Revisiting the Westminster: The Alpiner

I had mentioned this pipe back in January, but I recently uncovered information on it that warrants further mention.

"This will be, by far, the oddest looking pipe in your collection."

This is a House of Westminster one-piece cherrywood pipe. House of Westminster imported these pipes from Switzerland. This shape is called the Alpiner, and came in three sizes (2 oz, 3 oz, and 4 oz). This example is the "medium," or 2 ounce.

I found information about this pipe thanks to pipepages.com. If you take a look at this page from their 1939 catalog, you can see that the stem for this pipe is very short and stubby. My pipe did still have the original stem, but it is badly chewed and needs to be replaced. This stem looks too stubby and awkward, to me. However, in order to preserve the original appearance of this pipe, I will request that the new stem match the old one. Who knows, maybe I'll like it. Also, I think a longer stem would make it hard to hold in the teeth. The longer the stem, the greater the leverage.

This pipe sold for 49¢ in 1939, postpaid. Thanks again to Chris' Pipe Pages for this excellent resource.

Kaywoodie #13B Drinkless author

Another part of my small Kaywoodie collection, and the last pipe I ever took a picture of with my old scanner. From now on, I'll have to try and take decent photos of everything.

This one is at the lowest rung of the Kaywoodie ladder, the Drinkless. Another find from an eBay lot that I didn't smoke much at first because I wasn't used to the unusually wide bowl mouth, this has become one of my favorites and is part of my regular rotation. The stummel and stem line up perfectly and it still has its 3-hole stinger intact. I also think the author shape is just one of the sweetest pipe shapes ever created.

Since acquiring this pipe, I have been on the lookout for higher grades of Kaywoodies in the author shape, but so far, no luck.

And that just about finishes out my current collection. I'll be going through my boxes and picking out more pipes to work on, and I'll be getting some stems fitted to some stummels pretty soon. I'll also be watching eBay for promising items, ordering some new tobaccos and commenting on them. So stay tuned, and thank you to everyone who has been reading the blog.

William Demuth Co. Wellington

Here's a scannergraph of the old Wellington not long after I brought it back from the brink of oblivion. It was part of an eBay lot and I immediately decided it was a keeper, because I had no other pipe like it.

The Wellington is the WDC copy of the Peterson System pipe. Here's a cutaway diagram that I snagged from Pipe & Pouch to help explain this pipe's design.

The bit, rather than connecting directly to the bowl via the shank, fits into a sort of pocket or reservoir where the air sort of swirls around as it goes into the bowl. The upper air passage goes on into the bowl, and the bottom reservoir collects moisture. This looks like another odd gimmick, but in my opinion, this one works very well. Of course, it requires additional attention when cleaning. I use a cotton swab to clean out the reservoir, and pipe cleaners as usual to clean the air passage.


Another thing about the Wellington (and other Peterson copies) is the military bit. Rather than the traditional tenon/mortise arrangement, the bit simply tapers down slightly and wedges into the shank, remaining in place from the pressure of insertion. This design makes it safe to remove the bit while the pipe is still warm--something that is not a good thing with a tenon/mortise design.

A third thing that sets the Wellington/Peterson pipes apart is the button on the bit. Go back and look at the first photo as well as the cutaway graphic and pay attention to the end of the bit. This is a bit design created by Peterson and is called the P-lip. The hole is on top of the button rather than in the very end, and is angled upward to direct smoke toward the roof of the mouth rather than straight into the tongue. Also, the curved underside of the bottom helps to prevent the tongue from touching the opening of the air passage. The upward-pointing opening is supposed to help prevent tongue-bite, and the curved "tongue shield" helps keep saliva from getting into the stem by being touched with the tongue (something that is a troublesome unconscious reflex for some pipe smokers).

Some people hate the P-lip because it feels different. I have no special preference nor objection to it, at all. To me it's just another bit. The P-lip bit does have a more rounded shape than most bits, and it does feel somewhat different, but it's nothing that anyone shouldn't be able to get used to.

This old Wellington has become one of my favorite pipes. It's size and deep bend gives it an impressive appearance and a comfortably low center of gravity. As you can see in the second photo, I have managed to wear off some of the finish since it came into my hands, and I will eventually be refinishing this one. Meanwhile, this is one of my regular truck pipes and I often smoke it on the long commute home in the afternoon. If I manage to come across any more of these pipes in my eBay adventures, I will probably keep them all--at least until I build up a good week's worth of pipes for rotation.

