whats in your pipe?

[Nomad]

Been reading a bit about airflow, and learned that turbulence in the flow can lead to condensation. Typically, this happens at the mortice and tenon, and a build-up of moisture between the two leads to gurgling. I had a close look at the mortice and tenon of my Parker bent, and found two things...

There is very little difference between the length of the tenon and the depth of the mortice - less than 1mm.
The air hole in the mortice is off-centre, sitting above the centre line.

I concluded that these would add up to a rather interrupted flow as one draws on the pipe. Some further reading suggested that countersinking the hole in the end of the tenon would improve matters. So, I got a hold of a metalworking centre drill (which cuts at a steeper angle than a normal countersink), and worked the edge of the hole by hand. The photo below shows the result, with the tenon of the Parker straight next to it for reference - the bent looked the same before the mod.

I just smoked a bowl of the Mac Baren Navy Flake to see how it went, and I have to say that the pipe has literally been transformed. No gurgling, smoked far cooler even though my cadence was still fairly fast, and only needed one relight near the end. I also managed to smoke it right down to the bottom with hardly any dottle. Running a pipe cleaner through it afterwards still showed some moisture, but much less than before.

Most noticeable were the dramatic reduction in the heat of the bowl in the hand, and the generally easier smoke - I just puffed away without really thinking about it. I can't say that the Navy Flake tastes any better, but I can see now that the pipe itself has had a strong influence on my opinion of how the baccy smokes - the difference is night and day.

Very tempted to try the same thing on the Parker straight even though it has much more depth in the mortice. That pipe also has gurgling with the Mac Baren flakes, so I'm wondering if improving the airflow at the hole in the tenon will help.

 

[Nomad]

Very tempted to try the same thing on the Parker straight even though it has much more depth in the mortice. That pipe also has gurgling with the Mac Baren flakes, so I'm wondering if improving the airflow at the hole in the tenon will help.

Just did the countersinking on the Parker straight, and tried it with a Mac Baren Vanilla Flake from a freshly opened tin. I got some gurgle about 1/3 of the way through and had to clear it with a pipe cleaner. Other than that, it smoked fine. Again, the temperature of the bowl in the hand was dramatically reduced, and it was easy smokin' all the way to the bottom (my switch to the Frank method of packing might be a factor here).

I also found the baccy's flavour to be much the same (ie, not much in the way of tobacco, and maybe a tad bitter). I don't think I'll be buying any more of either of the Mac Barens. Might try a bowl of the hay & horse**** in the Parker bent later - my bowl of that in the Greek Alexander bent a couple of nights ago was very good, so I have a benchmark.

 

[sasquatch]

You can blow gently when you get gurgling and it burns off excess moisture. that Mac baren tends to be heavily cased if I recall correct, making it prone to excessive moisture build up. Nice mod with the countersink, not tried that before. I've drilled a couple pipes bigger before for better air flow with good results, might try your method next time...

 

[Nice65]

True, quite a few, most even, benefit from separating out and leaving to dry and fluff a little.

An interesting mod though, I have couple of gurglers and always blame technique.