George Kaplan":rd3vynor said:
PipeDreams":rd3vynor said:
Thanks! I hear salt can actually be bad for the briar: I have soaked the inside with isopropyl, but I didn't want to leave it in there for too long in case I knocked it over!
Eeew! Isopropyl alcohol is perfumed and denatured to intentionally make it unpaletable and indigestible to humans. Not something I would put it a pipe. The trick is to use just a few drops of high-proof grain alcohol in a pipe bowl filled with kosher salt, and let the capillary action do the rest. Kosher salt has no added iodine and should be just fine for briar pipes.
The iso we get here isn't perfumed at all, is not denatured, and ALL isopropyl alcohol is poison if consumed. However, when used topically, it evaporates completely with no odor.
I used to say the same thing, but I use it regularly to disinfect straight razors and the like: once it dries up, it's gone. The salt is actually unnecessary: you can use cotton wool instead, which is what I've been doing. The salt is much worse for the wood than the iso!