Author: Dale

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Making my own pipe tobacco – results

I was looking back through some old posts and found a few mentioning issues with pipes, especially bent pipes, “gurgling” as moisture accumulated in the pipe while smoking. I’d tried drying the tobacco, smoking slower, and so on. Some pipes still seemed to have problems.

Since i’ve been blending my own pipe tobacco using home-grown and unadulterated whole leaf tobacco, this “problem” has been largely nonexistent. I have come to the conclusion that the propylene glycol and possibly other humectants – glycerin and so on – that are used in virtually all commercial pipe tobacco blends to control moisture and prevent mold – are the reason. I don’t use any of that, nor do I add flavored “toppings” or heavy casing to my tobacco leaf. At most I’ll mist the leaf with some decent quality bourbon or something as I blend it, which seems to really improve some blends. I do not, however, add any humectants, which allows me to get the resulting mixture as dry as needed for proper smoking.

I’ll still get some occasional moisture in the pipe, especially if I’m smoking more quickly or if the blend is a bit more moist than usual. Some pipes are more probe to it than others. I have not, however, had any problems with excessive gurgling since starting to smoke my own blends. Plus, I know exactly what is and is not in my tobacco. I’m happy with that. I still have several jars of various commercial blended tobacco, but I’m not buying more – though I might be tempted into a tin or two of Escudo some day.

I’ve also started to broaden my horizons a little. I recently bought small quantities of tobacco leaf that I haven’t tried before, specifically some Burley and Maryland 609, which is commonly used as a cigar filler. I’d avoided burley blends because the commercial ones I’d tried I generally did not like, but I just mixed up a little burley, flue cured VA, and some Virginia Cavendish I’d cooked up in 2023. It’s not bad, and deserves further exploration, I think. Maybe a little of something else, some Oriental or Perique or Latakia might give it a little more complexity and make it really enjoyable.

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New flints for the win

A while back I was looking for a nice lighter for my pipes. There’s a rabbit hole you can go deep into! It’s amazing how much money a person can spend on a lighter. Eventually I picked up two of them. One is a silver plated ST DuPont Ligne 1, French made and really nice. The other is a gold plated Dunhill Rollagas, also quite nice. Good examples of these used vintage lighters can go for as much as several hundred dollars each. I got both pretty cheap, since both were supposedly non-working. The DuPont just needed some cleaning and it seemed to work fine. The Dunhill needed a complete rebuild of the gas valve and seals, but the rebuild kits are not expensive and it was a couple hours of fairly interesting and enjoyable work. It works fine now also.

Both, however, were finicky and difficult to light. I was using standard Zippo or Ronson flints, and it took enough work to get them to light that I eventually set them both aside and bought an inexpensive butane pipe lighter with piezo ignition. It works, it’s just not fancy. The other day I decided to either fix the two nice ones or sell them – or maybe both.

I ordered a package of genuine Dunhill flints for the Rollagas. Both it and the DuPont take a 3 mm diameter, fairly soft flint. The Zippo flints used by nearly all lighters are 2.5 mm and made of a pretty hard compound. I figured I’d spend the few dollars required to get the correct flints and see if that fixed the ignition issues. Well… yes. Yes, it did, and quite nicely. Both lighters now light perfectly on the first try, every single time. The new flints produce an impressive amount of spark that lights the gas instantly. I have both lighters equipped with “pipe flame” nozzles, meaning the flame goes sideways instead of straight up to make it easier to light a pipe or cigar than a standard cigarette flame.

Yes, the flints were $15 for a package of 9, instead of a couple bucks for a hundred or two – which would be more than I’d use in a lifetime, even if I were a heavy smoker. These will likely last me years anyway, and if I decide to sell either or both lighters I can now say with confidence that they are completely working as they should. I like the DuPont a little better from the standpoint of looks, feel, and style, but the Dunhill’s slimmer profile makes it a bit easier to use. The Dunhill is a bit more worn, though, with the gold plating quite thin in spots. Regardless, they’re both working well enough now that I’ll start using them again.

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Shelving the TS-850S – for now.

I have come to the conclusion that the RF board in the TS-850 is toast. After several repairs, it’s still deaf as a post. There has obviously been some damage to the components on the bottom of the board near the signal entry point from the antenna – at least. I don’t know what else might be damaged. I’ve looked for a replacement. I find a number of boards on eBay, but about 2/3 of them show the exact same sort of burns in the same area of the board, so I would expect them to be bad as well.

