Love & Hate and Fill Stories

[gravel]

I'm not fussed about fills. If its a good smoker - I'm ok with it.

 

[Brewdude]

I'm not fussed about fills. If its a good smoker - I'm ok with it.

Pretty much the same here.

In fact my very first pipe (an inexpensive Chacom) has a few and I've never loved it any less as a result. Always been a stellar performer.



Cheers,

RR

 

[user 2031]

I'm thinking some of us should take a good look in the mirror. We might be surprised to find an imperfection or two in there too.

Why would we want our pipes to outclass us? :lol!:

I'm just kidding... don't go getting offended.

 

[i.keenum]

meh I won't know its a good smoker till I buy it and smoke it so might as well buy what i like. Not shallow and don't look down upon pipes with fills just gonna buy what I like when I can. Like I said lol its a slow growing collection, hard to get no fills for a deal but they are out there . It could be made out of fills if it was a sandblast with interesting grain. Just differences in colors bug me not the imperfection.

Its a big reason why I am not big on buying pipes of the web, there needs to be a ton of pics for me to buy a pipe.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Its a big reason why I am not big on buying pipes of the web, there needs to be a ton of pics for me to buy a pipe.

This. 8) Unless I can have a conversation with the carver!

 

[monbla256]

Its a big reason why I am not big on buying pipes of the web, there needs to be a ton of pics for me to buy a pipe.

That was one of the benifits of "back in the day" we went to a STORE and could look at and handle the pipes, but that's not how it is today. In some ways, we had it BETTER than today :twisted:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

That was one of the benifits of "back in the day" we went to a STORE and could look at and handle the pipes, but that's not how it is today. In some ways, we had it BETTER than today :twisted:

...and also this. 8)

My local Tinder Box usually gets the bulk of my pipe interests and purchases, but to balance things out, I buy tobacco over the Internets (all of them). I can't look at a pipe and buy it. I want to see it. Feel the weight. Check the chamber. See the grain in the light. Check the stem, shank, bowl... you know.

The pipe and I are likely beginning a very long relationship, not just a date to see if we like each other through pictures. You gotta talk, feel, ask questions... get answers.

 

[Anonymous]

The first good pipe I ever bought is a Sasieni 4 Dot Viscount Lascelles which I purchased 42 years ago. It has been one of my very favorite pipes since I bought it, even though it has mediocre grain at best (in those days I didn't know or care about grain)

Back then there were two schools of thought (or, competing commercial PR). One, Dunhill's, was that "grain" was irrelevant ; what mattered was the shape, and the complete absence of sandpits, fissures, discolorations, &c. The other, Charatan's, was that pipes were excuses to showcase pretty grain. Both had their adherents.

Charatan seems to have won that one.

:face:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Charatan seems to have won that one.

In what regard? Historically? If Pipedia is correct, Dunhill bought out Charatan...unless you mean simply the general contemporary makers' attitude about "grain being superior"--their idea did win in the end.

 

[PreppyHippy]

That was one of the benifits of "back in the day" we went to a STORE and could look at and handle the pipes, but that's not how it is today. In some ways, we had it BETTER than today :twisted:

(...And we liked it!)

meh I won't know its a good smoker till I buy it and smoke it so might as well buy what i like. Not shallow and don't look down upon pipes with fills just gonna buy what I like when I can. Like I said lol its a slow growing collection, hard to get no fills for a deal but they are out there . It could be made out of fills if it was a sandblast with interesting grain. Just differences in colors bug me not the imperfection.

Its a big reason why I am not big on buying pipes of the web, there needs to be a ton of pics for me to buy a pipe.

I.keenum I think we see eye-to-eye on this. These days when I buy a pipe online I'm very careful also about the purchase and I alwas ask the seller (I buy from sellers who really know pipes and who I trust to spot a fill if there is one) if there are any fills. If there are any I'm very unlikely to pick up the pipe. So far when the answer has been no I've been happy with the pipes when they've come to me. But I too sure would appreciate a beauty spot, as I think it was wisely called by Kyle Weiss, rather than the putty discoloration. I hear you and agree for sure brother. Naturally I sympathize with Kyle about his experience getting a pipe with pox on the non-photo side and I praise him for sending it back. No one wants to sit through scores of bowls in a pipe that reminds him/her of being fooled by a merchant.

