ToddJohnson wrote:
Random,
Usually this is a result of improperly mixing the sodium silicate solution. It tends to look grayish if left unsmoked for some months. A little saliva on your finger will make it as black as charcoal again though.
Todd
That remains, IMO, the most annoying problem of sodium silicate-based carb mixes. The "fade to grey" is virtually unavoidable in some environments and leads to a less-than-attractive pipe for those twisted souls who just buy their pipes to collect and hoard them instead of smoking them... I would much rather they SMOKED my pipes, but if a pipe is going to be sitting in someone's display case for the next ten years, I'd prefer it to still look as good as its neighbors with different kinds of coatings (or none). All recent flame wars about bowl coatings aside, I have been working for the past 8 months now, off and on, on modifying and improving my coatings via some different ingredients. Right now I have a dozen test cases spread around the world generating feedback, and I expect the last reports to be coming in here soon. I've already pretty much settled on the new mix but am awaiting the last comments to see if there are alternate preferences. Also, I've got several LB stummels set up out in the workshop with some different coatings in them, and some inside in a more environment-controlled place, so I can watch and compare them over the next few years and see firsthand what, if any, visual changes there are in the unsmoked bowls. I want them to taste good, stick without chipping for ten years, AND look pretty!
Random's white coating, I suspect, was a meer-lined bowl.
