Why Isn'T My Churchwarden Pipe Working?

 Now that all of the jargon is out of the way, you are free to enjoy smoking your tobacco pipe over and over. We have got it down to the point that you can sit down, relax, and smoke some decadent tobacco left over from your new pipe. 

Packing and lighting your pipe, just like smoking your pipe, is an art form, and the technique may take a while to learn, but once you get it, one of the main obstacles standing in your way to the pipe-smoking bliss is gone. Practice and general methods that are ideal to keeping your bowl lit in your pipe take some time to perfect. It may take hours of concentrated effort to master form and produce the perfect smoking rings, even when you have perfect tobacco and an assortment of Meerschaum pipes to choose from. 

You can still successfully blow smoke rings using any type of tobacco pipe, if you are patient enough. Blowing a smoke ring using tobacco pipes of any kind really comes with a bit more challenge than trying to blow a smoke ring using a water pipe or smoking a cigar. To blow smoke rings, or perform any kind of smoking tricks, you are going to have to pull from your pipes for longer pulls than you might be used to. 

Clogging Sometimes when you are smoking, tiny smoke holes in the tobacco chamber may become clogged with tobacco, particularly after you have hit the cap, and while you may draw on the pipe, you will not get as much smoke. The bowl may also become uncomfortably hot, depending on the material and your rate of smoke. Smoking a wet spliff - particularly with straight pipes or with half-bent pipes - will usually mean spittle gathering on the shank. 

To remedy this, get out your pipe cleaner and hold it over the end for a moment or two to get rid of any muck. You will also have to scrub down the bowls of some pipes more frequently, since you may not have screens to go with larger bowls. As mentioned in a previous Do, making sure the pipes are cleaned often is important, especially if you are packing the pipes. The importance of washing the pipe, rather than using the pipe for smoking tobacco, needs emphasis. 

Once you are done smoking, put the pipe cleaner through the hose into your pipe, all the way down. Once you smoke through the tobacco, clean the ash off, and use the pipe cleaner to wipe off any gunk on the stem and the barrel. There might be tiny amounts of resistance this time, but if you are having trouble drawing from the pipe, just throw the tobacco away and start again. Fill your pipe to a point where there is a little pile of tobacco sticking above the bowl edge of your pipe, looking like it needs trimming. 

By increasing the quantity of tobacco in the Bulldogs bowl incrementally, you will over time create a more uniform pie, bottom-to-top, within the bowl chamber. What you will try to do is to pack the bowl at the bottom with an amount that allows free airflow, as a tobacco pipe does not already have a chamber; and the weed on the top should be packed tightly enough so it stays lit. In the most common packing method, the tobacco is added to the bowl of a pipe in multiple batches, with each being compressed until the mix has an even density, optimizing airflow (something difficult to judge without practice). 

The triple pack method eliminates unwanted muck from the pipe stem, shank, and foot, thereby cleaning the tobacco of flavors for your next pipe-smoke. These usually involve coating the chamber with any number of substances, or smoking a fresh pipe lightly to build a pie (a mix of ash, unburnt tobacco, oil, sugar, and other residuals) onto the walls. Regardless of whether a pipe is cleaned after each smoking session, the buildup of cake on the bowl, and of tar in the interiors of a smoking pipe, will occur over time. 

Due to heavy (hot) smoking, imperfections in the wood, holes may burn into tobacco chambers in briar pipes. Usually, a tobacco pipe is made from semi-porous material, which is perfect for absorption of oil produced from the tobacco, but a pothole contains resin, which will jam up the pipe and ruin the flavor of whatever tobacco you smoke afterwards. 

Another kind of pipe, a water pipe, is made up of a housing filled with water, a bowl that holds tobacco, and a connected tube and mouthpiece that you smoke through the pipe. In addition to the pipe itself and matches or pipe lighters, a pipe tool is generally required by the smoker for packing, fitting, and empting tobacco into the bowl, as well as a regular supply of pipe cleaners. 

Problems with smoking these can be avoided by taking care when packing tobacco and in packing your pipes. The number one complaint from new pipe smokers seems to be that they are unsure how to pack the pipe properly, which results either in the tusks being left at the end of the smoking session, or a smoldering, horrible mouth-bite, or a difficult to pull pipe. Instead, take hold of the light from your new pipe and direct it toward the bowl while taking a soft pull of the pipe. 

If the pipe gets too hot in