At this point I’m shelving the project. After an extended absence from ham radio I’m not even entirely sure I’ll want to get back on the air. From what I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be nearly the amount of non-contest CW traffic that there once was. I have no interest in contest style exchanges of nothing but call signs and bogus signal reports for POTA, SOTA, or whatever QSO party is going on. I haven’t seen any PSK31. RTTY might be interesting, but FT8 is of no interest to me. If I’m getting on the air, it’s to rag chew or at least have a little human to human interaction with the radio as the means, not the end, and preferably no computer required. I’ll get on the air with my FT-817ND and the old Heathkit HW-16 and see whether I want to pursue fixing the 850 or getting something more modern.

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More engine assembly

Over the past several days I got the intake manifold installed and the bolts torqued. I took a look at the valve covers. Originally I’d planned to scrap them and buy new, but more recently I’d been contemplating either stripping them of the overspray and polishing them up, or just painting them to match the engine. On close inspection, though, I confirmed my initial plan. There’s a bunch of residual RTV that suggests to me that they’re not straight, and one of them has a split where someone had over-torqued a bolt. They’re junk; I’ll keep them on as dust covers for the valve train until I pick up a new set. I really want to buy new chrome covers, but I’m going to keep talking myself out of it. Eventually, some day, someone will have a set of nice finned aluminum valve covers for sale at a price I like and I’ll scoop them up. Or not.

The carburetor is done and in place, though not attached – no studs yet. I cleaned up the air cleaner lid. Once the car is back together and I have the engine back in, I’ll measure the hood clearance and put the tallest air filter I can fit on it.

I got the thermostat housing cleaned up, painted, and installed with a new 195 degree thermostat. Today I got the distributor installed and ran a vacuum line to it. I also installed the little 90 degree elbow from the water pump to the thermostat housing, it just needs clamps. I also installed the pipe plugs in the unused intake manifold holes – a couple of 3/8 NPT plugs front and back. I left one open for the water temperature sender, and a 1/2 NPT for the heater hose.

Finally, I installed the power steering pump bracket and pump, mostly to get them out of the way of other stuff. I’m getting the garage cleaned up enough that I’ve got a little room to work, so it’s getting closer to the time when I’ll be able to get under the car and drop the transmission and driveshaft. I’ll rebuild the C4 – at 93K miles it’s probably about due. I’ll likely just replace the U-joints as well, unless they’re in really good shape.

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Smoking my own tobacco

I’ve still got nearly all of my 2023 crop of Virginia and Samsun Oriental tobacco. I’ve tried it at various times and generally found it to be rather harsh and one-dimensional. Even the Cavendish I cooked over a year ago wasn’t very good at all the last time I tried some.

A few days ago, I tried a bit of some that I’d pressed back in December of ’23. I had cased the ear with water and a bit of molasses, stacked the leaves, wrapped the stack in parchment paper, and pressed it between two pieces of particle board in a shop vise for a couple of weeks. I tightened the vise every couple of days during that time to keep the pressure up. When it was done I sliced the resulting block of tobacco, and it was… horrible. I stuck it in a jar and have tried it every few months since then, and it’s slowly improving. The bowl I sampled a few days ago was actually not bad, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I didn’t like. Then it occurred to me… I was expecting a pure Virginia flake tobacco. This wasn’t. I had included some Samsun leaf in the stack, so what I made was almost a cigarette blend. That’s why I wasn’t wild about the taste.

I think I’m going to order two things from Whole Leaf Tobacco that I either cannot produce myself, or simply don’t want to. The one I can’t reproduce is Latakia. Once produced in Syria and now almost exclusively in Cyprus, Latakia is made by hanging Turkish tobacco leaves in a shed and burning aromatic wood and leaves in a pit in the floor of the shed. They’ll use myrtle, pine, mastic, maybe juniper. Who knows? They burn whatever is available locally – none of which is available here, not that I could keep a smoky fire going for months at a time. So I’ll but the Latakia.

