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Ageing without hoarding

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
I've so far got a Washington, a Rob Roy Legend, and a Mizzou. Of those three, the Mizzou is the favourite. I think the Huck Finn and Pony Express I have coming, are the same bowls on different stems.
Give a Missouri Pride a try. Inexpensive, small bit adequate bowl, unfinished and light - great clincher and sitter.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
What's the difference between Pride and Legend? Looking at the specs on MM's website, they look the same. Is it just black stem instead of amber?
 

seabee1999

On the lookout for new chicks
What's the difference between Pride and Legend? Looking at the specs on MM's website, they look the same. Is it just black stem instead of amber?

I believe it’s the finish. The Legend has a plaster coat and yellow finish. The Pride is a natural, neked cob.

Edit to add, the stems are different in color too.
 
I'm really curious to see what you do in that modded cob challenge. With your engineering background, there's a small part of me that is thankful you're playing along at home. But even still I have no doubt that you'll turn some heads.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I think cobs will always have a role to play here, but it's somewhat diminished of late. They're great to take up the slack in the system, but as I refine my pipe array, there's less slack to take up.

English, Virginia, Perique, Lakeland and Aromatic are all being assigned a larger (full size) bowl, and a small (half size) bowl. Then there's a few, but not many, wild card pipes I'll smoke anything in. The wild cards are nearly all full size.

If the correct pipe I need for my next smoke is resting, I'll grab a wildcard briar. If I want something smaller than those... cob! (that's why the smaller cobs get reached for more often here)

If whatever I'm smoking is a bit gloopy, and needs a balsa filter... cob!

If what I want to try next might stink out a briar, or I don't yet know which briar is the right one...cob!

In time, the Falcon, or any other cheap small bowled sitters I stumble across, might phase the cobs out further. My plan is to get to the point where they shouldn't really be needed - or not often. I think there'll always be one or two in the drawer "for emergencies", and they'll still get used when the mood strikes, but briar will be the main pipes.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I'm really curious to see what you do in that modded cob challenge. With your engineering background, there's a small part of me that is thankful you're playing along at home. But even still I have no doubt that you'll turn some heads.

All my plans have been laid out in the open there ;)
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Just read them. Yup, pushing me to up my game. I don't for the life of me remember, but your background is civil engineering?

Mechanical. Heavy machine shops. Machining of components up to 10 tonnes, and tooling for machining components up to 500 tonnes. Also plant modifications and developments, to make the machines either do things they couldn't do before, or do them better/quicker.

I was more of an office based creature to be honest, having started in the drawing office, but I've had to cut a fair bit of metal along the way, particularly in the later years. I was the guy people fetched to figure stuff out, when all their usual tricks wouldn't work, and the guy who had to change everything (tooling/methods/etc) so we could take on new contracts we'd never done before. I don't know as much about basic machining as someone who does it day in, day out, but if something wasn't behaving, I'd figure it out and solve it, which the time served machinists often found really annoying :biggrin1:
 
Yeah, there's always been a rift between the engineers and production 😁. Just do it like this! You want us to do what?! I've seen first hand production"s side and grown up hearing about the engineering side. We're both wrong 🤣!

My uncle did mechanical engineering for 30+ years. The words he used to refer to the machinists, well I can't repeat here. Not will I bring up what my grandfather, who was a draftsman in the days before Autocad, used to refer to engineers as.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Yeah, there's always been a rift between the engineers and production 😁. Just do it like this! You want us to do what?! I've seen first hand production"s side and grown up hearing about the engineering side. We're both wrong 🤣!

My uncle did mechanical engineering for 30+ years. The words he used to refer to the machinists, well I can't repeat here. Not will I bring up what my grandfather, who was a draftsman in the days before Autocad, used to refer to engineers as.

Sounds very familiar :biggrin1: I had to be able to walk amongst them all, and that meant openly knowing less than them, as well as openly knowing more. Once you've fixed a problem or two for them, and they've fixed a problem or two for you, the divide stops looking quite so wide. :)

Just read them. Yup, pushing me to up my game.

Don't feel compelled to go all out extravagant, just because some of us have crazy plans. Part of the beauty of your two new Brighams is the simplicity. A well done simpler mod could just as easily win the day as something more grandiose. I just hope the few extravagant plans on show, don't discourage folks who thiks the competition has gone beyond them, if you know what I mean.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
In time, the Falcon, or any other cheap small bowled sitters I stumble across, might phase the cobs out further. My plan is to get to the point where they shouldn't really be needed - or not often.

