Kaywoodie Campus Dublin

click to enlarge

The Campus was a Kaywoodie line of smaller-and-lighter-than-usual pipes, with a purpose. A purpose that, in my opinion, doubles as a gimmick.

The Campus pipes were supposedly intended to be used by college students and professors to get a quick smoke during breaks between classes. Small enough to fit handily in a pocket, and small bowl volume to produce a shorter smoke. This one is equipped with the usual screw stem and a 3-hole stinger.

In reality (in my opinion, of course) pipes made like this are usually too small. They don't have a lot of mass in the stummel, and have thin bowl walls, therefore they smoke hot. But, I should admit that I haven't actually smoked this one yet, so I may yet be proved wrong.

Someone had been smoking this one, but lightly. It had minimal cake and only light tooth scuffs on the bit. A small build-up of unburned leaves in the bottom suggests that the previous owner rarely finished the bowl. I would hazard a guess because it was uncomfortably warm by the time he got that far. It had barely any tar on the rim and the inside of the shank produced hardly any black stuff at all. I did give it a light reaming, since the upper part of the bowl had a disproportionately thicker cake than the bottom--more evidence that the previous owner had trouble finishing the bowl.

This pipe is so light, you might forget you have it in your mouth. At about 13cm in length, it weighs only 16 grams (about 1/2 ounce).

I'll be giving this one a trial run this week sometime, just so I can offer an honest opinion on how it smokes, but I can't see making this one part of my regular rotation.

UPDATE: Okay, I gave it a whirl. It did provide a very short smoke (20 minutes or so), and the bowl got so hot I had to hold it by the shank. Maybe it would perform better for someone who is not such an aggressive puffer as I. This one will go on the shelf as part of my Kaywoodie collection, but I doubt I'll be reaching for it very often.

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.

The other Bertram

Here's a photo of the other Bertram in my work box--this one a big straight Dublin. If I'm not mistaken, that's some mighty fine straight grain on that pipe. The rim has some nicks, but not nearly as bad as the other one did. I'm pretty sure I still have the stem for this one, but it's a complete loss and will have to be replaced.

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.