Don’t be concerned if you have to relight several times; it’s better than having an overly hot pipe and an irritated tongue. Patience here will be repaid later with cooler and drier smokes. Children exposed to secondhand smoke have an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome, ear infections, respiratory infections, and far more frequent and tobacco pipe severe asthma attacks. Adults exposed to secondhand smoke have increased risk of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and reduced fertility. Pregnant women are especially susceptible to the harms of secondhand smoke, because it can cause pregnancy complications such as low birth weights and preterm birth. Shop our assorted premium pipe tobaccos and latest pipe tobacco blends.
On being sucked, the general stem delivers the smoke from the bowl to the user’s mouth. Operating out of Richmond, Virginia, we’ve been able to grow into one of the largest online pipe stores by offering a dynamic range of pipes and products that accommodate the diverse tastes, budgets, and experiences of our customers. Whether you know just what you want or you’re still figuring it out, we want to help. Our aim is to always have the perfect smoking pipe and tobacco for you. Research also suggests that thirdhand smoke causes genetic damage that can increase the risk of developing cancer in the future.
Matches, or separately lit slivers of wood are often considered preferable to lighters because of lower burning temperature. Butane lighters made specifically for pipes emit flame sideways or at an angle to make it easier to direct flame into the bowl. Torch-style lighters should never be used to light a pipe because their flames are too hot and can char the rim of the pipe bowl. Matches should be allowed to burn for several seconds to allow the sulfur from the tip to burn away and the match to produce a full flame. A naphtha fueled lighter should also be allowed to burn a few seconds to get rid of stray naphtha vapors that could give a foul taste to the smoke.
Because of this expense, pipes with bodies made of wood (usually mahogany) instead of gourd, but with the same classic shape, are sold as calabashes. Both wood and gourd pipes are functionally the same (with the important exception that the dried gourd, usually being noticeably lighter, sits more comfortably in the mouth). They consist of a downward curve that ends with an upcurve where the bowl sits. Beneath the bowl is an air chamber which serves to cool, dry, and mellow the smoke.
Pipe tobacco contains many of the harmful chemicals found in cigarettes, including nicotine and toxic chemicals known to cause cancer. Smoking pipe tobacco is addictive, and users have an increased risk of head and neck, liver, and lung cancers. The bowls of tobacco pipes are commonly made of briar wood, meerschaum, corncob, pear-wood, rose-wood or clay.
This draught hole (3), is for air flow where air has travelled through the tobacco in the chamber, taking the smoke with it, up the shank (4). At the end of the shank, the pipe’s mortise (5) and tenon (6) joint is an air-tight, simple connection of two detachable parts where the mortise is a hole met by the tenon, a tight-fitting “tongue” at the start of the stem (7). The broad anatomy of a pipe typically comprises mainly the bowl and the stem. The bowl (1) which is the cup-like outer shell, the part hand-held while packing, holding and smoking a pipe, is also the part “knocked” top-down to loosen and release impacted spent tobacco.
Less common materials include other dense-grained woods such as cherry, olive, maple, mesquite, oak, and bog-wood. Minerals such as catlinite and soapstone have also been used. Pipe bowls are sometimes decorated by carving, and moulded clay pipes often had simple decoration in the mould. Waterpipe tobacco also contains numerous toxins known to cause lung disease, cancer, heart diseases and other illnesses. Even after it has been passed through water, the smoke produced by a waterpipe contains high levels of toxins, including carbon monoxide, metals and cancer-causing chemicals.