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Hi everyone. This is my first post on this forum and I am very happy to be here. Thank you all for sharing your knowledge with noobs like me
Anyways, I had to rusticate my first pipe due to some majorly noticeable pits on the bowl, and was using black stain from PIMO on the rusticated areas, when I noticed that the stain was starting to bleed through into the bowl in some spots. Is this normal? And is there anything I can do to fix it? Thanks

That doesn't sound normal. Some briar is more porus than others so there may be no visible flaws. Regardless, something is amiss.

I wouldn't let it bother you too much. Just finish the pipe and break it in slowly until you have some cake built up.

There's a few ways to look at this.

It happens from time to time. Sometimes briar wicks a little stain up and it shows in the bowl. It's now "impregnated" so it won't just sand off.

So, you mix up a black bowl coating and cover it up.


Now, if you are talking about a big gob of stain soaking through one particular area.... you might have what we call a "keeper". Any serious issue with the briar, whether it's spongey or just a big pit, will increase the chances of the thing burning out, so if you see a big pile of stain come through, you have an issue.

But especially with rusticated pipes, where you are putting it on a little heavy anyhow, a little bleed through is common.

Very common with rusticated pipes.

Rad

Like Todd says a large patch of stain seeping through usually indicates a hidden flaw in the wood however small spots and patches are very common on rusticated and even on sandblasted pipes. Don't worry about it, either sand it down the best you can and leave it (telling the customer that it is normal) or bowl coat, in fact this is one of the main reasons I do a bowl coat as I have this happen very regularly on my blasts.

Yeah, it's common.

A few weeks ago, Premal posted that you can actually sand that out. I've never tried but he said that the stain tends to spread out a lot in the bowl, but is being drawn through tiny capillaries. When you sand the bowl stain sands out and the capillaries that are stained are so small, the stain left is largely unnoticeable.

Worth a shot!

Thanks everyone for the advice. I'll see if I can sand it out, if not, I'll do a bowl coating. I'll post pictures when I'm done. Hopefully by the end of the week

I tried sanding and couldn't get it all out, so I coated the bowl with a mixture of charcoal, powdered sugar and water; a mixture that was posted on this forum some time ago. I went very light on the powdered sugar, just enough to help it bind so as to maximize the charcoal content. I just posted pics of the finished pipe on the gallery section.

I had a thought on this the other night and figured I'd post it to see what you all thought. When you sand stummel with high grit sand paper it does a very poor job of accepting stain, I'm guessing because you've closed off the pours of the wood. I wonder if you applied the same treatment to the inside of your bowl if you'd be less likely to have it bleed through for the same reason, that you've closed off the pours.

I was thinking about this because I always finish the inside of my bowl by sanding it down with at least 320 grit, sometimes higher. The last (and only pipe) I rusticated, I soaked it with black stain and didn't have any bleed through.

Maybe it was just a coincidence though...

Just a thought.