I am traveling to Pittsburgh this week and won’t be able to take the time to put together a regular post. So I thought I might take the opportunity to update you all on what is to come here on the blog.
I have really enjoyed working on the “What is a Pipe” series, and I think I have 3 installments to go: “stummel material”, “stem material”, and “bringing it all together.” The reason I have not yet written the stummel entry is that I am getting bogged down in what is really a vast subject. In the end, I have decided to focus on what I know (briar), and just give passing mention of the many other possibilities (clay, meerschaum, hardwood, porcelain, plastic, corncob…). Even then, briar can expand into a huge subject including growth, harvesting, processing, aging, carving, curing, finishing, and a host of briar “myths.” You really could write a book on briar, and I’m surprised that has not yet happened! I think that for this series, I am going to focus on the properties of briar that make it the most common stummel material and save all the other stuff for future rambling. I’ll take a similar approach with stem materials will I’ll give a historical nod to things like horn and bakelite and focus on ebonite and acrylic.
The Exploration of Burley entry was well received, and I have gotten several requests to follow up with a post on Virginia, perique, etc. The problem is that I am not an expert on tobacco, I just really like burley. Taking the time to do the research on these other leaves is something I would love to do, but finding the time to take is a challenge these days. So I do hope to eventually follow up with some more tobacco posts, but that will not be happening in the near future.
I have been considering a YouTube video on buffing for a long time now. I want to do something similar to my <retort video> and get into details on buffing compounds, wheel composition, surface speeds… Once again, my tendency to dig into detail (yeah, it’s probably a form of OCD) has prevented me from getting this project started. So I am considering doing this as a video with a companion blog post that can absorb all of the “sciency” details.
One other potentially controversial topic I have been considering as a follow on to “What is a Pipe” is a discussion on choosing a first pipe (or any pipe). I’ve seen a lot of bad (in my opinion) advice on this topic and would like to weigh in myself. But I also want to avoid alienating folks that might disagree with my opinion. It is a fairly subjective topic that I think can be made a bit more objective, but people do have strong feelings about what the best choice is for the beginner.
I’m surprised at how easy it has been to find things to write about here on the blog, and I’m even more surprised at how many people have found it worthwhile to spend time reading these ramblings. If you have any thoughts on content you would like to see in the future, please let me know in the comments below.