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If you‘ve bought more than a few pipes in your pipe smoking life then you‘ve probably seen a mis-drilled pipe bowl. The most common type of mis-drilling is where the airway into the bottom of the bowl is higher than the actual bowl bottom. Sometimes this is slight and sometimes severe. Typically this can been seen on less expensive pipes of all makes. The problem with this is that it usually leads to a wet smoking pipe that gurgles and rarely burn the tobacco all the way to the bottom. Fortunately there is an fast and easy way to fix this problem and best of all it cost nothing but time. Here is the fix:
First take some cool, completely burned pipe ash and with the back end of a spoon crush the ash to a fine powder. Next take about a 1/2 teaspoon of honey and begin to mix in the powdered pipe ash until the mix has a slightly grainy texture. Now take a pipe cleaner and insert it into the bowl‘s airway until it barely peeks into the bowl. This will keep the mix from blocking the airway. Put the pipe in a stable pipe stand and begin to drizzle the ash mix into the bowl bottom. Be very careful not to get any of the mix on the pipe itself. Start slowing with just a little bit. Allow the mix to settle and level out. Should more be needed add it sparingly a little at time until the mixture becomes flush with the bottom of the airway hole. Set the pipe aside for a day or two to allow the mix to harden. Finally load the pipe halfway and smoke the bowl all the way to the bottom. Tamp while smoking but do not dump the pipe ash when you are finished. Allow the ash and bowl to cool before removing the ash. This and the next few bowls will cure and harden the ash mix. You‘ll then have a bowl that will smoke dry as it should.
Next articles: Italian Pipe Production Panorama - part I
