Ironically, I bought the same pipe today, before I saw your pics!! I had planned to go back to The Hill Cigars in StL right after I visited the first time a couple of weeks ago. I planned to get a can of C&D Eight State Burley (which I did) and probably another pipe, because, more pipes! I am stuck on cobs right now, and it was down to that one and another called Lucky 7. L7 was $10 more and had a VERY large bowl. I liked it a lot, but I figured I should be more reasonable.Here you go:
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Like I said, I've done a little work on the interior of the bowl:
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I also did that trick where you put a bunch of graphite on the tendon with a pencil to loosen the stem up a little. That's how I screwed up the shank in the first place, trying to take the thing apart so I could clean it using a regular pipe cleaner.
Now I'm smoking Black Ambrosia in an AKB Sultan meerschaum.
I also got some Long's pipe cleaners (seem to be the best) and a new Czech tool - the one I already had came with the pipe starter kit that my wife got me for Christmas, and it was kind of flimsy. The ones at The Hill are the real deal, so I got that. Got a few Acid cigars for my boys for after my daughter's wedding this Saturday. I never smoked while the kids were growing up - at least not since my oldest was 2 yo - and they're the ones that got me going again! Two of them have wives that both used to work at a cigar bar, and the freebies were flowing back then.
To stay on topic, I did smoke the Eight State Burley in the Cobbit, even though the hotel I'm staying at has no place to smoke and it's really windy out. That's some wonderful stuff. The wind made it smoke pretty hot, but I can tell I love it because the aftertaste is delightfully sweet.