Torture test on Hard Maple - 500+ bowls smoked hot and hard.
I made this pipe several months ago and didn't like it at first because there are a lot of mistakes. Biggest problem is that I have the grain orientated wrong with the end grain facing front and back. You can see the darkened area toward the front and its rectangle shaped because its the exact width as the chamber diameter. These darker areas get very hot but otherwise this is a nice smoker. I started liking this pipe on the first bowl so I continued smoking it, 3 to 8 times a day for the past 3+ months, with the idea it would eventually burn through. However, the pipe has yet to burn through or otherwise change in characteristics. I do wipe the chamber and pass a cleaner through the stem and shank between bowls. Occasionally I would scrape the cake back.
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Anyhow, here we are at 500+ bowls without a day's rest and figured it was time to scrape all the cake back and evaluate the damage. As you can see there is nothing but brown wood under the cake. The one exception is where the pores thin at the sides is looking dark grey but its solid as I scraped at it pretty hard. This is an area that remained a little rough after drilling because my feed rate was too fast. So its not really burn damage. I did form the radius on the rim when I first made the pipe. It has darkened mostly from tobacco tar that accumulated and seemed to offer some kind of protection because there is absolutely no charring.
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So, the conventional wisdom that Hard Maple is inferior or short lived is conjecture at best. But what about taste and smell? Well, Ive never had a sour smell or taste from this pipe but I had to burn some to really find out.
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Starting with kiln dried Hard Maple on the left which was the most difficult of the three to light, only gave a flame for a second and the ember burned for about 5 seconds. The smell was faint Maple and somewhat neutral.
In the center is Briar which lit fairly easy and held a flame I had to blow out. The ember burned brighter by the second until I crushed it out at 10 seconds. The smell wafting (not sniffing) into my nose was sour and slightly irritating.
On the right is Goncalo Alves which lit/burnt better than Maple but not as easily as Briar. The smell though was pleasant and slightly sweet. I was tempted to light it again and take a big whiff but then remembered that this wood is a known "sensitizer" for some and I have no knowledge of the compounds involved or if they are in the fibers or resins. Wood was from a dried and sealed turning block.
