Building and using a Tobacco Pipe Retort 

Thank you, I really appreciate you saying that! Thanks for watching!

Agreed! This video in particular is simply exceptional.

Thank you! I am glad that it was helpful.

+Furthur73 Thanks for the kind comments Jim! I'm really glad you found it helpful. Best, Mike.

Thanks Ed, I'm glad you found it informative. And yes, once you gather the parts it is not at all difficult. Best, Mike.

Glad you liked it Ray!

+pipeheadOR I'm glad you found it interesting and want to try the process. If you have any questions or need help finding parts just give a yell. It is definitely the "nuclear option" but it does the job every time. Thanks for watching, Mike.

My pleasure! Glad that you enjoyed it!

Thank you, I'm glad you found it to be useful.

Thank you Alan! If you need help sourcing those parts just let me know. Mike.

+CaneRodPiper yes, please give me some info. I looked at Amazon and thought $30 to $40 was a little too much for the tapered beaker. Maybe that's what I need to spend for one I can boil in though. Thanks in advance.

+Alan Lutz The company that I linked to in the description has them for $5.50, but I use 125 ml and they only have 50 or 250ml in that range. Search there site for for Erlenmeyer flask and look under "Chinex" in the results. If you want the 125 ml, try Ebay. A search for 125 mL Erlenmeyer gave several options in the $5-8 range. Good luck!

Thank you for watching Robert! Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for watching, and the kind words! I hope it works for you, and feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

Hi Kitty, It takes some stuff to get it all together, but I could not live without mine. Good luck with it!

@@CaneRodPiper Thank you :)

+Tomas Callheim Thank you for watching Tomas!

+Half n Half with Sage I'm glad you found it helpful! Let me know if you have any questions. Best, Mike.

CaneRodPiper Sure thing!

Do you think it would be okay to use a cleaned out perfume sample bottle, for a re-flux tube on the cork? The little glass vials.

Half n Half with Sage The reflux tube does not get very hot, so anything should be fine. Even something like a piece of a plastic ball point pen barrel should work. You just want enough of a tube there for the alcohol to condense.

CaneRodPiper Okay good. Thank you for your help!

Yes, Celsius has a lot of good features. I use it at work all the time.

+Ultimate Carry Holsters Thanks for watching!

Thanks Brian, I am glad that you found it interesting!

Thank NYC, glad you enjoyed it!

Not in my experience as long as you use Everclear or some similar Ethanol. Isopropanol (rubbing alcohol) can react with some plastics/acrylics. I have never had a problem with ethanol, but I don't know that I've tested every stem material, so you're milage may vary as they say. Thanks for watching!

The cork was a piece of cork that I use to make fly rod handles that I shaped with sandpaper. Any cork that you can find at a hobby store should work, and it is pretty easy to shape them and drill holes. The glass tube was just something I had lying around that happened to fit the hole. Something like an old pen barrel could be cut to serve the same purpose. It does not have to be glass. You have the correct dimensions for the latex tubing. Let me know if you have any other questions, and thanks for watching. Mike.

Hello, and thank you for the comment. The first thing to check is that there is no obstruction between the flask and the end of the tube that connects to the stem, and withing the reflux tube. The exact dimensions of the bore through the reflux tube and the bore through the connector that goes through the rubber stopper are not important, but at a minimum they should be at least 1/8 inch, and pipe cleaner should easily pass through them both. Next, is the pipe in any way obstructed? Can you easily pass a pipe cleaner through the stem all the way into the bowl? If you set everything up and then remove the rubber stopper from the flask, you should be able to blow through the stopper all the way through the pipe and the reflux tube with no more effort than it would take to blow through the pipe alone. If that does not help you, it might be worth taking a few pictures and sending them to me by email so I can look and see if I can identify the problem for you. You can find my email address on the "about" tab on my channel page. And please let us know if you figure out the problem in case anyone else is having the same problem. Thanks, Mike.