FYI, Kaywoodie also had a copy of the Peterson System pipe, called the Chesterfield. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to acquire one of those yet.

Kirsten

I think the most I ever paid for a pipe was for this Kirsten (click to enlarge). The above photo is a "scannergraph" from my old scanner. There was a lot of discussion going on at the time on alt.smokers.pipes, and I decided I needed to get one to see what all the fuss was about.

I don't smoke it often, but I find it very useful for a specific purpose. The aluminum barrel can't become seasoned, obviously. I like to use the Kirsten when trying out new tobaccos so I can get a more objective impression. If I use a briar pipe, the smoke will likely be biased by whatever I usually smoke in that pipe.


I couldn't get a good picture today because the barrel kept overexposing, but here's a picture of the Kirsten pipe disassembled. The cap and the bit fit snugly via rubber o-rings, and the cap has a hole that lines up on the hole in the barrel. You can twist the cap slightly to one side and seal the bowl off from the barrel so the condensed punk in there doesn't get a chance to run back into the bowl before you get a chance to clean it. To clean the barrel, you just fold up a small piece of tissue paper and ram it through with the rod on the bit.

Kirsten sells a wide variety of bowl finishes and sizes, so you can go to a larger or smaller bowl by simply screwing on a new bowl. They also sell meerschaum bowls, if that's your thing. No need to rest the Kirsten between smokes. Just wipe it out and keep going.

The Kirsten is perhaps the ultimate gimmick pipe. It is not the only pipe made with an aluminum "shank," but it is, perhaps, one of the best quality aluminum pipes you can get. The few Falcons I've seen seem quite flimsy by comparison.

I would not recommend a Kirsten for a new pipe smoker--get yourself a few decent briars first. But as I said, the Kirsten for me fills a valuable position as a "try-out pipe."

Ben Wade Chesham bent billiard

Ben Wade was another English pipe maker that was at some point bought by Charatan. After the Charatan takeover, Ben Wade was used as a Charatan seconds line. I don't know if this Ben Wade is an original or a Charatan second, but either way, it's a great pipe.

This pipe was another that I purchased at the same estate sale where I acquired the Tyrolean. Actually, this pipe was free. I had already purchased an antique pipe rack. Very nice pipe rack, by the way. It has two six-pipe racks on top with a brass humidor in between, and two small drawers underneath. I had also selected the Tyrolean and two other pipes, so the seller told me to pick out any other pipe I wanted for free, and I took this one. All the pipes were dirty and fairly caked up, but this one really turned out well and has become one of my favorite pipes. It was one of the pipes I spent a good deal of time on this morning, because I had allowed the cake to build up so much that the bowl volume was probably cut in half. I do want to replace the stem eventually because I'm a pretty heavy biter and I've managed to bite a small hole in the top of the bit, but there's no nomenclature on the bit so I'm not going to feel bad about it.

I'm running a bowl of C&D's Bayou Night through it right now and this morning's reaming has returned it to fine smoking form.

Velani Octagon

The last, but not the least, of the batch of Velanis that I purchased together by mail-order several years ago. I got these back when I was still occasionally smoking a couple of aromatics, and for a while I used this one only for such tobaccos. It has long since been salt-treated to remove any candyish flavors and converted to smoking natural blends. Some glaring fills are visible beneath the finish, but it will smokes quite well and is often used for Perique blends, like most of my primary rotation.

It's called an "Octagon" because the shank is octagonal, although the corners are rounded so it isn't obvious. I don't know what to call the shape of this bowl.

Velani #67 bent Dublin

Another of the group of Velanis that I purchased all at once. This one is a nice big Dublin with very thick bowl walls. I've smoked just about everything in it and it's one of my favorite pipes.

I've been sick this week, with one of those colds that goes straight for my sinuses, so I've been forsaking the briar for the past few days. Here's hoping I'm over it by the weekend. Writing up a long, thoughtful post about pipe smoking is no fun without a pipe to smoke.

Velani #69 bent acorn

Working my way through the Velanis, here's a bent with what I call an acorn-shaped bowl. As with the others, this pipe is one of the five that I purchased at the same time. One of the others, as well as the Canadian that I sold, have this same kind of transparent lucite stem. I think it looks really sharp.

I've always smoked a variety of natural blends (non-aromatic) in this pipe. It's one of my most frequently-used pipes and is part of my regular rotation.

