Cleaning out the bowl

The "Bonus" 313 Pete (see below) was rather yucky on the inside, so I had to ream it down a bit, but that still didn't help so I decided to try the old salt-and-liquor trick.

It is done by filling the bowl with salt and wetting it with the strongest neutral liquor you got available. Well, I had bought a small flask of 60% (120 proof) Explorer Vodka on the boat from Norway for just this kind of stuff!

I balanced the bowl without the stem in a small Alessi ashtray that was just made for the purpose, it seemed. I then filled the bowl with rough salt and topped it with finer salt that I vibrated down in between the coarser grains until both the sump and the tobacco chamber both were packed with salt.

I used a shot glass and a straw to dispense just about the right amount to thoroughly moisten the salt so as to not let the bowl run over.

I then sat it to the side for about five hours. I had a bit of a chore getting all the salt out as some of it had staled and hardened in the smoke channel between the chamber and the sump (after all, the 313 IS a system pipe, right?).

I had to pour some more vodka down into it and splosh it a round a bit as I poked into the black mess with a pipe cleaner. Finally it broke lose and I could rinse the bowl once more with vodka which came out looking more like rum...