I'm becoming of the opinion that any Wanderer, even an Aimless one, ought to have a Compass.

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Next year... perhaps.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
A Nording Compass would take me to 9 briars, not including the Falcon, then of course the pears and cobs. That would leave the array something like this...

BlendLarge BowlSmall Bowl
EnglishBent PokerChocla (pear)
Aromatic
PanelFalcon Bulldog
LakelandHobbyBanjo
VirginiaBermuda BulldogLightweight Reader
PeriqueBent PanelPuella (pear)
GeneralPokerCompass

+2 pear+4 cobs

+2 cobs

Some of them (shown in blue) aren't in play yet, and might need shuffling round based on how they smoke. There's no surplus/redundant briar pipes in there though, and there's a couple of pearwood for potential upgrade later. The additional cobs and pears at the bottom of the table, mean that if I do happen to stick with one blend for a while, I have more than two pipes to do that with.

This might look a little too organised for some, but it helps stop me buying stuff I don't need. For example, all the larger bowl slots are now full, so I'd have to let something go to add another.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
BlendLarge BowlSmall Bowl
EnglishBent PokerChocla (pear)
Aromatic
PanelFalcon Bulldog
LakelandHobbyBanjo
VirginiaBermuda BulldogLightweight Reader
PeriqueBent PanelPuella (pear)
GeneralPokerCompass

+2 pear+4 cobs

+2 cobs

Also of note, everything in the right hand column is recent. Very recent. All I had there before was the Mizzou cob and Ozark Cherrywood. No wonder I was smoking them so often. Even now, the Falcon is getting worked hard, as I'm using it as a general use small pipe until the three pipe listen in blue take up their positions.

While there's been many revelations for me this year, including to never buy a non-sitter again, needing line of sight to the rim of the bowl, and my eyes opened to various tobaccos, my penchant for smaller bowls is something I should have spotted before. It was previously hiding behind my briars being my "best" pipes, and those two small MMs being the workhorses.

Both those two pipes actually got worked too hard earlier this year, and got quite soggy for it. While the Mizzou was saved, and the Ozark was scrapped, my focus of late has been to expand on the smaller bowls. Of course that was one of the reasons I liked the look of the Tortuga that sadly didn't work out for me.

I do have a couple of cobs inbound to share the load now though, and I'm hoping that'll help me feel more settled. I think every month since April, the postman has brought me something, be it a pipe, tins, or samples. I need to start breaking that pattern of behaviour now. Not only have I been getting the shopaholics endorphin rush, but the endorphin rush of the overall array getting so much better each time. That can get addictive.

The pipe array is WAY better for my needs now, with no glaring gaps, no glaring surplus or duplication, and nothing I desperately want to like but can't. There are still gaps in what tobaccos I want to try/age, but I'm found plenty that works REALLY well for me, and anything more would be sheer greed. Time for some discipline and restraint.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
An order for a few cobs and ancillaries arrived yesterday.

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It feels good to have some reinforcements for the Mizzou now :biggrin1: I really need to sand down the Huck Finn though, as that is one seriously bestubbled cob :lol:

The five small tins will be used both with the current samples, and with the regular tins and pouches longer term. I plan on labelling them English, Aromatic, Lakeland, Virginia (which will be used for Vapers too), and Misc. I'll then use these to make sure I only ever have one tin of each on the go at any time. In effect, all my smokes will come from these, while the rest of the tin/pouch is confined to the drawer. I'll keep refilling from the same tin or pouch until it's empty, before moving onto the next.

As such, my daily smoke options, what some might call a rotation, will be limited to just five blends. For the amount I expect to smoke in a year, that's probably a sensible way for me to manage it. Time will tell. I don't mind doubling up on VaPer and Virginia, as they might get the most use anyway. I'll probably therefore bounce between two open tins/pouches for refills.

Only 12 days remaining till I get the first of my laid away briars. :clap: Then there'll be the cob modification (if it's still smokeable by the time I finish abusing it) to enjoy "receiving" once it's complete, before getting my other two laid away briars at Christmas. Then it might feel like I have too many pipes again 🤣 I don't think so though, as the array is a lot more balanced now. :)
 
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