ********* **** together in a ratio of **:** and heated them to a temperature of ***F (***C), in which I immersed a bunch of clean offcuts of briar - all PME Algerian, which I think is Yazid's stuff (right?). I kept the pieces in for differing amounts of time, removing the first piece after about * hours, and putting it in an oven (after wiping the *** off). The temperature of the oven was ***F (***C) and absolutely nothing happened. So I continued to increase the temperature of the oven (meanwhile removing blocks periodically from the hot ***). Finally, at a temperature of ***F (***C) it became apparent that the *** was interested in coming back out of the briar. So I maintained that temperature for a few hours and wiped the residue off the blocks until I became tired of the whole thing and went out to the shop.
The net result is this: Nothing. Nothing at all. This process amounts to a chemical extraction of resins from the wood - only, that's been done already. I was expecting/hoping that the *** bath would radically change color, and taste like burnt tires or something, but the fact is, the *** that came back out of the briar was the same as what went in.
What this means, as far as I can tell, is that the briar was well boiled and cured, and doesn't have anything left to yield up to an extraction process. I suspect that crappy briar would have leached more yucko into the bath.
At any rate, I think I convinced myself that for the briar I buy, this process is a waste of time, and probably would do more harm than good. I think my chances of building a rancid pipe are pretty high, and I ain't spending 2 weeks wiping these stupid things as they weep, and also my wife needs the oven for what we in the industry call "supper".
So there you have it. The complete *** ****** Primer.
YMMV
