pipemakersforum.com

Or: "How Long Should Acrylic Air Out Before You Smoke It?"

Well, I gifted myself a new pipe for Christmas, one that just almost got approved for sale, but after a week of debate, I finally decided to keep it for myself.

I can't even remember the last time I gave myself a pipe, but it's been at least six months, maybe more. Nor can I remember the last time I gave myself a pipe with an acrylic stem.

Anyway, I know it's been at least two weeks since I turned that stem, and about a week since I buffed the pipe. But smoking it for the first time this morning, I nearly gagged.

The acrylic stank was just horrible. I feel like such an idiot, because I had no idea that smell -- and taste -- lingered that long. Damn, I am going to have to send out some emails to at least a couple of my customers and apologize.

So is just letting acrylic air out for maybe a month good enough? Or would swabbing it out a few times with alcohol help? Or what do you all do to prep an acrylic stem for smoking?

That's wild! I've never heard of such a thing. Acrylic is supposed to be very stable, and not let out any fumes once it's been cast. You might smell something while sanding or turning, but....

I'm interested to hear what others have to say. I've never experienced that, but I don't regularly smoke a pipe with an acrylic stem.

Are you using the Italian or German stuff? Not that I've noticed a smell difference, just curious.

Never experienced or heard reports of what you describe... Maybe a "bad batch" sort of thing, with a missing or shorted stabilizing ingredient? (Help me out here, chemistry doodz)

In fact, I've several Golden Palate type tobacco lover customers who are exceedingly fussy (and not faking it), who say that acrylic is the only way to go.

If I remember correctly, this particular rod came from Penn State Industries. It supposedly comes from Europe, but I can't tell you much more than that.

But when your working with it, it smells to me like any other acrylic rod that I've worked with, like generic black acrylic rod from Delvie's Plastics, for instance.

I'm just sitting here trying to guesstimate the quantity of that smell, from manufacturer to manufacturer. And I'm thinking I might run a little experiment sometime this weekend.

On the upside, I ran an alcohol soaked pipe cleaner through it, and that helped a little. And I've put four half-bowls through it, and now it's almost tolerable.

I'm just wondering if it's one of those things where I need to figure on a certain time period between machining/buffing and smoking.

All my bits are acrylic. Never heard of or experienced that.

Do you know if that acrylic was cast or extruded?

If you have other acrylic rod around (not the same batch), I would make another stem and see how you feel about drawing through that. Don't wait days or even hours after completing it though. Once it's finished just clean it with alcohol & pipe cleaner, etc. and then smoke it.

Let us know what you find.

Okay, just an update. Apparently the alcohol soaked pipe cleaner and a couple of smokes have worked wonders. I'm on bowl number five or six, and it's smoking magnificently.

When I finished that stem, I ran a pipe cleaner through it to remove the dust, but I'm almost wondering if there might have been some sort of chemical residue on the inside of the stem?

Or I'm even wondering if the acrylic might have "sweated" a little, during or just after the drilling process. Or I bet it might have "sweated" during the bending process.

Whichever way it got that funk inside, in the future, I am definitely going to have to remember to swab out acrylic stems with an alcohol soaked pipe cleaner as my final procedure.