Pipe Mud

[Literaryworkshop]

So after some searching around the internet for information, I decided to try to salvage my latest shop pipe after all.

Link to previous thread: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=9037

I figure a little experimentation will be good for my learning process at least.

I came up with pipe mud, traditionally made from cigar ash. I have no cigar-smoking friends nearby, and I have no desire to go out and smoke a cigar just to patch a pipe with. So I'm trying plain ol' wood ash from my most recent BBQ. (Even if the pipe turns out to be trash, I got some good grilled chicken out of it.) I sifted it into a bowl and put in just enough water to make a stiff paste. Then I slathered it onto the thin part of the chamber wall and let it dry overnight.

When it dried, the mud had cracked, and when I touched it, it crumbled and fell off in several places. Well, no great loss. I figured I had just put it on too thick. This afternoon, I mixed up more mud and applied as thin a layer as I could manage and then dried it with a hair dryer. I did find that the mud benefited from being pressed firmly onto the pipe wall with my finger, rather than just spread on as I had before.

Pipe Mud 2-2014.jpg (93.31 KiB) Viewed 1550 times

This is after two coats. (Yes, I know the stummel is ugly. I said this was a shop pipe.) I dried this one and then put on a third. That was a few hours ago and no cracks. Looks lit my next step is to light up the pipe and see if the stuff holds up at all.

[pipedreamer]

Go to a cigar lounge and empty the ash trays, it will give you a lifetime supply.You need cigar ash, it packs and binds differently.Nothing works better.

[Yak]

FWIW (if anything) : a friend of mine, experienced at this, pipe-mudded an old, damaged pipe I loved & wanted to resurrect that had spiderwebbing under the cake in it.

Smoking it was purgatorial. Ghastly. Completely overrode the taste of the tobacco with a sour nastiness that almost never dried out between smokes. Finally it caked over to the point where it tastes good now, but it was a labor of love for months.

If I had it to do again, I think I'd use the buttermilk & pulverized activated charcoal, and only in the cracks/pits themselves.

YMMV

[PremalChheda]

You can just naturally build a cake up by smoking very very slowly and leaving a coat of ash in the pipe after each bowlful. The key is to light it only in the middle so the tars will adhere to the walls better under cooler temperatures. This is a great way to smoke a new pipe for the first few bowlfuls to build a cake as well.

[Literaryworkshop]

Update time.

I tried smoking it with the mud, and I didn't notice any change in flavor at all. (I could just be totally insensitive to tobacco taste, as I'm a novice pipe smoker.) But when I tapped the ash out, the pipe mud fell out in a chunk, too. So I'm back where I started.

I'm not sure what I'll do next. While I'm tempted to chuck the whole pipe and salvage the stem for something else, I'm also really curious about whether I can salvage the wood, too. I may try the mud one more time but put it on thinner, just to see if it will stick. I guess I've got a soft spot for lost causes.

[Yak]

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/p ... giant-post

[Literaryworkshop]

Yeah, that's where I got the idea in the first place. I've smoked it once with the new mud intact, and it did fine. I'm hoping that, if I can get some cake to form, the pipe won't be a total loss.