The other is Perique. Used as a “condimental” tobacco both for flavor and to Ph-adjust the Virginia, Perique is both the name of a strain of tobacco, and the process that is commonly used to prepare it. This involved compressing the leaf in an oxygen-deprived environment, which allows a specific bacteria to breed and do its work fermenting the leaf. During the months-long process the leaf needs to be periodically removed, tossed, and re-compressed. Even if you do it right, I understand it to be a tedious, stinky process. I may try my hand at it later on, but for now I think I’ll buy mine.

The pressed flake I have will probably be pretty good with the addition of some Latakia and maybe a pinch or two of Perique. I’ve got some Cavendish that’s still sitting in a jar contemplating its sins, and as soon as this cold clears up I’m going to try a little of that and see if it’s learned its lesson yet.

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Missouri Meerschaums

I ordered a couple of Missouri Meerschaum corncob pipes on line a couple of years back. As I recall I ordered them from Penn Valley Pipes along with a couple of clays. I’ve learned that a lot of pipe smokers like corn cob pipes for some very good reasons. For one, they are inexpensive, so one could – if so inclined – dedicate one to each blend of tobacco. Or have one for each day of the week, or whatever. They don’t require much break-in, if any. I’ve found that they don’t have a problem with condensation, and they will accept a paper Medico or Dr. Grabow filter. There’s a lot to like about them, really.

I don’t smoke them all the time, but I do use them for times when I’m not willing to risk one of my really nice pipes. Out in the garage, in the hangar, fishing, etc. If I happen to drop or lose a $15 pipe, oh well. Buy another one. Not so much the case for a really nice Peterson or Savinelli or something!

More recently I see MM has added a bunch of new pipes to their lineup. Fancy ones, Hobbit-themed churchwardens, all kinds of stuff. I don’t know that I’ll build a massive collection of cobs, but honestly — what I originally assumed were just a novelty item are really quite nice pipes that are as useful to experienced pipe smokers as they are to novices just wanting to test the waters with something cheap.

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Peterson Atlantic Rusticated 221

I was in London for a couple of weeks around Easter 2022. I had not taken a pipe along with me, kind of on purpose. I did take some tobacco and a lighter, but not a pipe. I figured that if I had time, I could visit one of the pipe shops in London. With my work schedule I didn’t have the time to get to any of them while they were open. I did, however, find out that Selfridges has a James J Fox tobacconist in the store. That was a short tube ride and walk away, and they were open late, so off I went.

They had a small selection of pipes, and this one caught my eye. It being JJ Fox, in Selfridges, in London, I overpaid shamefully. That said, I love the pipe. It a favorite of mine that I use regularly. That said, it seems to have an issue with condensation and gurgling that sometimes cannot be overcome even with the Peterson “system”. I don’t know if it’s the shape or something else. (see edits below)

Rusticated Peterson Atlantic 221

Update Jan. ’24: I still like this pipe. The gurgling issue is partly the shape, and partly (the bigger part) a case of very poor drilling. The draft hole in the shank is drilled way off, intersecting around the very end of the tenon. This causes a large amount of turbulence in the airflow, and causes the moisture to condense out of the smoke. Of course there’s no way to get a pipe cleaner down there without removing the stem, so one either just deals with it or ends up with a large, soggy dottle — or both.

The peanut gallery is by now screaming, “But you just need to smoke slower!! Dry out your tobacco!” I can assure you — doing both these things will still result in a healthy gurgle about halfway through the bowl. I may do some work on the upper end of the draft hole one of these days when I’m feeling adventurous, but for now I just put up with it. I’m happy that Peterson is kind enough to hire the blind, I just wish they didn’t give them drills. 🙂

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Savinelli Bing’s Favorite Limited Edition Arlecchino

There is probably only one thing that the late Bing Crosby and I have in common. I’ve got none of his talent and I don’t golf, but I love this pipe.

Savinelli makes a line of “Bing’s Favorite” pipes in various finishes. I was visiting my local shop, Ted’s Tobacco, partly to look at some of the Savinelli pipes I knew he carried. I was mostly interested in the 320KS shape, a chubby “author” bowl design. What caught my eye was this polar opposite. The Bing’s Favorite is a billiard with slim, elegant lines and a long shank. There were several in the case with various colored stems, but this one is the very unique “Arlecchino” stem that I love. When I saw pictures of the Bing’s Favorite on line I thought the stem would be a little longer than I would like; I was wrong.

