I'm a fairly new pipe smoker and some of my ideas/methods have been real bummers, but this one seems to be working so far, tell me what you all think:

My first "real" pipe, the one to which I gave the cake any attention at all, came out very lumpy and I ended up chipping certain parts out (trying new things with the cake and all) because little flecks of tobacco and ash stuck out from the inside of the bowl. I've since patched those cake-holes up with ash-and-spit cement, which came out nice.

However, to prevent such a thing happening with my better pipes, now after every bowl, I empty out the ash, then loosely fold a pipe cleaner in half so it makes a springy sort of loop about the size of the bowl width. I gently push the loop into the bowl and bounce it up and down while turning it, so it rubs around the entirety of the inside of the bowl. This swabs out all the fine loose ash and tobacco and leaves behind only the dark carbon left behind by combustion...I think. That's the theory anyway. So far, the cakes of my two other pipes have been looking nice and clean and smooth.

Anyone else do this after smoking? What do you all think of the method? Is it sound or silly?

You're learning, grasshopper.

A little preventive cleaning after each smoke will keep cake from forming unevenly, your technique sounds fine.

That's what I do.

Sound pretty standard.

Wow! So far I've done this too, but I haven't heard about it 'til now. I didn't even know the theory about it. It was just a habit I seemed to have developed.

I have a rolled up piece of Brown Scoth brite pad that I keep near my Smoking table and when I'm done I just go arround the inside of the Bowl with it, it works great and keeps everthing nice and even.

Do you guys even do this while breaking in a new pipe? It seems to me like it would slow down cake development. Using a tip from another forum, I usually shake the ashes up so that they coat the bowl, then dump them out, trying to knock out any dottle that may be sticking around.

I was tempted to do this when I first started, but then I really learned not to bother it. My cakes haven't ever really turned out lumpy since it all gets sorted out as I continue to smoke, I find.
Anecdote: When I first got my Kirsten, I smoked it so much that I built up a dangerously thick cake pretty fast. The cake stayed so smooth, I didn't notice it had formed until I found myself clocking a smoke in at 16 minutes. That was with virtually no maintenance, just dumping ash and scooping out anything damp.
However, what you guys are doing doesn't sound like it would hurt it at all. Just some pre-emptive cake maintenance.

Thanks for the help. Sand paper...seems so obvious, but it's new to me.
Seems like sandpaper would be pretty tough, as in, might make the eventual pipe reaming unnecessary?