Smoking your tobacco pipe inevitably leads to handling it and, as a result, leaving fingerprints on its surface.
If you are here, we imagine that you care a lot about your tobacco pipe and seeing it in a bad condition only burns your heart. For this reason, we decided to create a special guide on how to polish your tobacco pipe.
Before we delve into the best ways to do this, we suggest that you smoke it and handle it with clean hands, so you can reduce the risk of more stubborn dirt building up, which will require more effort to remove.
Polish your tobacco pipe: how to do it
Even if your hands are clean, it is easy for fingerprints to be left on the tobacco pipe.
In this case, just get a simple cloth and rub it vigorously over the surface.
This quick little treatment will allow you to maintain its original luster, even though the tobacco pipe will still continue to slowly darken from smoking.
A common habit in the past was to rub the tobacco pipe stove on the nose or cheeks at the end of each smoke, so as to polish it with the greasiness of the skin.
This is certainly an unorthodox method: the risk is that the tobacco pipe, after being “greased,” is misplaced or left exposed to dust, causing it to pick up abrasive particles that, remaining attached, can scratch the surface when handled later.
To obviate this risk, we recommend wiping with a polishing cloth immediately afterwards.
If one tends to handle the tobacco pipe with sweaty hands, it is easy for the parts usually in contact with the skin to tend to dull over time.
In this case, after removing the mouthpiece, the tobacco pipe should be sanded with sandpaper at these points, and then extend this operation over the entire surface. Sanding lightens the briar, especially if the tobacco pipe does not have natural color.
After that, you take a cloth and rub the entire surface with polishing paste. If you want to accentuate the shine, we recommend a wipe with carnauba wax.
In case you have over-sanded the tobacco pipe and the color of the tobacco pipe has faded, there is no need to worry.
You need to sand the entire tobacco pipe with “800” sandpaper so that the color is even (and faded) over the entire surface. Next, you take the mordant corresponding to the color of the tobacco pipe and run it over the pipe, then let it dry for about an hour. If irregularities were created by the application of the mordant, these should be smoothed out again with the same sandpaper.
At this point the mordant is reapplied and the tobacco pipe is smoothed until the color is uniform and of the desired intensity. Once this operation is completed, a cloth is vigorously rubbed over the surface with polishing paste. Again, carnauba wax is useful for imparting extra shine.