Diving right in...

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So I've really been considering trying a pipe for awhile now. The weather has been horrible lately and limited my fervor for this or even cigar smoking because its rain rain rain rain...blah blah blah.

Theres a guy I work with that smokes everyday. He has something like 12 pipes in his truck lol. I told him what my plan was (still searching for a nice pipe that interests me) and he suprised me with a missouri merrschaum corncob today and two different bags of tobacco he smokes. So I will likely be giving it a go tonight for the first time. The weather this weekend appears to be all systems go.

I actually have already ordered a churchwarden from another brother here pretty much cause I just dig it for some reason. So many different cool designs and I just kept going back to that one. Call me crazy so I just had to have it. I won't start off with it obviously, but it will be nice to have around I think when I am ready.

With all that said, I've read that its good to let a pipe rest between uses. I suppose thats why so many have multiple pipes. Does this apply with the corncobs? I mean I'm not going to smoke bowl after bowl after bowl, but I probably will want to try more than once this weekend. I also noticed a filter in the stem of this one, is it better to leave it in place at first and remove it later on, always leave it in, or just get rid of it straight away?

Seems everyone has a different perspective on my couple of questions and I am sure I can figure it out. Really just wanted to say hi to you all in here.

 

[Pipe Smoker]

A cob is an excellent way to get your feet wet. I smoke one regularly and enjoy it far more than some pipes that cost 10 or 20 times as much.

I think that with the proliferation of the internet and thousands upon thousands of how-to guides and blogs and forums that preach what to do and what not to do, we seem lose a bit of perspective. Don't forget that back in the day our grandfathers owned a single pipe and smoked it as often as they wanted and replaced it when it wore out. They smoked whatever tobacco they felt like (or had available to them) without the thought of ghosting. They didn't dedicate a pipe to a specific blend. I think people give far to much thought to seasoning and resting and rotating, etc. So my first word of advise to you is don't over think it, just enjoy it.

That being said I have segregated my pipes into English, VaPer, and Aromatics. Though, that is only because I needed to justify having so many extra pipes laying around. If I found myself out and about with a VaPer pipe and someone offered me a heavy lat blend I wouldn't think twice about packing it in and lighting it up. I think eventually you'll probably want at least two pipes, one for aromatics and one for everything else. As long as you take proper care of them - run a pipe cleaner through after each smoke, run a wire brush soaked in a little alcohol every now and again - you'll be just fine.

To answer your questing directly, I believe that if you subscribe to the notion that a pipe needs to be rested, then a cob would likely need to be rested as much, if not more, than a typical briar, because the corn cub itself is not as sturdy as briar wood. I have heard that cheap cobs will wear right through the bottom of the bowl, but I haven't held on to one long enough for that to have happened to me. I always pull the filters out, but some will leave the filter in a cob until they get a good char in the bowl.