eon
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Has anyone had a chance to try out one of the Leonardo pipes by Ser Jacopo?
Having recently given in to the call of what might well be the best looking Rhodesian in the world (photos to follow in due time) and which happens to be my first Ser Jacopo (indeed, my first Pesaro pipe), I got interested in the make and discovered the Leonardo series.
Some of them are downright gorgeous and it seems to be a fascinating idea, crafted after the blueprints of the great Renaissance polymath himself. Leonardo Da Vinci was comissioned by Louis XII to invent a pipe that would not get hot. With briar pipes still couple of centuries away, Da Vinci envisioned a pipe made from terracota that would have an air canal between the smoking chamber and the outer bowl:
You can read the story here: A fascinating discovery: the pipe which does not get hot
Ser Jacopo has apparently risen to the challenge and copied the original designs, the only difference being that they use briar instead of ceramics. Seems like a grand idea.
However, there is something that troubles me with the whole concept. Namely that, instead of terracota, briar does have a tendency to char and burn. With a clay pipe, the whole idea would have been to keep the smoker from burning his or her hands - an issue quite irrelevant in the case of briar. Not only that but the design actually seems counterproductive. As we all know, the only sure way of checking if a pipe is burning too fast is to feel the bowl walls (a five second technique apparently borrowed from car mechanics). With the air canal separating the walls would one not stand at a greater risk of a burn out, not to mention a wet, tasteless smoke?
So as much as I like the idea of a great Renaissance heritage, the change in materials seems, in this case, to have missed the logic behind the original design, creating quite an opposite to the desired effect. Surely, though, the great minds at Ser Jacopo would have thought about the issue in a similar manner.
Hence my initial question, has anyone tried a Leonardo and if so, how did it fare?
Having recently given in to the call of what might well be the best looking Rhodesian in the world (photos to follow in due time) and which happens to be my first Ser Jacopo (indeed, my first Pesaro pipe), I got interested in the make and discovered the Leonardo series.
Some of them are downright gorgeous and it seems to be a fascinating idea, crafted after the blueprints of the great Renaissance polymath himself. Leonardo Da Vinci was comissioned by Louis XII to invent a pipe that would not get hot. With briar pipes still couple of centuries away, Da Vinci envisioned a pipe made from terracota that would have an air canal between the smoking chamber and the outer bowl:
You can read the story here: A fascinating discovery: the pipe which does not get hot
Ser Jacopo has apparently risen to the challenge and copied the original designs, the only difference being that they use briar instead of ceramics. Seems like a grand idea.
However, there is something that troubles me with the whole concept. Namely that, instead of terracota, briar does have a tendency to char and burn. With a clay pipe, the whole idea would have been to keep the smoker from burning his or her hands - an issue quite irrelevant in the case of briar. Not only that but the design actually seems counterproductive. As we all know, the only sure way of checking if a pipe is burning too fast is to feel the bowl walls (a five second technique apparently borrowed from car mechanics). With the air canal separating the walls would one not stand at a greater risk of a burn out, not to mention a wet, tasteless smoke?
So as much as I like the idea of a great Renaissance heritage, the change in materials seems, in this case, to have missed the logic behind the original design, creating quite an opposite to the desired effect. Surely, though, the great minds at Ser Jacopo would have thought about the issue in a similar manner.
Hence my initial question, has anyone tried a Leonardo and if so, how did it fare?