How to Clean Steel Pipe Resin
Steel pipes are one of many kinds of pipes designed to smoke tobacco in. All tobaccos have different aromas and all different kinds of resins. Resin is the gooey tar-like substance left in the pipe after smoking a bowl of tobacco. It can vary in color from black to brown, and when it hardens on the surface, it can be difficult to remove. You'll need some basic household ingredients to clean the resin out of your steel pipe, and you may need to purchase some things, but all in all, it is not very expensive to clean your steel pipe.
Things You'll Need
- Sea salt, fine grain
- Rubbing alcohol
- Plastic sandwich bag
- Old mascara brush
- Rubber gloves
- Cotton swabs
Instructions
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1
Put on the rubber gloves and disassemble the pipe.
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2
Pour the fine-grained sea salt into the steel pipe stem and bowl compartment. The salt acts as a scouring agent.
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3
Pour a generous amount of rubbing alcohol into the plastic sandwich bag. Make sure it is enough to submerge the pipe, and put the pipe into the bag. The rubbing alcohol will begin to loosen the resin that is inside the pipe.
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4
Shake the bag vigorously for 3 to 5 minutes, pour out the solution and rinse the steel pipe in hot water. Repeat steps 2 to 4 two more times to get rid of most of the resin in your steel pipe.
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5
Take the old mascara brush, and run it all around and through your steel pipe, which will take out a large portion of the leftover resin. Rinse the mascara brush in hot water after each swipe into the steel pipe.
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6
Use cotton swabs to swab the inside of your steel pipe fixtures, which is the last cleaning step to remove all of the leftover resin film inside your pipe. Don't be shy; use as many cotton swabs as you need.
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Tips & Warnings
If you don't want to shake the bag vigorously, let the bag sit overnight. Rinse with hot water in the morning and continue with the cleaning process.
Using any pipe for a use other than smoking tobacco is illegal and punishable by law.
References
- Photo Credit pipe and tobacco image by Richard Seeney from Fotolia.com
