THE MAKING OF A CALABASH PIPE - PAGE 8 OF 8
BREAKING IN & TESTING

Before the first smoke, I had to prepare the bowl for the breaking-in process. I applied on the inside walls of the bowl a mix of honey and carbon dust, from the reaming of another pipe. This helps the cake to start building faster, protects the wood from the heat of the first smokes, and also makes the taste of the first smokes less sour.
As the walls of the bowl are thinner than those of an average pipe, I broke-in the pipe carefully, by filling the 1/3 of the bowl for the first few smokes, and then the 2/3, always taking care not to overheat it, and leaving the bowl and the gourd to dry for a day or two, before the next smoke. Finally, on Christmas evening, I filled the bowl all the way to the top, to enjoy the first long and careless smoke.

 Smoking the calabash !

How did the pipe smoke? Just great! The pipe smokes very cool and dry, and mellows the taste of the tobacco, as any gourd calabash does. Most of the heat and the moisture of the burning tobacco, stay into the gourd, before the smoke enters the stem. I also found out that the silver cup acts as a heat sink for the briar bowl. The draw is perfect, and the tobacco can be smoked nicely, all the way to the bottom of the bowl.
Was it, finally, worth my while? Yes, I think it certainly was !

Costas X, Athens, Greece, December 2004
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