Found myself having to use this to get my pipe going again as an alternative to
relighting.Can't remember where I read about it,but it's very effective.
Gently blow through the bit until you see smoke then cover the top of the bowl briefly
with your finger[s] as you draw,release fingers and repeat until you're going good again.
Of course all you guys know about this already,right?

Winslow

I have never heard of that technique nor read about it in my admittedly limited research and experience...I find that when I try to keep a dying pipe lit by puffing in various ways it tends to get hot and taste bad at least for the shorty term, did you not have that problem with your technique?

I do that occasionally if I am doing something and it is inconvenient to pull out the lighter.

Sorry Winslow, I learned this technique from my dad doing it,,,didn't know I was holding valuable information,,,

If I may thread jack a little...


Mark inadvertantly pulled up one of the greatest things about Internet Pipe smoking... How many of us had no one to teach us pipe smoking? Shaving? (real shaving, I'm not talking about spray can foam and a super quatro shick gillete vibrating head disposable) How to dress? The fine art of Tea? and many other lost arts that marks the decline of western society? Thousands and thousand and thousands of young men have received a Man Education online from proxy "Dads" ..

Very true. There are many "lost arts" that just aren't passed down the way they used to be. Used to be that when you didn't know something, you asked mom or dad. Nowadays even if your family can't help you can always turn to google.

My old man never taught me much in the way of practical life skills...off the top of my head I can think of a few things. For example my dad never taught me how to perform routine vehicle maintenance, figure out why a car won't start, etc ...probably because he didn't know himself. Where did I learn it? You guessed it, the internet.

Smoking a pipe? Yeah, if it weren't for the internet I would probably have given it up after the first few smokes...either that or learned to enjoy tobacco that smokes and tastes like crap while burning my tongue off.

I'm not dissin' my old man. He was a great father. Raised more than his share of kids and grand kids to be good people, and taught middle school for a bazillion years. Was active in all kinds of civil rights stuff back in the day before I was was around...he has done alot and lived a good life.

The simple honest truth of it though is that I picked up more of the skills and knowledge that I use for the everyday this and that from the internet than I did from my family.

I think there is another side to this coin though. Can it not also be said that the internet has allowed us to expand our horizons and given us opportunities to do/experience/learn/etc things which we would not have been able to without it?

I do it, works most of the time too. I suggested it to my friends who smoke pipes... but they're just terrible pipe smokers and it goes out anyway.

Nope I aint learnt a thing from your arse ole man.. (I'll say I have become a learned gentleman under the fine tutalage of the good Mr Winslow if you will allow me to win the next contest )


If I have to credit a piper/s It'd probably have to be Pipetongue, TJ, Greg, Carlos and probably a few more that are slipping my mind at the moment.. Plus bits and pieces from the many that come and go on a pipe board. Mostly Pipetongue though, he's taught me that its ok to forget all the 'knowledge' that is propagated online and just smoke the damn pipe.

Back when I started smoking a pipe as a young man (circa early 80's) we pipe smokers networked through TPSE, snail mail contacts, phone calls and pipe clubs...many will remember those dyas...it was great...but slow....NOW...I can get on
BoB, and message away...it's great...smoking a pipe while doing it it all lends to it's enjoyment...this is a great forum for such pipe related things!!!!!!!!

My first pipe smoking pursuits involved TOBAK Ltd in Norfolk, VA (was stationed there with an Army Detachment) circa early 1980's...I loved the ol Tinder Box stores etc as well...so I walk into Tobak Tld with some cash, and the idea of smoking a pipe...after careful consideration I purchased a Peterson system full bent, Colibri lighter, leather zip up pouch, a few ounces of a house blend (Virginia based I'm sure...memory escapes me)...and I was ready...despite a bit of tongue scorching and sucking on ice slivers afterwards, I finally gt my technqiue down pat and one thing led to another...other pipes...other tobaccos etc...such began my romance with the pipe...I was highly influenced by observing other pipe smokers which led me pursue the briar and it's sheer pleasures!!!!!!

I have been doing that technique for as long as i have been smokeing a pipe no one tought me that it just seemd like that is wat it needed a reduction of carbonminoxided then ablast of oxygen. But ya i know waht you meen about lernign the finer things i gess you could call it.

Time tested technique, thanks for the reminder. A lot of things you do as a pipe smoker that you just don't think about doing. I think that years spent with a pipe in the mouth doing whatever, raking leaves, digging a hole, driving a tractor, casting a fly line, they all cause you to develop methods of smoking that meet the needs of the time. I still have trouble sitting and sipping on my pipe because so much of my original pipe smoking back in my teens and twenties was outdoors, in the wind etc when you had to puff to keep it going and techniques like those described by Winslow came out of necessity. My dad smoked a pipe but other than his pipes, he wasn't around any more by the time I took up the craft so most of what I know was self taught.

You know the old saying, I started out knowing nothing and have managed to remember most of it (or one of many variations on the same).