Velani Fumata #75 bent billiard

Back in those early years, my collection was still quite small and I desperately needed a larger rotation. Word spread on alt.smokers.pipes that the Aldo Velani company of Italy was having some kind of "clearance" sale on pipes. I remember there being some controversy about this, but I don't remember any details. All I knew at the time was: good pipes, cheap. I ordered five pipes for about $65. One of them, a Canadian, I later sold because I was smoking it so rarely. The other four are bents of various styles and I still have them. They are all still part of my regular rotation.

The above pipe was one of the most frequently smoked. I used it so often that I wore off some of the finish. It doesn't look like that anymore. Before I use it again, I will have to perform a complete refurbishing. Also, I managed to break the tenon, so this is another pipe that I will need to send away for stem repair. I doubt that I will be able to accurately reproduce the shaded, two-tone finish, but I'm sure it will look just as well with a single color stain. Before I begin work on it, I will post a current photo so I can document my "before" and "after."

Since my favorite smokes tend to be quite robust and heavy in Perique, this pipe is used for robust Perique blends, and will remain part of my permanent collection.

Smokemaster rusticated bent billiard

Here is the third pipe that I purchased from the Blue Ridge place mentioned in the previous post. They had several Smokemasters in their catalog; I've also seen a few on eBay now and then. Smokemasters come in a variety of shapes and finishes. In my regular postings of vintage pipe ads on my other blog I often talk about what I call "gimmick pipes." By which I mean pipes that have some sort of odd gimmick that's supposed to improve flavor, reduce tongue-bite, cool the smoke, etc., etc. The Smokemaster has a gimmick stem. The stem on this pipe is not original.

The stem of the Smokemaster has an special aluminum insert. The gimmick is that you take a standard-length pipe cleaner, bend it exactly in the center, and stick the ends up into the aluminum insert so that the pipe is using a pipe cleaner for a filter. Sounds good in theory, at least to a novice, but perhaps someone more experienced (such as myself, I add humbly) will tell you that this sounds like a really good moisture trap and will actually make the smoke wetter and more likely to bite.

I did smoke this pipe as it was intended until I decided that it was just a waste of good pipe cleaners, then I just smoked it without. Until one day I accidentally sat on it and broke the stem. So I had it replaced with a plain old traditional stem. The original stem was a taper; as you can see, this one is a saddle bit. I think it looks better this way.

I began smoking this pipe with aromatics many years ago, but when I dropped aromatics I gave this one the salt treatment and switched it to latakia blends. Since then I have used it for both latakia and Perique blends without any qualms. It's just a good pipe. I keep this one in my truck most of the time and it's part of my regular rotation, but it's about time to give it a good stem bleach and buff & wax, because it's starting to look a little dingy. The above scanner photo was taken a few years ago after such a cleaning.

Two more unnamed pipes

I thought I should go back to the early days and work forward from there, so here's a twofer because neither of these pipes are especially remarkable.

Back in the early days of my pipe smoking, that is, before internet access, I had no resources to help guide me. I bought what I could find. This meant I pretty much smoked nothing but various flavors of Captain Black and Borkum Riff. I still love the smell of Captain Black Whiskey, and although I'm sure it would make a nice sachet, I would never smoke it again. Anyhow, in one of those pouches was an ad for a place called Blue Ridge Pipe Company or something like that--Blue Ridge was in there somewhere, but I don't remember the exact name. So I sent for their catalog and to me, back then, it was a treasure-trove of pipe smoking supplies and paraphernalia. Over the course of a year or two I ordered tobacco, three pipes, a beautiful rosewood-bolstered pipe tool that I have since misplaced (but it's gotta be around here somewhere), and a pipe rack from them. These two pipes are from there.

Pipe #1 above is simply a small filter pipe. Like most small pipes of this nature, there is not enough mass in the bowl and it smokes hot. The interesting thing to me about this pipe is that it was described as a "pear" shape. This isn't a shape name that I've ever run into anywhere else and is worth keeping just so I have an example of the "pear."

This little bent billiard is actually a nice pipe and has some beautiful grain for such a cheap pipe. It's one of those unnamed Italian pipes. I have kept this pipe set aside for occasionally sampling aromatic blends, however, I just don't smoke aromatics at all anymore so I think I will give this one a salt treatment to try and remove the last vestiges of vanilla and then start putting some Perique blends through it.

