Pipe shapes • Apple. Subtypes: Apple, Author, Diplomat, Egg, Hawkbill, Prince, Tomatoe (Ball). • Billiard. Subtypes: Billiard, Brandy, Chimney, Panel, Oom Paul, Pot, Nose Warmer. • Bulldog. Subtypes: Bulldog, Bull Moose, Bullcap, Rhodesian, Ukulele. • Calabash. Subtypes: Calabash, Reverse Calabash. • Canadian. Subtypes: Canadian, Liverpool, Lovat, Lumberman. • Cavalier. Subtypes: Cavalier, Pseudo-cavalier. • Churchwarden (Reading pipe). – Pipe with a long stem. • Dublin. Subtypes: Dublin, Acorn (Pear), Cutty, Devil Anse, Zulu. • Freehand. Subtypes: Freehand, Blowfish, Horn, Nautilus, Tomahawk, Volcano. • Sitter. Subtypes: Sitter, Cherrywood, Duke (Don), (Stand Up) Poker, Tankard. • Tyrolean pipe. • Vest Pocket. File:Smoking pipe billard.jpg|Billiard File:Smoking pipe bent.jpg|Bent (Billiard) File:Smoking pipe sitter.jpg|Sitter File:Smoking pipe pot.jpg|Pot File:Smoking pipe prince.jpg|Prince File:Smoking pipe czech bulldog.jpg|Author (specifically "Czech Bulldog") File:Smoking pipe churchwarden.jpg|Churchwarden File:Smoking pipe tyrolean.jpg|Tyrolean File:Smoking pipe cavalier.jpg|Cavalier File:Smoking pipe vest pocket.jpg|Vest Pocket File:Smoking pipe macarthur.jpg|MacArthur
Calabash Calabash gourds (usually with
meerschaum or
porcelain bowls set inside them) have long made prized pipes, but they are labour-intensive and, today, quite expensive. Because of this expense, pipes with bodies made of wood (usually
mahogany) instead of gourd, but with the same classic shape, are sold as calabashes. Both wood and gourd pipes are functionally the same (with the important exception that the dried gourd, usually being noticeably lighter, sits more comfortably in the mouth). They consist of a downward curve that ends with an upcurve where the bowl sits. Beneath the bowl is an air chamber which serves to cool, dry, and mellow the smoke. There are also briar pipes being sold as calabashes. These typically do not have an air chamber and are so named only because of their external shape. Although the calabash is stereotypically associated with
Sherlock Holmes, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle only described the detective smoking clay, cherrywood or briar pipes, often during deductive meditations. All of these may be curved or straight, but Doyle's illustrator
Sidney Paget only drew him smoking straight pipes. Actor
William Gillette used a curved briar when portraying Holmes; the curved stem allowed him to hold the pipe without covering his mouth as he spoke. A 1931 botanical paper attests the association of the heavier calabash with Holmes and by the 1940s the stereotype was well established, sometimes played for comic effect as in
Abbott and Costello's
Who Done It? (1942).
Pipes with removable bowl File:Smoking pipe falcon 1.jpg|Falcon pipe. File:Smoking pipe falcon 2.jpg|Falcon pipe with bowl detached. File:Falcon-pipe.jpg|Falcon pipe. Bowls are made of varying shapes and materials to allow the smoker to try different characteristics or to dedicate particular bowls for particular tobaccos. Bowls are not interchangeable between manufacturers.
Hookahs ian hookah (shisha) A
hookah,
ghelyan, or
narghile, is a Middle Eastern water pipe that cools the smoke by filtering it through a water chamber. Often ice or artificial flavorings are added to the water. Traditionally, the tobacco is mixed with a sweetener, such as honey or
molasses. Fruit flavors have also become popular. Modern hookah smokers, especially in the US, smoke "me'assel", "moassel", "molasses" or "shisha", all names for the same wet mixture of tobacco, molasses/honey, glycerine, and often, flavoring. This style of tobacco is smoked in a bowl with foil or a screen (metal or glass) on top of the bowl. More traditional tobaccos are "tombiek" (a dry unflavored tobacco, which the user moistens in water, squeezes out the extra liquid, and places coals directly on top) or "jarak" (more of a paste of tobacco with fruit to flavor the smoke).
