How Often Do You "Deep" Clean Your Pipes?

[Branzig]

So for those of you who don't know, I am in the middle of buying my first house. Which means we are currently doing a lot of cleaning, dumping, packing, and selling....(Just FYI, Keep Eyes Peeled, I may end up putting some of my pipes up in the WTS section...)

As I am going through my stuff, I am finding a lot of pipes. Pipes I haven't seen in months. Pipes I haven't smoked in months. One in particular, a Pete system, I started to clean up with some Iso so I could give it a nice smoke. That got me thinking. I haven't smoked this pipe in forever and I know I cleaned it before putting it away. But I am cleaning it before smoking it because it is "gross." But I have 5-8 pipes that I smoke regularly and I never think about cleaning them more than maybe once every couple months.

I do run pipe cleaners through them after every smoke and let them rest, but if they aren't sour, I don't worry about the deep cleaning much. So I was just wondering, how often do you guys clean those pipes?

[droy1958]

Like you, I run a cleaner through them after each smoke. I'm basically a new smoker and gave most of the estate pipes a salt and Everclear bath before using. The only time I've repeated that is when I switched a pipe from aro to non-aro....

[Bruck]

Once. And that was a while back when I only had a few pipes. Now I've got about 30 (that I've smoked) and most of them have seen nothing more than pipe cleaners and the czech tool. Maybe another round of salt and alcohol is in order...

[Cool Breeze]

Not very often for me.
Just dry pipe cleaners after each smoke and a light scrape of the bowl with a czech tool (not enough to remove cake, just enough to remove loose tobacco).

About once every 2 months I'll dip a pipe cleaner in whatever liqour I have on hand (Scotch most of the time) and run it through them and swab out the bowls with it. That's it for me.

[Branzig]

Maybe another round of salt and alcohol is in order...

I only salt and alcohol estate pipes myself. Once I've eradicated any and all ghosts of an estate, I never S&A treat again.

I dedicate my pipes so I don't worry about ghosts past the restoration phase.



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[Tobias Lutz]

~once a year

[BryGuySC]

I salt & alcohol treat and retort estate pipes upon purchase, then maybe a deep clean every year or so (depending on how much I smoke a pipe).

[c.ortiz108]

So far, never. Should I? I seriously clean estate pipes but after that it's just running a cleaner after each smoke.

[Pipe Smoker]

I don't ever deep-clean pipes. I smoke only one pipe on any given day. At the end of the day I spend close to an hour cleaning that pipe. I clean the rim with Everclear (140 proof), then EVOO. And swab out the bit and shank with pipecleaners wetted with Everclear.

If the pipe has a vulcanite bit I polish it with Colgate toothpaste applied to a tensioned piece of flat shoelace. Then a final polish of the bit with neutral Kiwi shoe polish.

Not regularly, but as needed, I ream. And clean the outside of the pipe with EVOO.

Edit: My cleaning procedure for my metal-stem Kirsten is significantly different…

[Aguineapig]

IF they ever start to smoke poorly, then I will clean them. Other than that, it's just an occasional pipe cleaner, and wiping any loose soot etc. out of the bowl. Occasional reaming as well, again as needed.

my cobs especially see very little maintenance and still work fine (better than when new, in fact) for it.