Reed stem pipe question

[biliff]

I know some of you out there smoke a reed stem pipe. How well does the stem hold up for you? Thinking about going with one, but if I've got to replace the stem alot I might just stick with full clay pipe.

 

[Brasilikilt]

Hey Bill

What worked for me back in the day was bamboo which closely resembles Missouri river cane, at least in pictures it does.
It was used by the river tribes for pipe stems and was probably traded a bit as well.
Bamboo holds up very well, but if it's a little more exotic than you'd like, I can always make an oak stem for you.

 

[Ridge]

That's kind of funny....at the rate I break clay pipes I was thinking of getting a reed stemmed one.

 

[tmdreb]

I've got one and the stem has held up better than the bowl! I don't like it as much as an all clay pipe, because the channel in the reed is too large for my taste.

 

[Stony]

Just a thought, if you don't want to smoke a clay pipe, there are other pipes you could smoke. Clay dates from the beginning with churchwardens not really becoming popular until around 1815. Beechwood, boxwood and cherrywood began being used around 1800 and briar around 1840. Meerschaum started being used in 1723. And the corncob wasn't invented until 1868. The first bent/curved pipe wasn't made until around 1885 so a "straight" pipe should be used. Any "english" blend of tobacco would also fit in but forget Captain Black or Borkum Riff, flavored tobacco didn't exist.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If my choice of tobacco is going to get me put out of a rendezvous, they didn't want me there anyway. I am gone! I smoke a blended tobacco called " Sable Blend" from Jon's Pipe shoppe, here in Champaign, that consists of black and golden( or Virignia) Canvendish tobaccos, soaked and dried in Vanilla, cut with a small amount of Burly. It is smooth, cool to the taste, and smells good to anyone who is not radically oppsed to all smoking. I am not gong to smoke rope to be historically correct for anyone.

 

[crockett]

And who knows what the stuff smelled like that the Indians smoked?

 

[Black Hand]

Try a piece of Dogwood instead. Drill out the pithy center with a bit made from coat-hanger, and carve the end to fit into your pipe. Tougher and will probably last longer than the reed (easier too, since the wood is shaped to fit the bowl rather than searching for a piece of reed that fits the hole snug......).

 

[paulvallandigham]

On the East coast, where they grew tobacco, it smelled like modern cigarette tobacco would; out west, where they smoked Kinni-kinnick It might not be even that pleasant. The latter is described as" Containing little tobacco, and being instead a blend of leaves from shrubs, trees, herbs, and chips of root and bark."( Dixie Gun Works Catalogue. ) It does indicate that Indians were just as interested in something that smelled and tasted good, and blended products, rather than using straight tobacco.

 

[Cruzatte]

On the East coast, where they grew tobacco, it smelled like modern cigarette tobacco would;

Perhaps. Mostly it would depend on how the tobacco was cured, and how it was aged. In St. James Parish, LA for example, the natives there taught the French how to ferment the dried leaves under pressure, thus giving us Perique, a tobacco added to blends for pipe mixtures. If smoked by itself, it would remind you of pickles.

As I understand it, cigarette tobacco is largely burley. There are other tobaccos, and some varieties grown in Virginia are not like burley at all.

It would be interesting to grow and cure one's own tobacco and see what early tobacco was really like. >>>>>Poke Here

 

[Cruzatte]

On the East coast, where they grew tobacco, it smelled like modern cigarette tobacco would;

Perhaps. Mostly it would depend on how the tobacco was cured, and how it was aged. In St. James Parish, LA for example, the natives there taught the French how to ferment the dried leaves under pressure, thus giving us Perique, a tobacco added to blends for pipe mixtures. If smoked by itself, it would remind you of pickles.

As I understand it, cigarette tobacco is largely burley. And I believe burley is a rather recent (post 1850) variety. I'll have to check on that. There are other tobaccos, and some varieties grown in Virginia are not like burley at all.

It would be interesting to grow and cure one's own tobacco and see what early tobacco was really like. >>>>>Poke Here

 

[paulvallandigham]

I am going to let someone else do that experimenting. Years ago, when I first got into ML, a member of my club had some of the Dixie GW Kennick-kinnick, and smokeds some if it at the club. It smelled like old rope, and he didn't like its taste, either. He offered some to me, but I had not taken my pipe to the club that day, so I gratiously( and thankfully ) declined his Kind? offer. I explored tobacco flavors in cigars and pipe tobaccos back in the early 1970s with a friend, and spent several years trying different tobaccos, and every brand of cigar offered for sale by two well stocked tobacco stores. I am done. I smoke only a pipe these days, and then away from everyone else because of second hand smoke complaints. I smoke much less than I did 35 years ago. It just is not very important a question to answer these days.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Contact Plumbeau here on the forum and tell him I sent you for some of his "La Merde du Beouf Sauvage Tabac". It's a blended Kinni-Kinnic/Tobacco and is a wonderful smoke. Just as a voyageur or settler may have cut his precious tobacco with "naturals" to make it last.

I like it a lot.

I have carried a reed stem clay pipe in my haversack for many years. This included while deer and small game hunting. A clay pipe stem of any length would not have survived.

 

[54mountain]

I smoke a small all clay pipe that the stem has broken twice on (thank god for super glue) and just buy cheap bugler tobak

 

[Two Trails]

Anyone wanting to grow there own "sot weed" as it was called should drop Dan Difrancesco a line.
I got four kinds of seed from him for very little cash and plenty of seed.(I believe it was $6.00)
Dan Difrancesco
552 Lloyds Rd
Oxford,PA 19363-2333
It isn't hard to grow and the lady of the house will probably love the smell of the flowers when it blooms.(Maybe not the smoking). Curing is easy and you aren't smoking a bunch of chemicals.
FYI Two Trails

 

[howdydoit]

sounds cool to me.

 

[redwing]

Wild Mullien or Mullin, Great Mullin, Velvet Mullin grows about every where. It looks very much like tobacco only smaller leaves. It was used for smoking and has a mild narcotic effect. It was also used as a drug for a number of things. It was used by western tribes as it grows well in the desert. Do a search on Mullin, an old time smoke. :thumbsup:

 

[Ron LaClair]

I don't like a clay stem pipe. I've used pipestone which I like. I had a nice little pipestone bowl that had a turky wing bone stem. It got dropped and broke. I also have an original clay bowl pipe that has a bamboo stem, it's my favorite.

Went on a PC trek years ago and we had to use twist tobacco. Twist is strong enough to put a bull moose to his knees so we mellowed it out by mixing shaved cherry bark, wintergreen leaves and wild rasberry leaves. Dryed the whole mess on a rock by the fire, chopped and mixed it made a very mild passable smoke.

Here's my original clay with bamboo stem with my fire tongs.

 

[Pigman]

Where did you get the pipe tongs from?

I would love one like that!

Thanks,
Mark C. Foster

 

[Two Trails]

According to one of the real NA's in our club(Pottawatomi) mullein is also good for clearing congestion in the lungs as well as cushioning your Moc soles.
FYI Two Trails