Briar question

[Sasquatch]

Don't watch it too many times. You lose 2.5 IQ points with every exposure.

 

[Rad Davis]

Rad, Vesz's briar mysticism escapes me (and you too), but his explanation of meerschaum was what really made me think he'd had too much Black XX that day. But the difference between minerals and fossils is a tightrope that most of us dare not walk.

In a recent article on pipe carving in "The Pipe Collector" the author (not Vesz) makes the same claim: that meerschaum is formed from the "fossilized shells of ancient microscopic sea creatures".

This and the Vesz video prompted me to write a letter to P&T. There have never been any silicon based life forms. At least not on earth.

Rad

 

[Sasquatch]

Oh ho! Look who's a biochemist all of a sudden.

I have suspicions that my Boston Terrier is silicon-based. He feels no pain, never runs out of energy, and has an unnatural fondness for bouncy-balls.

 

[Harlock999]

The shop in that link is amazing! Was he wearing OR scrubs?

 

[Anonymous]

Piet, in all honesty I was pretty astonished to see a video of Vesz where he put forward some ... pretty strange opinions. I'm not going to say anything of "dead root briar" because I don't really know enough to comment intelligently.

I find the pipe smoking community so superstitious and so hooked on myths and might-bes that a lot of what gets said just makes me laugh. But of course, I have a vested interest in NOT believing in dead root or 100 year old or what-have-you magical briar because I can't get that stuff. I just buy nice looking briar that smokes good. :scratch:

AMEN SAS!!
Shhheeeesh you had me worried there for a moment.
But you gota love the old man referring to Meerschaum as fossilized bone!!
As Pipe maker, and a damn fine one at that, I believe you must here your fare share of crap, more than we do!!

 

[Smokntaz]

As a newbie to the world of briars and "Fossilized bone" it can be very confusing. I just found out you can smoke without the filters! Thanks for the link Sasquatch.

 

[Anonymous]

As a newbie to the world of briars and "Fossilized bone" it can be very confusing. I just found out you can smoke without the filters! Thanks for the link Sasquatch.

:cheers: :cheers:

 

[Sasquatch]

AMEN SAS!!
Shhheeeesh you had me worried there for a moment.
But you gota love the old man referring to Meerschaum as fossilized bone!!
As Pipe maker, and a damn fine one at that, I believe you must here your fare share of crap, more than we do!!

Piet, I hear a few ideas that I think are baloney, but pipe smoking is such an individual thing that I try not to let "personal preference" and "pipe smoking fact" overlap much. Some guys like dry tobacco, some guys like wet tobacco. I've found that certain blends (Navy Cavendish) do MUCH more for me dried out a little, and some blends I prefer a little more fresh (Presbyterian). I like big pipes, some guys like little pipes. Hell, I rusticate pipes because I think it looks nice and some guys hate it. It's all just personal choice.

But if someone tries to tell me that Peterson only uses 50 year old briar and the red pipes smoke cooler than the green ones, ... well, c'mon man, ******** is ********. But maybe they have a red pipe that DOES smoke cooler than the green one, so it's THEIR experience. I can't and don't fight that. But meerschaum isn't a fossilized anything - it's a magnesium silicate mineral and that's just a fact.

For my pipes, I know what I like now, what works best for me, and I try to offer that in the pipes I make for other people. But I certainly can't guarantee that any particular smoker is going to like my setup, my briar, the flavor the pipe has after my dog pisses on it... whatever. All I can offer is what I think works, and I try to not baloneyfy it with fancy jargon or a "harvested by virgins" sort of sales approach. The "angle" if there is one is simply that I've been lucky enough to exchange some ideas and get some guidance from guys like Rad, and you'll notice that he and others like him don't go out of their way to find dead root briar at 100' below sea level on the 7th day of the 7th month etc - they go out of their way to buy merely excellent quality well-cured briar, and work hard at making superior smoking pipes from it.

 

[Sasquatch]

To actually answer the OP here, there is no reason you'd see better grain on the right vs left of a pipe. Custom pipes from top-end briar are usually cut to maximize beauty and symmetry of grain, but most factory pipes are just kind of ground out of blocks with whatever orientation the grain happens to have when the briar is cut. Peterson smooths are a great example of this. The grain is just all over the map, and sometimes you see flame on one side and bird on the other... purely how the block was cut and what level of uniformity the grain had in that particular root.

 

[Harlock999]

Thanks Sas!

 

[Anonymous]

AMEN SAS!!
Shhheeeesh you had me worried there for a moment.
But you gota love the old man referring to Meerschaum as fossilized bone!!
As Pipe maker, and a damn fine one at that, I believe you must here your fare share of crap, more than we do!!

Piet, I hear a few ideas that I think are baloney, but pipe smoking is such an individual thing that I try not to let "personal preference" and "pipe smoking fact" overlap much. Some guys like dry tobacco, some guys like wet tobacco. I've found that certain blends (Navy Cavendish) do MUCH more for me dried out a little, and some blends I prefer a little more fresh (Presbyterian). I like big pipes, some guys like little pipes. Hell, I rusticate pipes because I think it looks nice and some guys hate it. It's all just personal choice.

But if someone tries to tell me that Peterson only uses 50 year old briar and the red pipes smoke cooler than the green ones, ... well, c'mon man, ******** is ********. But maybe they have a red pipe that DOES smoke cooler than the green one, so it's THEIR experience. I can't and don't fight that. But meerschaum isn't a fossilized anything - it's a magnesium silicate mineral and that's just a fact.

For my pipes, I know what I like now, what works best for me, and I try to offer that in the pipes I make for other people. But I certainly can't guarantee that any particular smoker is going to like my setup, my briar, the flavor the pipe has after my dog pisses on it... whatever. All I can offer is what I think works, and I try to not baloneyfy it with fancy jargon or a "harvested by virgins" sort of sales approach. The "angle" if there is one is simply that I've been lucky enough to exchange some ideas and get some guidance from guys like Rad, and you'll notice that he and others like him don't go out of their way to find dead root briar at 100' below sea level on the 7th day of the 7th month etc - they go out of their way to buy merely excellent quality well-cured briar, and work hard at making superior smoking pipes from it.

:cheers: :cheers: :cheers:


Well said Sas and I agree with you totally.
BoB, however is a cool place because we seem to get good info and fact here from guys like you. I am able to split fact from ******** much easier since I joined up here!!!

 

[Wayne_Teipen]

I was noticing that a good percentage of pipes that have very tight, straight grain on the "left" side of the bowl (looking at the pipe with the stem in your mouth) usually have wild, flame grain on the opposite side, but rarely the other way around,(straight on the right, flame on the left). Why is that? Is it just the carvers preference?

If I'm understanding you correctly, pipes with this type of cross grain are made from ebauchon blocks or blocks cut from the inner parts of the root ball. Pipes made from plateaux (the outer layers of the briar root ball) are typically going to have straight grain all around if cut correctly and the pipemaker orients the pipe correctly. The straight grain should radiate evenly from the heel of the pipe. Cross grains can have a lot of variation depending on how close to the center of the root ball they are cut. some will have a sunburst pattern when one side of the block is cut from near center.

 

[Harlock999]

Thanks guys, appreciate the info!