An observation of briar

[Ocelot55]

I've noticed that some briar tends to give off a reddish dust, while others give off a golden brown dust. At first I thought this was due to the region the particular briar was grown in, its soil type, and a plethora of other variables and left it at that. However, Friday started to have some doubts about this.

I was shaping a new pipe early Friday morning (and I mean early--like 5:30am, butt crack of dawn early) when I noticed something peculiar about the block. While I was shaping this block I noticed that blonde dust was falling off one end and red dust was falling off the other. I paused to make sure I was still seeing things correctly. I indeed was. As I continued shaping I also noticed a difference in hardness between the two side. The side giving off the red dust seemed slightly softer.

Once I had sanded the stummel enough to see the grain I think I found my answer. The grain on the red side of the block was very boring. Not much going on. In fact not much grain at all. The blonde side had some mixed grain, a little flame and just a touch of birdseye. Overall the grain was pretty blah, and I would have rusticated it but the customer wanted it smooth.

At any rate, I think that the red side was very near the heart of the burl. That would explain the lack of grain. But I was still surprised by the color difference. Has anyone had a similar experience? As a general observation I've found that blonde briar is harder than red briar. Any thoughts?

[Sasquatch]

Certainly you'll come across pieces of briar that have a heartwood sort of area. In my experience, this is usually redder and harder to carve. Find this with Algerian and Spanish briar. And really had to beat the shit out of some blocks to get them to co-operate with shaping.

Some briar is whiter than others, and some is seemingly more prone to color variations. I've never seen a pink/red area in Mimmo's wood, and his wood is softer than most. This makes me wonder if he is boiling the wood more and getting absolutely all the impurities out, and maybe some of these other blocks aren't quite as clean. Or perhaps he just cuts that stuff out.

So basically, for everything you've experienced, I've experienced the opposite. So whatever.

Really, I think some advice that Todd J gave out some time back really makes the most sense: find a supply you like, get used to it, and stick with it. You'll know what to expect from the wood and get good results from it because of that.

I've currently got hard white briar, soft mottled briar, soft white briar, hard brown briar, and briar that squeaks and eats cheese, but I think that piece might be a mouse.

[K.Anastasopoulos]

I have notice that the red briar is harder and the white softer.

[andrew]

I've had the same experience as Sas, red stuff hard, white stuff soft. Like was said above and before, find a good source and stick with it.

[Growley]

To me the difference in color seemed to be the dryness or lack thereof, of the blocks I had. The dryer the blocks, the more light the wood, the more wet the wood, the more red it is. The three or four I've drilled from Mimmo have all been very light...and very dry.

[Sasquatch]

I'm gonna say, if there's a correlation, it's between age and/or exposure vs color.

The two blocks in this picture are Greek and Italian (Alex Zavvos and Molina (Samantha)), left and right. The Greek stuff is dry as hell and apparently pretty old. It's a leathery brown. The Italian stuff is pretty dry, but I have no idea when it was harvested. It's bright white.
This is not just surface color either. Both are that color all the way through - you are looking at fresh saw-cut surfaces.



I've got a few blocks from Mimmo that I've had for around a year, they are certainly darker than they were when I got them. So there's a darkening with age on fresh, well cured briar. I think we're looking at a few things - some wood is just darker (or lighter) because of where it grows, how it's treated, etc. And then on top of that, age seems to darken it as well. AND the heartwood is often a different color and consistency to boot.

I've smoked all these suppliers too, a couple pipes from each batch, and they don't smoke identically. It's not that one is wrong or bad or anything, but the lighter wood behaves differently than the more dense stuff, and the Italian, Spanish, and Greek seems to have different properties both of flavor and of smoking characteristics. I don't think it's vastly super different for smoking, but it can be the difference between a good pipe and a great pipe (and of course that is completely subjective too).

So a guy has to figure out if he wants to build light absorbant pipes, heavier and more durable pipes, pipes that smoke a little sharp, pipes that smoke a little earthy.... whatever. And really that comes down to personal preference. I'd buy briar from everyone mentioned in this thread, because I've gotten good pipes out of these suppliers - nice tasting, nice behaving.

Consistency of supply - and that is both in the product itself and the logistics of getting it into your house - becomes paramount. It's more and more important the better/more serious you get with pipes. It's one thing to throw a block out if you are just horsing around on a Saturday afternoon, but if you have to chuck a pipe out after working with it all day and that's your money source.... wow, that's harsh. If you have 10 blocks, you gotta know whether that's probably 9 or 10 pipes, or probably 4 or 5 pipes. You can get around it either way, but thinking you got 10 pipes worth of blocks when you only have 5 is a bad situation!