What is the "salt treatment?" This is something I do often with estate pipes to remove the old flavors and rejuvenate it. First remove the stem and plug up the shank with a q-tip, a small piece of cotton, or a pipe cleaner. Prop up the stummel so that it will remain upright and won't fall over. Then you fill the bowl with salt. Then you carefully pour a small amount of alcohol into the bowl, just enough that the bowl is filled without any liquid slopping out on the rim. Most people prefer to use potable types of alcohol for this. I prefer to use Everclear, which in my opinion is the best pipe cleaning fluid you can get. Any kind of high-proof alcohol that doesn't have much flavor will work. Rum is another good one. So you've got it all filled and propped up, and you let it sit. How long you let it sit is up to you, but I always let it go until the salt is brown from absorbing gunk from the old cake and all the alcohol is pretty much evaporated. It usually takes a few hours. Use your pipe pick to remove the salt, then give it a regular cleaning like you always do with pipe cleaners and pipe sweetener (or more of your favorite high-proof alcohol beverage). Put it aside and let it rest for a day or two, then load it and light it.

If this doesn't work, it can be repeated but one must be careful because the salt treatment can dry out the wood. I destroyed a cheap basket pipe like this once by giving it too many treatments and it caused a bad crack in the shank.

There is an even more drastic measure that can be taken if the salt treatment doesn't work, but I will talk about it in a later post.

The third pipe that I purchased from Blue Ridge is a much better pipe, and will get it's own post (probably) tomorrow.

Unnamed Italian bent billiard sandblast

I'll see if I can keep posting one pipe per day from my "keeper" collection until I run out. After that, we'll see how things go. This particular 'blast was the only other pipe besides the Irish Second that I purchased at a store instead of online or mail-order. It was also purchased at The Humidor, and it was on the day my son was born.

I didn't start out that morning planning to buy a pipe. But after all the excitement was more or less over, my wife suggested (rather strongly) that I get out "for a few hours and get something to eat or go to the mall or something." I guess she was tired of my hanging around the hospital room and being a nuisance. So I did get something to eat, but still had plenty of time to kill. I ended up at The Humidor poring over their cheap pipe rack for a long time. I finally decided on this $15 unmarked sandblast. The only nomenclature is the word "ITALY," much like any number of other unnamed pipes.

It had a problem that I noticed during the first couple of bowls. There was a tiny pinhole in the briar which apparently went all the way through the bowl wall. I only discovered it because I noticed a tiny droplet of moisture bubbling out during the smoke. But after a few bowls worth of cake got built up, that problem vanished and has never recurred.

Anyway, unlike the time a few years before when I had bought the Irish Second, this time they offered me a free bowl of tobacco with my new pipe. So I had them load me up with some of their Balkan Texas Style (a fairly robust latakia blend) and enjoyed my new pipe on the drive back across town to the hospital.

I generally avoid Perique blends with this pipe, since I have more or less dedicated it to latakia blends. It is the only sandblast in my collection, and is one of my most frequently-used pipes.

Irish Second bent billiard

This is one of the few pipes I have that I purchased in an actual brick & mortar store (The Humidor on San Pedro). The Irish Second is the brand given to the seconds line of Peterson pipes. Irish Seconds are in general very good pipes, although less expensive than Petersons.

It's too bad I didn't get a picture of this pipe when it was new, because it had a virgin finish. That is, it had a wax polish but nothing else. No stain or anything, and was as blond as the ebauchon I blogged about recently. The dark coloration of this pipe is due solely to the absorption of tobacco oils.

This was one of the first pipes I purchased, back when I was still smoking aromatics (artificially flavored tobaccos). The first few bowls were a plain vanilla burley that the Humidor sold back then. After that I was converted and gave up aromatics. Starting with the fourth or fifth bowl, this pipe was dedicated to a single blend: Yale Mixture from Cornell & Diehl. Yale is a Virginia/latakia blend and for a long time it was my favorite smoke. I still keep this pipe dedicated to latakia blends. Since Yale is still my favorite latakia, this pipe is still used to smoke almost nothing but Yale Mixture. But I will use it for any blend that is primarily Virginia and latakia.

If you are looking for an inexpensive but very good quality pipe, you can't go wrong with an Irish Second (in my opinion). But this one is a treasured part of my own collection.

The Tyrolean: another kind of full bent

Another old scannergraph of my only Tyrolean pipe. The Tyrolean is named for its origin in the historical European region of Tyrol. An interesting design, and in this case, a hybrid for using two different kinds of wood.

All wooden parts of the stummel are briar. The only nomenclature on this pipe is on the left shank, which says "BRUYERE GARANTIE," French for "briar guarantee" or as we would say in English, "genuine briar." This one has a stem extension made of what I assume is cherrywood. The vulcanite (hard rubber) bit is permanently fixed to the stem extension.

