My stone pipe

I have a stone pipe that by friend got me from Mexico. It is made of two different stones. The bowl is made of a solid black stone, and the neck is made of a yellow/white specked stone. The whole pipe had a real pretty shine. Well, it was time to clean it, and I heard that you should soak pipes in vinegar. So I did that. Luckly I looked and my pipe again before I went to sleep. The whole cup was black. When I took out the pipe, the stone that was submerged in the vinegar was a sandy feel, and the shine was gone!! So I'm guessing that the shiny was liquid enamel, or something that covered the origional stone. My question: do you think it's still safe to smoke out of?

I wouldn't dude. I smoke out of glass. Or joints. Je ne pais smoking out of metal or strange Mexican rocks.

It was a good pipe before. I'm about to get a metal pipe from a co-worker, so I guess I should just retire my stone one.

I'm saying in general dude, glass should be your choice to smoke out of. It has a much higher melting point and doesn't give off dangerous fumes when it's heated up. Smoking out of metal is a bad idea, especially if it's aluminium.

i always clean my pipes with everclear or boil them in water. i'd say vinegar probably made your pipe taste funny anyways.

The black stuff you saw was the tar and gunk getting cleaned off of your pipe. It's rough and looks different now because it's clean, do you remember what it looked like when it was new? As in, before ANYONE smoked out of it? it probably looked just like this. Also, vinegar cannot kill you or anything, so it's more than likely 100% fine to keep on smoking out of that pipe.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LiquidOC

The black stuff you saw was the tar and gunk getting cleaned off of your pipe. It's rough and looks different now because it's clean, do you remember what it looked like when it was new? As in, before ANYONE smoked out of it? it probably looked just like this. Also, vinegar cannot kill you or anything, so it's more than likely 100% fine to keep on smoking out of that pipe.

---

I agree. I would guess that the vinegar broke the resin down, and formed a nice coating of the rest of the pipe. Clean the entire thing with salt and rubbing alcohol and you should be good to go..

There is nothing wrong with smoking out of stone compared to glass.. The damn pipe has been around longer than you.. LOL

if you want to pretty it up again, I'll bet you could get ahold of some fine-grain sandpaper and give it a swift polish..I've still got a marble pipe a friend made for me that I polish on from time to time..waiting to get up the gall to bust its cherry :)

As long as you didn't submerge it in poison I honestly wouldn't worry about it my friend

thanks for all the answers guys. It was a really shiny stone before I smoked out of it and it was when I was still smoking. When I submerged the stone in the vinegar, it was like a layer of the stone came off. Understand? It's now a rough stone instead of the shiny smooth stone. Btw. It didn't clean my pipe.

well it was probably polished when they made it and the vinegar, since its acidic, wore away the polish. Use some fine grit sandpaper and a polishing cloth. To actually clean the pipe, maybe you should try rubbing alcohol? Thats what I use in my glass pipe and it works pretty well.

The finish on your pipe probably was destroyed by the vinegar, and as some one else said, could possibly be restored with fine sandpaper.

I've been making some nice gift pipes out of soapstone for over 20 years and highly reccomend them to anyone who wants to keep it all natural.

No off gassing, impervious to most chemicals and will never wear out.

I use vinegar to clean the scale(calcium/lime/etc) deposits off my humidifier and it eats that stuff up quick. I'd say it dissolved the outer layer of the stone, next time try rubbing alcohol or pipe/bong cleaner. Even just pouring a little water in there with some coarse kosher salt and shaking it around will help clean it safely...