Walker Pipe Repair Ozone Treatment?

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James Kime

James Kime

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Has anyone here ever had the ozone treatment from Walker Pipe Repair done on their briars? If so, how well did it work? I am thinking of sending roughly 40+ older pipes I picked up ten years ago to Walker for the Ozone treatment. The pipes I want to send have not been smoked for decades, yet STILL taste like the previous owner's aromatic tobacco. I have tried salt and alcohol treatment, reeming to almost bare wood, and the bristle/fluffy alcohol soaked pipe cleaner scrub on these pipes, and they STILL taste like old musty aromatic tobacco.
 
Ozone is an oxidant. As an unstable allotrope of oxygen, when it encounters organic compounds, it react and forms different compounds.

If you don't want that going on in your body, take your antioxidants.  :)
 
a-ha! makes sense. i guess i should stop huffin' ozone ;-)

how does the ozone differentiate between the "shit left behind from old baccy" and the briar or meer or morta or whatever the pipe is made of?

thx dude.

doody
 
I can see my old Chem teacher standing over me glaring here.  Often with grounds.  And, I don't really recall that much about organic chemistry -- which is what this is all about.

Tobacco gunk is a reactive substance when compared with more inert/stable compounds.  It a bit like a magnet's action between a hunk of iron as opposed to a rock.   In this case, it is looking for a bond and the gunk is the easy stuff while things like wood are more stable less an attractions.
 
I had an estate that had a noticiable problem with a lakeland ghost.

Sent it to Walker and it was in the Ozone chamber for a week.Still has a slight ghost but it's mostly gone.

HTH

Cheers,

RR
 
Another option in a pipe with a noticeable ghost, is to submerge the pipe denatured alcohol in a tupperware like container for an extended period of time. You will notice that the alcohol will turn black, indicating that it is pulling the residue out of the pipe. You can repeat the process several times, until the alcohol remains clear.

Be aware though, that when you use this method, the pipe will need to be stained and waxed again, in order to bring it back to it's original finish. I have an old Charatan that I have soaked out, and plan on sending it to Mike to have the ozone treatment done, as well as a full restoration job.
 
Check in with Sisyphus, he does it for all of his pipes and says it works well.  I have one lone pipe, an estate Astley's that despite the salt/alcohol soak, two sessions with the retort, it still has ghost.  It's only a few bucks (plus shipping each way) for the service.  I've been waiting to see if I need a repair made (I do my own restorations).
 
I had a pipe with a bad aromatic ghost that I REALLY did not like. I smoked a flake of Old Dark Fired in it. The ghost is gone as far as I can tell. It might not hurt to try this on one of them.
 
I am not sure - it may have burnt up the remaining aromatics in some way. The flavor may have covered up what was left. It is possible it laid a layer of unscented (or differently and unoffensive) carbon on the cake. I will take it though. By way of warning, I don't have the world's most delicate palate.

ODF is a strong flavorful smoke. I have it in a Canadian as I type this.
 
I have used the ozone treatment on about half a dozen old estates, a couple of which had bad Lakeland essence ghosts. Seems to work a treat. One thing is for sure, every now and then you get an old estate that looks pretty clean but smokes flat. Not sour but just kind of bland. None of my ozone treated pipes ever smoked flat, and I could only detect a faint remaining background ghost in one of them.

If you maintain your pipes you should never need ozone, but it probably doesn't hurt to spend the extra $5/pipe if you ever have a pro restore some estates for you.
 
Lakelands seem to be the most pervasive ghost, don't they?

At least that's my small experience.

The one pipe I had (have) with the issue seems to be under control. Yet, towards the bottom of the bowl I can still get a presence. Albeit small, it's still there!

:x


Cheers,

RR
 
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