Pipe smoking is about more than just smoking a pipe. It is about enjoying yourself, spending time in thought, relaxing, collecting pipes, and tasting tobacco. And for me, it is also about restoring and reconditioning them. Cheap Estate Pipes brings you completely restored vintage pipes at affordable prices. Older vintage pipes contain older briar, which means that the briar wood is seasoned, drier, and will ultimately enhance your smoking experience by providing and cool and dryer smoke. Many of the pipes offered on Cheap Estate Pipes are 60 to 90 years old! And when those pipes were made, they used quality aged and cured briar.
Quality
I am very selective on what pipes get sold here. You may find deals on eBay or other auction listings, consignment houses, antique stores, or yard sales. Most of those ‘deals’ that you can get however, end up being a pipe that still needs a lot of cleaning or has a problem that was not specified before or became a problem later. I take all of the work out of it for you. For those other hobbyists out there, you might say I take out the fun. But for the average pipe smoker, looking to get their hands on old aged briar pipes at good prices (which are also thoroughly cleaned) you have come to the right place!
The prices you see on this site, might not seem ‘cheap’ at first. But you must consider what I offer. I take pains making a final product that smokes just as good as the expensive Dunhills, Sasienis, or Castellos. The pipes on this site are taken from a variety of lower lines, extras, no names, and factory made pipes. Once I restore these pipes, they are always just as good as they were new, if not, in better condition than when they were new. Many inexpensive new pipes don’t have a nice thick layer of wax or don’t have a coat of wax at all. Every pipe at Cheap Estate Pipes has a thick coat of wax to longer prevent your stem from oxidizing and longer protect your investment. Another aspect that makes pipes here better than they were before is the modification to the draft hole and air flow if it is needed. So if you have previously expected a brand or shape to smoke hot, wet, or in any way inconsistent or undesirable, you can’t make the same assumption for the pipes listed here. More on the process the pipes go through is described below in ‘Pipe Restoration’ and ‘Airflow’.
Pipe Restoration, Reconditioning, Refurbishing
The pipes here are thoroughly cleaned, reamed, sanitized, buffed, polished, and waxed.
This includes:
- reaming the bowl all the way down to the wood so that no remains of carbon cake are left
- clearing the draw hole from bowl to stem
- sanitizing the draw hole, stem, and bowl
- buffing out any tooth marks or indentations
- polishing any metal bands
- giving a final polish buff
- waxing the bowl and stem with carnauba wax
I restore a pipe not only to a pristine look and appeal, but also an excellent smoking condition. The pipes are cleaned inside and out!
Pipe Airflow & Draw
In the restoration process the draw hole is cleared and sometimes opened up if it needs it, to create a better draw. This practice is based upon my own experience, the article Airflow: The Key to Smoking Pleasure, and other pipe smokers’ opinions I have heard or read. There are many points and counter points to this theory and practice and so I will lay them out and give my theory and practice here.
First off, many might say that changing the engineering of a pipe is wrong, or should not be done and the person should find a pipe that is engineered the way they want. Opinions along this route seem to be solely concerned with either the collectibility or originality of the pipe, or either the intent and integrity of the pipe maker, or both. My opinion is that if your the pipe owner and you paid for it, then do with it what you want. And, if you offer the service of changing the draw hole or sell pipes that have a changed draw hole, then that should not be looked down upon either. That is the service or product that you sell. If you don’t want it then just don’t buy it; be aware of what you are buying. I don’t understand, however, why there would be any argument to increasing the smoking quality of a pipe.
The second argument seems to be about how there is no increase in the smoking quality through opening up the draw hole and making the airway consistent. As to making a consistent airway, I only have this to say, isn’t drinking through a straight straw easier than drinking through the same straw slightly bent as to still allow flow but constricting it? Having a consistent airway just makes sense. Towards the end of the stem, were the airway can’t be the same size and starts tapering, it can at least maintain the same volume by getting wider to compensate for the narrower height.
Now for a moment, if you don’t think so already, believe that a consistent airway will increase the smoking quality of a pipe. If that is the case, then why do people say that it does not work and actually causes a hotter smoke? Because everyone smokes differently. One person might draw harder than the other, or another smoker might take puffs more often than another. This is were the diameter of the draw hole comes in. For smokers who tend to pull harder, they need a smaller draft hole. And for smokers who pull easier, they need a larger draft hole. But either way I think that having a consistent diameter/volume of the hole makes a difference for the better. With this theory it is possible for a smoker to have a pipe that cannot be fixed for them. That person would be a smoker who pulls hard and has a pipe that contains an opening in the draft hole that would be too large for that particular smoker. In order to make a consistent airway, the entire draft hole would have to be opened to the diameter of the largest opening at any point in the airway. And this would be too large for a smoker who has a heavy draw.
This theory applied to the practice of restoration at Cheap Estate Pipes:
On each pipe, I work to maintain a consistent diameter or volume throughout the entire draw hole. As for what that diameter is, I base it upon the chamber diameter and the idea that it is better to have a smaller hole that can be opened up more for those who prefer it than to have a larger hole that cannot be made smaller for those who would rather it be smaller and have a hard draw. I base the diameter of the draw hole off of the chamber diameter on the following principal. It would not make sense to have a large draw hole on a very small diameter chamber. That type of bowl would need less oxygen per surface area per time. Where as it would also not make sense to have a small draw hole on a large diameter chamber. Since that type of bowl would need more oxygen per surface area per time. In the case of a large diameter chamber with a small draw hole, in order to keep the tobacco lit, there would need to be enough oxygen/air. To increase the amount of airflow the smoker would have to draw harder. Drawing harder, however, would create more suction and it would be more likely that the smoker would bring ash or moisture up the stem. In the case of a small diameter chamber with a large draw hole, the smoker would have to work at drawing only a little bit in order to not overheat the tobacco. Too large of a draw hole and the smoker cannot draw hard enough to get the smoke up the stem and get a full concentrated flavor without sending too much oxygen into the chamber. So with each pipe, I try to find the balance and correct ratio of the draw hole diameter to the chamber diameter. And with this draw hole diameter, make a consistent bore, as possible, from the bottom of the bowl all the way to the end of the stem. There is probably a percentage of the chamber diameter that I could find, that seems to work most favorably. I have yet to experiment with actually numbers and come to a solid conclusion, but would like to eventually. As of now, I base the draw hole diameter totally on instinct from my own working knowledge of smoking pipes that I myself have modified.