While I'm not crazy about fills, it's difficult to impossible to know for sure that they are there or not there when buying the pipe. As someone wrote above, the Danes are very good at concealing them. Even Bo Nordh put fills in his pipes, although he purported that he didn't.

I'm a lot more concerned about a pipe with a lousy stem and poor smoking qualities than I am about fills.

The first good pipe I ever bought is a Sasieni 4 Dot Viscount Lascelles which I purchased 42 years ago. It has been one of my very favorite pipes since I bought it, even though it has mediocre grain at best (in those days I didn't know or care about grain). Still, it has a couple of tiny fills. As good as I thought that pipe was, as a favor to me Jack Howell restemmed the pipe for me. The difference was oh-my-Gawd better. The pipe has always been a tasty smoke, but now it is sublime.

This is one of the last pipes I would ever let go of. Do the fills fill me with ambivalence about that? Not at all. This is a pipe that has accompanied my pipe-smoking journey from the outset.

ZuluCollector, thank you for your thoughtful post. Of course we take our chances in making purchases, and of course we rejoice no matter what the surface of the pipe when it gives us smokes to write home and to forums about. I couldn't agree more with you and your delight with a long standing favorite pipe. I love my old fill-filled Algerian briars and my Savinelli natural starter pipe for exactly the same reason.

Riff Raff, awesome job re-filling that Comoy. Beautiful pipe any way one cuts it. I'm especially grateful for your post because I am fantasizing about trying your methods to remove the fills I've got and re-stain the pipe(s). Might as well try out the beauty mark theory since I like the idea so much. How did you remove the fills before improving them so much, and can I remove them without the full re-staining being necessary?

Several posters have suggested there are pipes that have fills but that we don't know about them. Likely then I've got pipes I think are fill-less but aren't. I guess that's the way I'd like it. If there's a fill in my pipe but no one hears it then it doesn't make a noise. Naturally, it's the ones that make noise and the ones that shout loud that bother me or, as I've mentioned in my posts, turn things around and make me proud to smoke a superior pipe with them.

Part of what I enjoy about my pipe fascination is the complexity of the aesthetic relationship we have with the object we use, and with our feelings for the pipe and its qualities we elevate it to an object of art no matter what we say or think about it. I thoroughly enjoy the complexity that the smallest things about pipe smoking offer, as a discussion of fills proves.

No one should think I'm insecure about my pipes because I don't like fills. And as I've said, I don't always hate fills. I meant this question to be thinking about fills and not an expansion into suggestions of vanity.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts. I really look forward to making a beauty mark test case of an Algerian briar pipe.

 

[Wet Dottle]

I only tolerate fills if they are completely invisible and I don't know they're there.

 

[riff raff]

PreppyHippy:
Here's an essay on fixing fills with the superglue method. It's on my buddy Steve Laugs "Reborn Pipes" blog and details every step. I don't think you can fix a fill this way without retaining the pipe, but I haven not tried to do that, so who knows.
http://rebornpipes.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/using-super-glue-to-repair-putty-fills/

 

[Anonymous]

Depending on the size of the flaw, that's one way.

:face:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

If the pendulum swings the other way, there's "the PIPE" and "the SMOKE," which arguably is one complete and total "fill" all by itself... (or is that "brylon?) :mrgreen:

8)

 

[PreppyHippy]

Riff, sincere thanks for the link. I've delighted in reading Reborn Pipes when I've wanted to see pipe repairs/problems delved into with depth, seriousness, and happy endings. I've not seen the one on fills before though, but it's perfect.

Thank you for the help. Now I'll have to do something about trying some of it out. Thanks again!