Originally Posted by
cannonfodder
I really dont know. I have been a cigar guy for 10 years. For some reason a pipe has grabbed my interest lately. Since I have a wood shop and a pipe is little more than a block of wood with a hole drilled in it for the tobacco and a tenon drilled to the base of the bowl I figured there is no reason I could not make one. I rough cut the shape on the bandsaw then put it in a vice and used some wood rasps to rough shape it. Then to the 1 inch strip sander to final shape then hand sand to 800 grit. Took about 5 hours but I had to figure out how to cut and carve the 3-d object.
If you guys dont mind, let me ask another couple questions. Filters, some pipes have them some do not. My pipe does not althoug I could drill the stem to hold one. What kind of difference does it make to have one? I see that pipe tobacco needs around 40% humidity so I cannot store it in one of my extra humidors since they run at 68% (I have around 1200 cigars). Any storage recommendation for pipe tobacco, mason jar to keep it air tight?
Tobacco, right now I am working on some straight Black Cavendish that I got from my local B&M cigar shop. It is just straight Cavendish. I got it simply because I like the smell of Cavendish. A Cavendish centric blend would be good and I have no biases so I am up for about anything.
My pipe is well on its way to be seasoned and has developed a nice even cake from top to bottom but I would call the smoke harsh. If it were a cigar I would say it needs another 6 months of ageing. That could just be the blend or the cheap tobacco. It is the shops bulk tobacco. I also read that a pipe needs to rest but I have been smoking this one daily. Could that be attributing to the harsh tong bite or does it point back to the tobacco I used, or am I simply over smoking the pipe? I have my eye on another 'professional' pipe, I want to see if there is a difference in the smoke between my pipe and a high quality pro pipe.