This is what has always bothered me about the whole water in pipes thing.
Before I ever heard about rinsing my pipes in water, I was at one of my first pipe club meetings. A very large raucous Mississippi guy dressed like Crocodile Dundee was telling this fly fishing story. He was smoking his pipe, tossing his fly, and splash, he dropped his pipe in the water, "Man on Man, I was heart broken. It was my best pipe." End of story. Everyone was laughing and backslapping the guy.
I was like the only one who didn't get it. "So, what happened to the pipe?"
"I dropped it in the water," he said with this really large smile, but his eyes were saying that I was stupid.
I was definitely feeling stupid. "Was the pipe destroyed by the water?"
"Of course you idiot, everyone knows that you can't get your pipe wet."
I had never heard this, and I grew up with pipesmokers all around me. "Did the pipe sink or did you lose it?"
"No, I was right there, scooped it up."
"So, what did the water do to the pipe that destroyed it? Did it swell up and crack?"
"Uuuuuuuhhhhh, yeah..."
"Do you have the pipe here?"
"No, it's in Mississippi."
"Can you bring it to the next meeting? I would love to see this water damage."
"Absolutely, Cosmic. Just keep your pipes dry."
He never brought the pipe, and I hounded him each meeting. I still hound him, even after demonstrating the rinsing technique to the club a few years later. Even after he started rinsing his pipes, I would ask, "are your pipes getting destroyed by water now?"
I have not even the foggiest notion of what negatives could happen to a briar pipe if gotten wet. The acrid acidic condensation that forms inside the pipe while smoking it, is way more likely to cause problems, but that is not from the H2O, but from the acidity. Heat and extreme cold might be a worry, but not really. I leave pipes in my truck in the summer all the time, the ALABAMA summer. Maybe the cold, but I have also put pipes in the freezer to get bands off of pipes from time to time. Briar is a pretty tough thing.
It takes a perfect set of things to come together to hurt it with water. A perfect storm, so to say. If you have a huge amount of cake, you probably want to avoid getting it wet. But, a close trimmed cake, no worries.
Acidic water, probably don't soak it in that.
Soaps now a day is not so aggressive. You can actually use soaps on cast iron. But, when the idea to never use soap on cast iron came out, they had lye in them. Maybe water just sucked back in the turn of the century, and that is where the myth about water in pipes started. Same as people who use cast iron nowadays and never wash them, like homeless people, eating out of nasty food encrusted cookware. Ugg.
Anyways... it's silly. Do whatever you want to your pipes. Leave my routine alone.
Before I ever heard about rinsing my pipes in water, I was at one of my first pipe club meetings. A very large raucous Mississippi guy dressed like Crocodile Dundee was telling this fly fishing story. He was smoking his pipe, tossing his fly, and splash, he dropped his pipe in the water, "Man on Man, I was heart broken. It was my best pipe." End of story. Everyone was laughing and backslapping the guy.
I was like the only one who didn't get it. "So, what happened to the pipe?"
"I dropped it in the water," he said with this really large smile, but his eyes were saying that I was stupid.
I was definitely feeling stupid. "Was the pipe destroyed by the water?"
"Of course you idiot, everyone knows that you can't get your pipe wet."
I had never heard this, and I grew up with pipesmokers all around me. "Did the pipe sink or did you lose it?"
"No, I was right there, scooped it up."
"So, what did the water do to the pipe that destroyed it? Did it swell up and crack?"
"Uuuuuuuhhhhh, yeah..."
"Do you have the pipe here?"
"No, it's in Mississippi."
"Can you bring it to the next meeting? I would love to see this water damage."
"Absolutely, Cosmic. Just keep your pipes dry."
He never brought the pipe, and I hounded him each meeting. I still hound him, even after demonstrating the rinsing technique to the club a few years later. Even after he started rinsing his pipes, I would ask, "are your pipes getting destroyed by water now?"
I have not even the foggiest notion of what negatives could happen to a briar pipe if gotten wet. The acrid acidic condensation that forms inside the pipe while smoking it, is way more likely to cause problems, but that is not from the H2O, but from the acidity. Heat and extreme cold might be a worry, but not really. I leave pipes in my truck in the summer all the time, the ALABAMA summer. Maybe the cold, but I have also put pipes in the freezer to get bands off of pipes from time to time. Briar is a pretty tough thing.
It takes a perfect set of things to come together to hurt it with water. A perfect storm, so to say. If you have a huge amount of cake, you probably want to avoid getting it wet. But, a close trimmed cake, no worries.
Acidic water, probably don't soak it in that.
Soaps now a day is not so aggressive. You can actually use soaps on cast iron. But, when the idea to never use soap on cast iron came out, they had lye in them. Maybe water just sucked back in the turn of the century, and that is where the myth about water in pipes started. Same as people who use cast iron nowadays and never wash them, like homeless people, eating out of nasty food encrusted cookware. Ugg.
Anyways... it's silly. Do whatever you want to your pipes. Leave my routine alone.