Bowl materials North American natives along the East coast traditionally made their tobacco pipes from clay or from a type of pot-stone (
lapis ollaris), or else
serpentine stone. In the
Upper Midwest they made use of the red pipestone or
catlinite for the same, a fine-grained easily worked stone of a rich red color of the
Coteau des Prairies. Today, other construction materials used for the bowl may include any of the following: • Briar – root of
Erica arborea, prevalent material. •
Meerschaum – mineral sepiolite called "sea foam". •
Gourd • Porcelain • Synthetics • Ebony ("Zappi") • Cherry wood • Beechwood •
Corn cob • Metal – used by Japanese
kiseru and Arabian
midwakh. File:Smoking pipe billard 2.jpg|Briar File:Smoking pipe meerschaum.jpg|Meerschaum File:Smoking pipe clay.jpg|Clay File:Cherry wood smoking pipe.jpg|Cherry wood File:Smoking pipe beechwood.jpg|Beechwood File:Smoking pipe corn cobl.jpg|Corn cob File:Smoking pipe tyrolean 2.jpg|Porcelain File:Asbestos pipe 'REAL ASBESTOS BEST QUALITY'.jpg|Asbestos
Briar briar pipe The majority of pipes sold today, whether handmade or machine-made, are fashioned from
briar. Briar is a particularly well suited wood for pipe making for a number of reasons. The first and most important characteristic is its natural resistance to fire. The second is its inherent ability to absorb moisture. The
burl absorbs water in nature to supply the tree in the dry times and likewise will absorb the moisture that is a byproduct of combustion. Briar is cut from the root burl of the
tree heath (
Erica arborea), which is native to the rocky and sandy soils of the
Mediterranean region. Briar burls are cut into two types of blocks; ebauchon and plateaux. Ebauchon is taken from the heart of the burl while plateaux is taken from the outer part of the burl. While both types of blocks can produce pipes of the highest quality, most artisan pipemakers prefer to use plateaux because of their superior graining.
Clay , 2010
Ceramic pipes, made of moulded and then fired
clay, were used almost universally by Europeans between the introduction of tobacco in the 16th century, and the introduction of cheap cigarettes at the end of the nineteenth. In England, clay pipes were sold in bundles of dozens or twenties, and were often free in taverns, where the tobacco was sold. They were made out of a
ball clay. The manufacture of clay pipes was controlled by the Guild of Tobacco Pipemakers of Westminster, which was first incorporated in 1619 and later became a City of London Livery Company, reformed in 1954 as the
Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers and Tobacco Blenders. Forming the pipe involved making them in moulds with the bore created by pushing an oiled wire inside the stem. The preferred material was
pipeclay or "tobacco pipe clay", which fires to a white colour and is found in only certain locations. In North America, many clay pipes were historically made from more typical
terracotta-coloured clays. According to one British writer in 1869, the French preferred old pipes and the English new, the middle class preferred long stems and the working class preferred short. Short stemmed pipes, sometimes called
cuttys or
nose warmers in England, were preferred by manual laborers as they could be gripped between the teeth, leaving both of the smoker's hands free. Later low-quality clay pipes were made by
slip casting in a mould. Higher quality pipes are made in a labour-intensive hand shaping process. Traditionally, clay pipes are unglazed. Clays burn "hot" in comparison to other types of pipes, so they are often difficult for most pipe-smokers to use. Their proponents claim that, unlike other materials, a well-made clay pipe gives a "pure" smoke with no flavour addition from the pipe bowl. In addition to aficionados, reproductions of historical clay styles are used by some
historical re-enactors. Clay pipes were once very popular in Ireland, where they were called
dudeens. Broken fragments of clay pipe can be useful as dating evidence for archaeologists. English specialists can date a pipe to around a 20-year period. In the 1950s, the American archaeologist
J. C. Harrington noted that the bore of pipe stems decreased over time, so a late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries pipe would have a stem bore diameter of around , but a late eighteenth century pipe would have a bore diameter of around . The size of bowls also increased over time as tobacco became a cheaper commodity, and later pipes tend to be more decorated.
