Dehumidifier at workshop

[Arvacon]

Hi.
At winter I noticed high humidity at my workshop, so I decided to buy a dehumidifier, as some of my tools started to catch rust. As the dehumidifier's humidity meter was saying at first time I switched it on (I hope it is correct..), the humidity was around 80%, but 1 week later it dropped at 50% by removing 4-5 liters of water, so I decided to keep it in this level permanently, as the place became much more comfort than before. I have pull a hose outside of the place, so I have left the machine to work 24/7 and it has remove a lot of liters from the end of January until now.

Now in the summer as I see, the humidity at the other rooms is around 65%, but sometimes here, because the sea is just 2km far away, especially at nights the humidity is growing up. Something else that I have noticed is that the mdf shelfs that I have installed in the room, they have shrink a little, so in the places that they were touching each other, now they have 1-2mm space.. I had a forgotten box with candies in the room, they were crystal clear when I bought them, but I found them to have become like chalks now (see pictures below), so I started to wondering if these conditions would be ok for the briar and my pipes. I have some ebachons sitting there all these months, but from a quick view, I didn't noticed any damage, cracks for example.

How is going with the briar wood in these conditions? I mean, my workshop is fine now for my metal lathe and the other metal objects at 50% as this prevented rust problems I had in the past, but how about briar pieces or any pipes I have in the room, will this affect them negatively and if yes, what problems can be happen? I also scare about the leather dies, glues and other liquid staff, can these been affected by this machine too?
What is the right temperature for a workshop in your opinion?

[Sasquatch]

I will tell you a story.

Once upon a time, a pipe maker decided to dry his briar out completely. Bone dry. He did this by slowly warming it up and leaving it hot for a few days. This provided a pipe of incomparable lightness and obviously no moisture inside the block, so it should smoke dry.

These things were true. But, sending a pipe to a seaside location, what happened over a period of about 3 months is that the pipe grew with humidity, expanded to the point where the stem would fall out of the mortise. Embarrassing!




You will, of course, have the opposite problem, where you will be sending out a finished pipe at 60% humidity, and if it goes to Greece or California, you'll have no problems. If you sent it to me, where my relative humidity is maybe 20% most of the time and about 4% in the winter, the pipe would shrink, the mortise become tight - it might even crack the shank.

Some fellows here treat the mortise to stabilize it. I have my doubts about the long-term effects of that. If the wood wants to move, it will. There are extreme climates in the world which are difficult to make briar pipes for if you are making a wood/rubber joint in the pipe. You could probably stabilize it by doing some kind of sleeving inside the mortise, but mostly, probably you don't need to worry about it. A lot of the world sits around 50% humidity, you should be able to send your pipes to a lot of places without issue.

[LatakiaLover]

I will tell you a story.

Once upon a time, a pipe maker decided to dry his briar out completely. Bone dry. He did this by slowly warming it up and leaving it hot for a few days. This provided a pipe of incomparable lightness and obviously no moisture inside the block, so it should smoke dry.

These things were true. But, sending a pipe to a seaside location, what happened over a period of about 3 months is that the pipe grew with humidity, expanded to the point where the stem would fall out of the mortise. Embarrassing!

I expect many smokers will find this ^^^^ confusing, since most of them have discovered that merely blowing through the stemless shank of a pipe---increasing both the temperature and humidity of the wood---will make the stem fit more tightly, and so they think that dry = loose.

Here's what's happening: When only the SURFACE of a piece of solid material (wood, rubber, metal, you name it) expands, and that surface is the inside of a hole such as a gun barrel or pipe airway, the hole gets smaller/tighter. That's because what the surface is "attached to" (so to speak) isn't affected right away.

Wait long enough for the added heat (or humidity in the case of wood) to distribute itself evenly throughout the entire piece of material---which increases EVERY dimension---though, and the hole gets larger/expands.

This phenomenon causes all manner of confusion in the firearms world, where shooters endlessly argue whether a gun barrel's interior dimension/bore size gets smaller as the barrel heats up from firing. Some say yes, others say no. The answer is both are right... it just depends on when the measurements are taken, and the starting temperature of the barrel. For a few quick shots the bore actually does get briefly smaller as the interior surface expands inward, then, as the heat gets evenly distributed through the barrel metal, the entire tube expands and the bore gets larger.

[Arvacon]

Thanks for the helpful info. I never thought about these differences before, so that made me worry now..
So from your sayings, 50% doesn't damage the briar finally, it just making it to shrink a little probably, right?
I think I should not store the briar or my pipes in the same room with the dehumidifier then, because when they will coming out from there and outside has 70-80%, I guess they will expand..
Do you think 50% is too low for everything finally? My main problem is rust at metal objects (and it has worked nice about this), but I don't want loose my leather dies (can these affect? ) or other things that can be affected, but also I don't know if is good for the briar to sitting at 70-80 as before, because some pieces of scrap mdf i had there, it had started has mold at the surface and i have found a little at that briar ebachons too, so what would be a balanced choice, at your opinion?


_____________________
Sent from my idog touch.

[Sasquatch]

I'm shipping pipes at probably 20-30% humidity, I think 50% is probably fine for most locations. If you ship a pipe somewhere very dry, it will tighten up some.

[sandahlpipe]

Humidity where I am fluctuates between 20% in the winter and 70% in the summer. I shipped a pipe to Florida in the winter and the stem was still tight there. I didn't do anything special to the mortise. Still can't figure out why it didn't get looser when the humidity increased as well as the temperature.

How's that for a monkey wrench?

[mredmond]

One thing to consider is that most folks store their pipes indoors. I live in FL and we all spend a lot of money to keep all that nasty humidity outside. It might be 90% outdoors, but it certainly isn't indoors. I left an old beater pipe in an outdoor shop and the stem got very loose. That's never happened to any of the pipes I keep in my house.

[BobR]

Has anyone tried making a briar tenon? There are probably a lot of reasons why it would be bad. But, it would have the same coefficient of expansion (i.e. similar materials).... assuming the briar was from an area near the mortise and the grain was in the same direction as in the mortise.

[sandahlpipe]

Has anyone tried making a briar tenon? There are probably a lot of reasons why it would be bad. But, it would have the same coefficient of expansion (i.e. similar materials).... assuming the briar was from an area near the mortise and the grain was in the same direction as in the mortise.

I made a briar tenon with a briar stem. It works fine after a year, but it is tight. If I took another thousandth off, it would come loose. If it were longer, it probably wouldn't come out. When I made my next briar stem, I made it with a delrin tenon.

Generally, mortise and tenon from the same material is a bad idea.