2 questions about Airway.

[Maiser]

Hey all, here are some questions for all you Pipemakers or general know-it-alls (Sasquatch might be both of these).

1.
I have heard much talk about larger airways in a pipe's engineering making for a better smoke, which I find to be true. My pipes that pass fluffy cleaners with ease tend to smoke better than the ones I have to buy regular Longs' for.

Really the only way I can know if a pipe has a wider or smaller airway is with the pipe cleaner test...

So how can I actually measure and find out how wide my airway's are in my pipes?


2.
Where is the best place to get your airways widened? I have looked at a few repairmen that charge as much as 35$ (eesh) for this service. Are there are BoBs that are willing to help a fellow brother out? Not for free, of course. Monetary or tobacco compensation I will be glad to fork up... but not 35$ worth .

-mike.

 

[LL]

If your pipes smoke OK, leave them alone. Don't get caught up in the "size thing" like it is stereo wattage or car horsepower. Bigger is not necessarily better. Every pipe is different.

Also---and this NEVER seems to be understood no matter how many times it gets said---if enlarging the airway is indicated, OPENING ONLY THE SHANK IS WORSE THAN DOING NOTHING. The stem must be opened too.

Opening stems is risky and quite difficult to do well. It requires specialized tools, lots of patience, and lots of practice. (I regularly get sent broken stems to replicate courtesy of kitchen table opening attempts.)

 

[Sasquatch]

Ahhhh the details. Everything LL posted is right. In terms of measuring, I don't know if there's a specific method. If it's a straight pipe, pop the stem off and have a look through it - you'll see where the round airway meets the rectangular slot, and that's the tightest part of most stems.

If you take a set of drill bits and insert them into the shank of the pipe, you can quickly find out what size the airway is drilled at. Somewhere bewteen 1/8" and 5/32 is pretty common.

I am a proponent of large/open airways and a restriction at/near the button. The specifications Rick Newcombe offers in his essay "Your Pipe Should Have an Open Draw" are basically correct in my opinion. This is outside the norm, and has, in some senses, helped to create a culture of "bigger is better" for airways, for good or bad. The comments I get on pipes that I build like Newcombe suggests (which is basically 11/64" or so for airways, tapering in the stem and flairing out again at the button) always get positive reviews and sometimes are received with pleased astonishment.

I would suggest however that the QUALITY with which a pipe is contructed, how well it is engineered internally, will have more of an effect on how it smokes than the actual size of the airway.

 

[mattia76]

Hey Maiser,
I just had a Castello opened up by Tinsky for waaaay less than $35, and he did one hell of a job.

Hit him up and see if he'll do it.

 

[Maiser]

Thanks for the suggestion Mattia,

I remember you talking about Tinsky's expertise on such matters. However, I have contracted one of our own BoB's to do the job.

Keepin' it in the family.

-Mike.

 

[Thomas Tkach]

OPENING ONLY THE SHANK IS WORSE THAN DOING NOTHING.

Is this the case if the stem is open but the draught hole through the shank is what is tightening things? Does it apply to system pipes?

I have a Killarney Oom Paul which is pretty old that was a gift from my uncle. I couldn't get any pleasure from it, until I opened the draft hole up to 1/8". I didn't mess with the stem, and it got a lot better. Before, there was no flavor and I couldn't keep things lit--afterward, both problems were gone. I am guessing that the dynamics of the large well and difference in diameters account for my experience contradicting yours, but what is the reason, exactly?

 

[LL]

OPENING ONLY THE SHANK IS WORSE THAN DOING NOTHING.

Is this the case if the stem is open but the draught hole through the shank is what is tightening things?

That is almost never seen. The occasional bamboo-shanked pipe does, but that's about it. If a pipe DOES have a shank airway that's smaller than the stem, though, yes, it should be opened to match.

Does it apply to system pipes?