Corncob pipe Made from
corncobs, these pipes are cheap and effective at absorbing heat and moisture. After being dried for two years, the cobs are hollowed out to form a bowl shape, then either dipped in a
plaster-based mixture or
varnished or
lacquered on the outside. Shanks made from
birch wood are then inserted into the bowls. The world's oldest and largest manufacturer of corncob pipes is
Missouri Meerschaum, located in
Washington, Missouri, where the company has produced the pipes since 1869. General
Douglas MacArthur and
Mark Twain were perhaps the most famous historical smokers of corncob pipes, as well as fictional cartoon characters
Popeye and
Frosty the Snowman. Corncob pipes remain popular because they are inexpensive and require no "break-in" period like briar pipes, which means acquiring a layer of carbon in the pipe bowl. Owing to these factors, corncob pipes are often recommended as a "beginner's pipe" However, many seasoned pipe smokers enjoy the absorbing effect of the corn cob pipe, keeping tobaccos high in sugar like Virginias cool throughout the smoke. Additionally, pipesmokers who wish to sample different tobaccos and blends might keep a stock of corncobs on hand to permit them to try new flavors without "carryover" from an already-used pipe, sometimes called "ghosting," or to prevent a potentially bad-tasting tobacco from adding its flavor to a more expensive or favored pipe.
Meerschaum Meerschaum (hydrated magnesium silicate), a
mineral found in small shallow deposits mainly around the city of
Eskişehir in central Turkey, is prized for the properties which allow it to be carved into finely detailed decorative and figural shapes. It has been used since the 17th century and, with clay pipes, represented the most common medium for pipes before the introduction of briar as the material of choice in the 19th century. The word "meerschaum" means "sea foam" in
German, alluding to its natural white color and its surprisingly low weight. Meerschaum is a very porous mineral that absorbs the tars and oils during the smoking process, and gradually changes color to a golden brown. Old, well-smoked meerschaum pipes are valued by collectors for their distinctive coloring. Meerschaum pipes can either be carved from a block of meerschaum, or pressed from meerschaum dust collected after carving and mixed with an adhesive. The pressed meerschaum pipes are far less absorbent, color in blotches, and lack the smoking quality of the block carved pipe.
Synthetics A variety of other materials may also be used for pipes. The Redmanol corporation manufactured pipes with translucent stems in the 1920s and a series of pipes were manufactured and distributed by the Tar Gard (later Venturi) Corporation of San Francisco from 1965 to 1975. Marketed under names such as "the pipe", "The Smoke" and "Venturi", they used materials such as
pyrolytic graphite,
phenolic resin,
nylon,
Bakelite and other synthetics, allowing for higher temperatures in the bowl, reduced tar, and aesthetic variations of color and style. After Venturi stopped making pipes, several companies continue to make pipes from Brylon, a composite of nylon and
wood flour, as a cheaper substitute for briar.
Types and shapes of pipe parts Briar bowl finish types • Brushed • Carved • Rustic • Sandblast • Smooth
Corn cob bowl finish types • Natural • Stained • Varnished (Polished)
Chamber types • Important is size – diameter and depth. • Chamber can be lined with other material, usually meerschaum or metal.
Tenon shapes • Army – Enables the pipe smoker to remove the stem from the shank while hot without fear of warping. Is often seen with a metal band, sometimes referred to as a ferrule, around the shank. • Screw – Also allows for the immediate removal of the stem from the shank for cleaning while still hot. Often seen on pipes with stingers, allowing the pipe smoker to clean the stinger while still hot, making the task much easier. • Standard
Filter types • None • Cooler (Stinger) • 6 mm • 9 mm • Other, e.g. Falcon dry ring.
Stem materials • Acrylic • Amber • Bakelite • Cumberland (Brindle) • Ebonite • Horn (Keratin) • Plastic • Metal, e.g. Aluminium. Metal stem serves as a
heat sink.
Stem shapes • Combination • Saddle • Tapered
Stem curvatures • Straight • Slightly bent (semi-straight, half bent) • Bent
Bit shapes • Denture • Fishtail • P-lip • Standard
Bit sizes • Regular (single bore) • Double bore • Wide comfort • Double comfort ==Accessories==