The Tyrolean is usually adorned with brass furniture, in this case a picture of a stag. It is also customary for the Tyrolean to be equipped with a windcap. This pipe is only about 6 1/2 inches tall, but I've seen them much larger. As can be guessed from the odd round bit, this pipe is not meant to hang in one's mouth with teeth clamped firmly on the bit. It is meant to sit on the table in front of you at the biergarten, interspersing one's conversation with sips on the pipe and swigs of beer.

Another interesting part of this pipe's design is the air passage. As you can see, the bottom platform unscrews from the bowl for cleaning. The smoke is drawn through the hole in the center bottom of the bowl, and then through another hole just to the right of the bowl hole in this photo (hard to see, but it's there). This means the air is not drawn directly from the bowl. This swirling of the smoke around in the air pocket created by the bottom piece probably does help create a cooler smoke. This design also helps in catching moisture generated from the burning tobacco.

I took this photo from another angle to show the threads cut in the wood. The stem extension sticks into the shank and stays put from pressure alone.

I picked this pipe up, among some others, at an estate sale in the mid-1990s. It appeared to have been purchased (by its original owner) mostly for appearance and rarely smoked. In fact, when I bought it the stem showed no oxidation at all. As you can see in these photos, the bit now shows oxidation, which showed up almost immediately after I smoked it a couple of times. Because of the original lack of any oxidation, I might assume I was the first person ever to smoke it--which is unusual when it comes to estate pipes.

Oxidation is a problem with vulcanite stems, and is caused by saliva and sunlight. This pipe has never been exposed to any appreciable sunlight since I have owned it, so I might make another assumption that it is quite old and the quality of the vulcanite is not the same as with modern pipes. Oxidation can be cleaned and that bit can be made shiny and black again, but it will be a careful job because the bit is permanently fixed to the wooden extension. Removing oxidation is usually a simple job requiring the bit to be soaked in bleach for a few minutes, then rinsed with water, dried, buffed and waxed. A healthy layer of wax will help slow down further oxidation.

One other point I should make is that, once this pipe is lit and being smoked, it is important to avoid contacting the brass furniture with one's fingers, as that brass gets quite hot. The briar itself remains just as cool as any briar pipe should.

I'm sure I could sell this for enough to buy several old estate Kaywoodies, but because of its unusualness and its potential as a conversation piece, it will remain a part of my collection.

Kaywoodie Yacht export pipe (bent Dublin)

I was going to talk about a different pipe but I want to take some pictures of it disassembled first, and it's too dark outside now to take any photos. So I'll do this one.

This is one of a pair of Kaywoodies that were the first pipes of that maker that I ever purchased. They were both estate pipes via eBay. It is a slightly bent Dublin, which Kaywoodie called a "yacht" or sometimes "yachtsman." It is also an "export" pipe because it has a traditional push-stem instead of the trademark screw-in stem of most Kaywoodies. They were made this way for sale in Europe--for some reason someone at Kaywoodie decided that these would sell better than the screw-stem--so stems made for export were just regular push-stems.

I dropped this pipe once and the impact broke the tenon. The tenon is that narrower part of the stem that fits into the shank (actually it fits into a countersunk part of the shank called the mortise). A real pipe repairman can fix this easily, since the tenon is not integral to the stem. Just take out the broken one and stick in a new one, then fit it to the mortise. Or maybe they fit it first, I don't know. Unfortunately, sometime in the process the person who replaced this tenon managed to knock out the cloverleaf, which is why there's a cloverleaf-shaped hole in the stem but no cloverleaf. I guess he felt bad about it, because I not only received the repaired stem sans cloverleaf, but I also got a brand new "generic" stem. I'm still trying to figure out if there's any way to replace, or least "fake" replace, the cloverleaf.

I don't smoke this much because it doesn't have a lot of bowl volume. But it is my only Kaywoodie export pipe, so it's a part of my collection.

Weber Oom Paul

When it comes to bent pipes, there are many kinds. Quarter-bent. Half-bent. I suppose there is a three-quarter-bent although I have never seen a pipe that was described as such. These terms are by no means technically specific; often a half-bent will be described as a full-bent, so who knows. But the only real full bent is the Oom Paul.


The Oom Paul is characterized by a tall, straight-walled bowl and a shank that turns up from the bowl to almost (but not quite) parallel it. It was named for Paul Kruger, and may have been originally designed for him by a custom order.

Oom Pauls by default must come from a larger-than-usual burl of briar, so as a general rule they are pretty good pipes.