I’ve smoked this pipe a number of times and it’s been wonderful. It accommodates a 6mm filter, either the standard Savinelli balsa or a cut-down Medico or Dr. Grabow paper filter. I get no gurgling or tongue bite at all. I love the size, the balance, the feel of it. I’m fond enough of it that I’m seriously considering buying a regular Bing’s Favorite in a smooth finish with the regular stem.

Savinelli Bing’s Favorite Arlecchino
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Fixing a front heat issue

The symptom: No (or intermittent) heat in the front seats of a 2007 W221 S600.

  • The vents blow cool to cold air most of the time.
  • Changing the temperature zone setting has no effect.
  • Turning the climate control system OFF for a minute or so, then back ON will result in warm air blowing briefly, cooling off rapidly — as if there is hot water in the heat exchanger, but no flow of hot water from the engine.
  • XENTRY/DAS diagnostics show all temperature sensors working.

Fixes tried:

  • Replaced AC water valve. The old one was in need of replacement; the top water hose neck snapped off during removal and the rack & pinion gear was jammed with some debris, so it likely wasn’t working. The valve is a non-Mercedes sourced part, unbranded, likely Chinese sourced like everything else. $40, quality appears to be quite good and the fit was perfect.
  • Tested valve operation with XENTRY/DAS. Using the actuations top open and close the valve result in hot air (CLOSED) and cool air (OPEN), so the valve is mechanically and electrically operational.
  • Used diagnostics to teach-in and normalize all actuators, flaps, and air control potentiometers. This had no effect on the symptoms.
  • I wanted to reverse the wires to the valve at the plug. My hypothesis was that the motor was simply installed backward, resulting in the valve running opposite the direction commanded by the HVAC system. Since it’s an open loop system, the front SAM would have no idea that this was happening. Unfortunately, I had no convenient place to swap the wires. I ended up determining that it was indeed wired backwards internally. A new part from a Mercedes dealer (thanks, Husker Auto Group!) fixed it.

Results: Fully working heat!!

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Oil Pan

Oh, the oil pan… what a mess. Rusty, nasty, covered with road grime, which is a combination of oil that’s been seeping for decades and dirt. Caked on in the corners, throw in a little RTV added over the years by previous owners in an attempt to stop oil seepage. Probably didn’t work, but it sure made a mess of things. Overall it’s not in TOO bad condition, with only one very small dent in the bottom corner that I may try to bump out — but it’s really not an issue.

I used a maroon Scotch-Brite pad and some Jet A (kerosene) to scrub out the flash rust and scorched oil residue from the inside. It looks fairly OK now, I’ll give it one more pass before the final installation. On the outside I tried scraping followed by kerosene and a nylon brush… with limited success. When I got the lip cleaned off enough to not trash the gasket, I temporarily mounted the pan on the bottom of the engine. The bolts — well, they look like what you’d expect of oil pan bolts that were on a ’66 Mustang. Serviceable, but caked with oily grime. But with the oil pan bolted in place, I was able to attack it with a steel bristle welding brush. THAT cleaned things up a lot. There’s more work to be done, but I’d say it’s halfway there now.

After cleaning it up and getting it ready for primer, I’ll pull it back off. The gaskets need a thin coat of Permatex, and maybe a dab of RTV where the gasket sections meet up. Besides that I want to to some de-rusting and cleanup that needs to be done off the block and without the bolts installed. The bolts will get a soak in parts cleaner, followed by a mineral spirits or lacquer thinner rinse. They’ll be fine to reuse.

I have ordered some metal prep, epoxy high temp engine primer, and high temp epoxy Ford blue engine paint from Eastwood. Just for fun I also ordered some paint for the exhaust manifolds. That stuff should be here some time next week. In the mean time I’ll be cleaning up everything that will get painted, then taping and masking everything off. I’m looking forward to buttoning this engine up. I still need to order an intake manifold and carburetor, but I’m going to wait until there are some significant sales going on. I’ve seen 10% and better discounts from Summit Racing before, and I’ll hold off ordering the expensive stuff until that comes around again.

Oh, and I decided not to replace the harmonic balancer. Turns out, there are repair sleeves for just that exact thing. I’ve got some rust dissolver coming to clean it up, and the repair sleeve, so I can keep the original and save about $70. Any time I can restore and use an original part and not buy a new replacement, I consider it a win.