No. System pipes with condensation chambers, or any design with a "dead air" chamber like a gourd calabash, are a different animal entirely. Their internals are intended to deliberately trigger condensation and then capture it, while a traditional "straight through" design's intent is to keep condensation from forming in the first place.

Problems arise when a specimen is a mixture of the two approaches to dryness. Setting it right is a matter of modifying the internals to more closely approach the ideal of one design or the other.

 

[Harlock999]

Thanks, good info.

 

[Sasquatch]

Problems arise when a specimen is a mixture of the two approaches to dryness. Setting it right is a matter of modifying the internals to more closely approach the ideal of one design or the other.

LL, you are not just another pretty face.

 

[Thomas Tkach]

Thanks for the response. Something like that was my hunch, but I've no real idea, so I'm glad you let me know!

 

[LL]

Problems arise when a specimen is a mixture of the two approaches to dryness. Setting it right is a matter of modifying the internals to more closely approach the ideal of one design or the other.

LL, you are not just another pretty face.

Huh? Ya lost me. :?:

 

[jhuggett]

I think he's just saying you know what you are talking about. :lol:

 

[LL]

I think he's just saying you know what you are talking about. :lol:

Ah. Got it. Cool.

The pretty face thing is what threw me. Here's my DL pic from a few years ago to explain why:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yIhLg867o04/SUNL33BONYI/AAAAAAAAAZs/1TvrIOs8m5E/s1600-h/ugly+old+man.bmp

 

[Harlock999]

I think he's just saying you know what you are talking about. :lol:

Ah. Got it. Cool.

The pretty face thing is what threw me. Here's my DL pic from a few years ago to explain why:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yIhLg867o04/SUNL33BONYI/AAAAAAAAAZs/1TvrIOs8m5E/s1600-h/ugly+old+man.bmp

Good stuff!

 

[Sasquatch]

Yes LL, it was a compliment of sorts. Your statement was a succinct phrasing of what I consider to be possibly the most important factor in pipe design. There are smooth-airflow "guts" and condensing system "guts" and you must pick one or the other, as anything in between is going to be inferior.

 

[maxpeters]

I recently corresponded with Dave Wolf at Walker Briarworks about a gurgling problem with my pipe. I will share with you his response:

"Thank you for your email. 95% of the time, gurgling is from a poor airway. The airway from the bowl to the of the shank should be 5/32" in diameter. A good percentage are, a lot are not. The problem then is the diameter transition from the shank to the stem. Problems arise when there is a relatively large shank airway that goes into a relatively small stem airway... quickly. That's kind of the principle of a dehumidifier in that moist air (in this case, tobacco smoke) is sucked or pushed through a small hole. Moisture is squeezed out. In a dehumidifier, that's a good thing. In a pipe, the moisture builds up creating a gurgle. In pipes with very small airways, the additional "sucking" in order to get smoke through accentuates the problem.

The solution is to either make sure the shank diameter is 5/32", or open it to that, Second to open the airway in the stem as much as possible without compromising its' structure. Next, and probably most important, it to chamfer, or funnel the end of the tenon so the transition from the shank to the stem is as smooth as possible.

I actually open and/or correct airways on hundreds of pipes over the period of a year. I do it more for hard draw problems and a hot smoking pipe than for gurgling, but in every case the gurgling, or wet smoking pipe problems go away, sometimes much to the surprise of the pipe's smoker. If you have a pipe that "just doesn't smoke right", or "tastes bad" or "smokes hot", the airway is usually the problem, not the briar, the pipe or the tobacco. In a perfect world, you should never have to use a pipe cleaner to sop up moisture when smoking a pipe.

Here is a link to the "Fixing Meerschaums" page on my website. I chose to write about Meerschaums as they are extreme examples of crappy, tight airways. The same principles exist in much the same way with briar pipes. At the bottom of that page you will find a link to an excellent article written Ken Campbell that expands on everything I've said here."

I sent the pipe to him. He said that for a bent pipe, his charges would be $19.00 plus $6.60 UPS shipping.