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What is it and how do I clean it?
ocpunk714
Master
My dad and I got these new Ewa pipes and I have never seen this before. All my other stems are hollow all the way through.
ocpunk714
Master
ocpunk714
Master
ocpunk714
Master
Comments
https://rebornpipes.com/2013/05/17/behold-the-lowly-stinger/
https://www.reddit.com/r/PipeTobacco/wiki/index (by Russ Oullette)
Stinger: or sometimes called a condenser. hardest part of basic pipe design is drilling a air channel with no variances in size or direction. The failure to do this causes either the smoke to be able to expand, which by Boyle's law will yield a drop in temperature, which leads to condensation from the gas, and turbulence can do can do much the same. If you want to make an effective pipe and not spend the money to drill like the carriage trade makers do, then you have to do something about the condensation. One way is the porous material, often called a "filter" (not technically true unless the gas passes through the material), which catches the moisture Paper, charcoal, balsa wood, rock maple wood, meerschaum, clay pellets have all been used for this purpose. The stinger/condenser uses a metal piece to trap it before it enters the stem. Stingers may be immovable, they may push in/pull out, or they may be screw in. The permanent ones are a pain to clean, they generally will not pass a pipe cleaner. The other two are easier to clean. if you take them out or in some cases cut the head off of the permanent ones, beware failure to keep your pipe clean and it is likely to remind you in most distasteful ways.
I agree with PappyJoe, that the stinger should remain with the pipe, and if it has to be cut off, it should probably be left alone for collectability sake.
It never made sense to me, for a company to engineer a pipe in such a way that it gurgles, and needs a stinger to compensate for it. Wouldn't it make much more sense to put the time and effort into engineering the pipe properly, so that it doesn't gurgle to begin with?
I suppose pipe engineering means different things to different people.
In my experience, the smokers who remove the stingers or cut them, do so because they want to increase the draw and to be able to pass the pipe cleaner. Stingers do restrict the draw because the airway going through the stinger is a smaller diameter.
I have maybe 5 or six old pipes with stingers. I generally will not buy a pipe if the stinger has been cut off or removed because, for me personally, that lessens the value of the pipe.
<<Moisture- This is another major bugaboo among pipe smokers. No one likes a gurgling pipe, and there are a number of potential solutions. Of course, the simplest answer is not to clench, which causes less saliva to run back down the stem, but what we want here are pipe-centric solutions, so let’s start with the most obvious- filters.
Filters will almost certainly reduce or eliminate gurgling, but many people are put off by the amount of flavor they remove from the smoke. While that’s undoubtedly true with the paper or charcoal filter types, there are others that don’t have that issue. The balsa filters used by Savinelli won’t decrease the taste of the smoke because the stream never passes through the filter, but around it. The only thing that the filter affects is the moisture, leaving drier smoke. In a similar vein, the Brigham filter is an open tube of rock maple that wicks away some of the vapor from the smoke, allowing it to pass cleanly through.
The Peterson System pipes use a different approach to moisture removal. The reservoir in the shank creates turbulence in the airflow. As the smoke swirls, the droplets condense and run down into the reservoir, efficiently trapping the fluid. After finishing, the moisture can be poured out, and with a swipe from a bent pipe cleaner, the pipe is fairly dry.
The Calabash works on a similar principle because of the large cavity in the gourd just below the meerschaum insert/bowl, but in this case, the gourd just absorbs the moisture, so the maintenance is a little lower.
The stem insert referred to as a “stinger” also works by interrupting the airflow, but the moisture remains in the pipe, so the gurgling may or may not stop.
But the principle of turbulence can work against a pipe. If the stem doesn’t bottom out in the shank, that little gap between the end of the tenon and the far end of the mortise can cause moisture to be deposited in that area, and it will, most likely, find its way up the stem. So, my best suggestion is to spend a bit more and buy a pipe from a name you’re comfortable with so the likelihood of a bad fit is decreased.>>
To sting, or not to sting... That is the question...
@PappyJoe, my first experience with a stinger pipe was a Kaywoodie bulldog. I wanted to like the pipe, but it gurgled when I smoked it. Since the stinger couldn't be removed easily, I tried cutting off the end with a dremel tool. At that point, I was able to run a pipe cleaner through, but it still gurgled. I took a set of small files, and tried working the edges, to see if I could minimize the gurgle, but I never was successful.
Most of my pipes that came with a stinger, such as the leather clads, had easy to remove stingers, so the smoking characteristics are much better than that original Kaywoodie.
I think it was 5 or 6 years ago, that Kaywoodie stopped making pipes with stingers all together.