The Weber pipe pictured above is the first item I ever bought via eBay, many moons ago. It began my hobby of perusing eBay for estate pipes, which then extended into simply hunting for pictures of pipes just for the sheer joy of seeing them.

The tall bowl is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that it holds more tobacco than the usual pipe, and provides a pleasantly long smoke. The disadvantage is that it becomes harder to relight as one goes further into the bowl. Another disadvantage is that the sharp bend in the air passage from bowl to shank makes it quite a challenge to clean. I use a specially bent paper clip to help guide the pipe cleaner into the right spot.

When I received this pipe it was not in the best of shape. It hadn't really been refurbished at all, and was probably the first pipe that I worked over myself to get it into better condition, both for smoking and simply for appearances.

If you want a pipe that shows some attitude, the Oom Paul is definitely for you. This one is part of my permanent collection.

Ropp Cherrywood

After yesterday's post on the Westminster cherrywood, I though it would be a good idea to post a more typical example.

The Ropp company of France is well-known in the pipe-smoking world for the production of cherrywood pipes. I think they produce (or produced) nothing else. This example from my collection is more typical of the cherrywood, however, it is not the classic cherrywood shape.

I don't have a picture of a classic cherrywood, but this little gif snagged from Pipe Shapes should suffice. The limb of a cherry tree is cut straight across one end and diagonally on the other. The flat end is hollowed out to form the bowl, while the diagonal end is polished and forms a flat bottom so that most cherrywoods--if their balance is right--are also sitters. This shape may also be referred to as a slant poker. The example from my collection was cut with both ends roughly parallel to each other, and the bottom polished but left rounded so that it is not a sitter.

Here is a picture of my pipe disassembled. You can see the threads cut into the wood of the shank. The shank is also cherrywood, but obviously cut from a smaller limb. The threads of both the bowl and the shank have been reinforced with aluminum to help prevent damage. The stem is made from typical vulcanite.

Since one purpose of the cherrywood design is to preserve the rugged, woody appearance, the bark is left on both the bowl and shank. The nomenclature is typically stamped into the polished smooth bottom of the bowl.

The shape depicted in the small black and white gif above is, as I said, the classic cherrywood shape. In fact, pipes of this shape may be referred to as "cherrywood shape" regardless of the materials they are made of. Although briar is by far the most popular wood for pipe-making, there are other woods that are suitable. Cherrywood is probably the second most common.

This pipe was one of two Ropps that were in a lot I bought several years ago. The other one I refurbished and sold. It was of the classic cherrywood shape and I elected to keep this one because it was different. The buyer of the other pipe was a collector of Ropps, and offered to buy both, but I kept this one so I would have at least one example in my collection.

My only complaint about this pipe is that the bowl volume is very small. It smokes just as well as any pipe should, but the tiny interior bowl can provide only a 15 to 20 minute smoke, tops. So I don't use it very often.

And then we had pipe number two

In that first pouch of Captain Black that I bought (previously mentioned), or one of the first, anyway, there was a coupon for a meerschaum pipe. I certainly was going to need more pipes, and it didn't cost much, so I sent the coupon and the cash in and soon received the pipe pictured above.

It's a good pipe. Most meerschaums are. A little flowery, but nothing too ornate. The problem with this pipe is the stem. Follow the curve of that stem and what do you notice? The bit end is still going up. It should be slightly more horizontal. This makes this pipe a little awkward for me. The weight of the bowl makes it feel like someone is trying to lever your teeth apart.

That doesn't mean I don't use it, I just don't use it much. In the early days, I used it often, and it has a voluminous bowl that provides a long afternoon's smoke.

The stem is also made of plastic that is too soft, in my opinion, and is a little too "chewy."

Well, I can fix the bend now I think of it. I have tweaked the bend of stems before. It's not easy, but it's possible. I think someday I'll probably just have it fitted for a nice black acrylic stem and then it will be much easier to smoke.

To change the bend of a stem--and this goes only for the softer plastics or vulcanite (hard rubber), not for the hard acrylic stems--you first run a pipe cleaner all the way through it. This will preserve the air passage. Then you put it in boiling water for a few minutes until it gets good and hot. You fish it out with a pair of tongs and then, with your hands protected by gloves, oven mitts or hotpads, you grasp it firmly and carefully bend it slightly. Yes, I have done this before and sometimes it took two or three tries before I got it right. The stem will tend to straighten out while it's being heated. I suppose if you had one of those hot sand things that optometrists use to bend spectacle arms, that would work too. But I just used boiling water. After it cools, remove the pipe cleaner.