Wood treatment for burn-out?

[oldbear58]

I made several crude DIY pipes from maple and poplar doweling. They smoke very well, but the bowls tend to burn through.

Is there a treatment that can slow down or prevent burn-through in softer wood?

Can you treat a bowl with mineral oil, olive oil or some other (safe) material to slow down the burn-through?

Yes building up a good cake will prevent this, but how do you create and control a cake?

Oldbear

 

[Stick]

Hey Bear,

There'll be others more qualified to comment along shortly I'm sure, but my thoughts would be that you'll be hard pressed to find some 'paint on' material to line the bowl that won't cause some taste pollution. The only other option perhaps would be to line the bowl with 'meer...

 

[huffelpuff]

Well I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that this is an instance where perhaps a bowl coating like those applied to most factory pipes would be in order here. It should provide you some protection until you can get a cake going. Unfortunately I dont have any recipes for those. Perhaps one of our resident pipe carvers can provide you with one? What do you say guys?

 

[Dutch]

bear, smoke a cigar and save your ash in a small bowl. Sparingly spit in the ash, and mix it up until it is a dry gritty consistency. Then simply apply the mixture to your weak spot inside your bowl, similar to the way you would use a trial to spread mortar.

You will be amazed at how the cigar ash dries to a concrete like consistency, especially so if you are careful not to get the mixture too soupy.

If you mix it up just right, it will resist chipping and coming back out of your pipe. Once a cake begins to build around the area, it will just keep getting more resilient.

I always do this with a new cob to protect the bottom of the bowl, and I never have problems with the bottoms of my cobs burning out.

 

[Briar Spirit]

bear, smoke a cigar and save your ash in a small bowl. Sparingly spit in the ash, and mix it up until it is a dry gritty consistency. Then simply apply the mixture to your weak spot inside your bowl, similar to the way you would use a trial to spread mortar.

You will be amazed at how the cigar ash dries to a concrete like consistency, especially so if you are careful not to get the mixture too soupy.

If you mix it up just right, it will resist chipping and coming back out of your pipe. Once a cake begins to build around the area, it will just keep getting more resilient.

I always do this with a new cob to protect the bottom of the bowl, and I never have problems with the bottoms of my cobs burning out.

Excellent recommendation there Buddy and I can confirm that this method does indeed work very well, smoke some heavy Burley blends for a while to build a faster cake as well.