Crappy pipe challenge winner

[huffelpuff]

A few months back our own Sasquatch very generously had a contest to see if he could improve a seriously crappy pipe. I was lucky enough to be chosen for this with a Roland Amberloid pipe from the late 1800's-or very early 1900's. it's an extremely small 3/4 bent pipe just 4 inches stem to stern. He made what modifications he could to it which included shortening the tennon, and opening up the draft hole in the stummel. I got the pipe back quite a while ago and have been putting it through its paces. This pipe gurgled like a drowning victim and no matter how slowly it was smoked scalded the hell out of your mouth with steam. I have to say that the improvement in its function is unbelievable. I have smoked excessively dry, and very moist bowls of Dan's Sweet Vanilla Honeydew in it with no issues at all other than the bowl will get quite warm! I am amazed at how much better she behaves. I firmly believe that Sasquatch is a man of supreme talent and I can't thank him enough for what he did! This pipe sat in a drawer for 10 years because it was so unpleasant to smoke, now it's back in my regular rotation. I couldn't be more pleased with the work done! Thank you Todd! If you have the opportunity to get one of Todd's pipes I'm sure you will be more than pleased with it!

Jim

 

[pepesdad1]

Yay for Todd.

 

[Anonymous]

Anybody who can make one of those things smoke even decently is really doing something !

:face:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Forgive my ignorance... what's a "Roland Amberloid?" Are they notorious for smoking like crap?

<img class="emojione" alt="?" title=":shrug:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/emojione/assets/png/1f937.png?v=2.2.7"/>

Glad Sas tuned it up, though. I ought to send in my cursed Nording freehand...all of my tricks and voodoo failed on that (*&!@#!! pipe.

 

[jefe1037]

PICS!!!

 

[huffelpuff]

Kyle Roland was one of many small manufacturers at the turn of the century. It's performance problems were likely due to a combination of improper drilling (very small draft hole) and repairs that were improperly exicuted. The tennon appears to be a replacement of hand carved bone that was too long and cause airflow problems. The Amberloid part is the stem its a very early type of plastic quite hard too.

 

[Sasquatch]

Yeah I really should have stipulated that the pipe be of even halfway normal size and regular materials.

This one just about beat me because I ordinarily drill the airway bigger than the entire diameter of the tenon on this pipe, so lots of stuff went out the window.

 

[huffelpuff]

Todd you may not have been able to do the work you wanted to but what you did still rescued this old pipe and now has it back into regular rotation. It may never be a stellar smoker but at least it's a decent smoker now and for that I thank you sir!

Jim