The pipe was already sort of “deep-cleaned” when I tried the retort so there was no obstruction, although the pipe is an English, non-filtered, with a draft hole slightly smaller than 9/64 inch. The tubings both are 6mm ID x 8mm OD. The hose dimensions is the same as the tubings, so maybe the thinner wall thickness of my hose is the source of the leak from the bit, since it can’t “grab” the bit tight enough. Also in the video while testing the retort at one point you said that the stummel is hot and there is some vapor escaping, so where was the vapor escaping from in your case? Oh and one more thing... Is the position of open end of the reflux tube relative to bottom of the cork important? Mine is about 1/4 inch below the bottom of the cork, but maybe it should seat above it? I will email you some pictures of my setup, thank you. Although I’m actually done with this pipe since I reamed it to bare wood and filled some fissures with the pipe mortar (thanks again!) So I’m not going to retort this particular pipe for now, but I do have a picture of the setup and the components. Hopefully we can find out the problem for future retorts!

Hello, and thanks for the question. Alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water. So if your solution is >90% or so alcohol, the steam will be pure alcohol as you have not reached the boiling point for water to convert to steam. That's not 100% true because ethanol and water form an azeotrope, but that's not worth worrying about for this purpose. The vast majority of the steam will be alcohol vapor. I hope that makes sense, but feel free to ask more if not 😉👍

@@CaneRodPiper Thank you so much for the clarification! I thought about the temp difference between alcohol and water, thinking maybe the temp is low enough to be alcohol vapor and not water, but then I was thinking.... if the flame under the flask stays on while performing this procedure ... who's to say it's not increasing the temp to the point that it is indeed water vapor. I suppose I would need to do a temp test to ensure it doesn't reach 212 degrees in order to verify this.

Rarely. Thus is a method fir pipe restoration and sanitizing estate pipes. If I buy a pipe new and unsmoked, I don't expect to ever have to retort it.

+PipeLeisure We geeks need to stick together :) Let us know how it goes for you, and if you need any advice feel free to shout. Best, Mike.

+PipeLeisure Glad it worked! The problem you described with the cotton was exactly what I saw and the reason I switched to the cork. I have not figured out Instagram yet, but I'll try and hunt you down there. Best, Mike.

+CaneRodPiper oh you would love it, we have a great pipe community over there

+The Kilted Piper as long as it is flexible enough to seal around the stem, it would probably work. But I've never tried it myself.

Hi Rick, yes I do. It turns out when the pipe is very tarry the salt does a better job of getting out the goo. I still do a retort at the end, but every once and a while salt is the best first step. For an example of this check out my pre-republican Peterson video. Best, Mike.

Hi Ilan, That it the primary reason I use the retort, but it is always a last resort. First I try the salt and alcohol method and if that does not get rid of the ghost then the retort always does the trick. Mike.

No, it is open at both ends. The idea is to route the steam away from the stummel.

It depends a bit on what you are trying to put into solution, but in general that is true. I've used both and for pipes I have not seen much of a difference. Interestingly isopropanol occasionally reacts with an acrylic stem, so that is a good reason to avoid it. Thanks for watching!

It's really not worth doing that, but if you want to see if it makes a difference go for it 😉👍

@@CaneRodPiper it's definitely not worth doing for a pipe reflux, but it's another tool for the tool box. I really appreciate you sharing your methods. I'm using them to clean my dad's old pipes. Thank you!

@@justarandomname420 Indeed, it never hurts to have a full toolbox! I'm glad the videos are helpful. Thanks for watching!

Acute toxicity is not the point unless you plan to drink it. Denatured alcohol contains a variety of additives to break the azeotrope, and to intentionally make it unfit for human consumption. These may include methanol, benzene, pyridine, or even gasoline. Most of these additives have a higher boiling point than ethanol and will therefore stick around longer. Isopropyl alcohol is more toxic than grain alcohol, but certainly not more toxic than the additives in denatured alcohol. The varieties of Isopropyl alcohol available at the drug store will rapidly evaporate leaving behind nothing but water. Please do not use denatured alcohol on the interior of your pipes. Thanks for watching and for your comment.

@@CaneRodPiper I've been using denatured alcohol for over 15 years. Maybe it's not strictly regulated there, but here ethanol is denatured with a bittering agent and 3% methanol. The low volume makes the denatured alcohol less toxic by volume than isopropyl alcohol.

The "by volume" point only makes sense if you are drinking it. I do not advise anyone use denatured alcohol on the interior of a pipe.