Talbert Pipes- Somewhat delayed news

[Trever Talbert]

Hello to everyone on our mailing list!  I'm writing with a somewhat delayed 
update notice, delayed because I have been working round-the-clock for the 
past two days on website updates and I was waiting until I'd finished before 
sending an email.  Unfortunately, during the time it took me to finish, half 
the new pipes had already sold!  But, there is still one new morta (a bent 
poker blast) available, plus some new LBs.  The big news, however, is that 
the Halloween Pipes pages are now open and the first of this year's 
Halloween pipes is posted.  Sales will be by auction, the same as last year, 
with a full description in the FAQ in the Halloween section.  In other news, 
there is a small update - I have changed the type of chamber pre-carbonizing 
that I use on all my pipes.  I used the old mixture for many years without 
problems, but we've had a great deal of annoying trouble with the mix since 
we moved to Brittany, and I'm still not sure why - the ingredients are the 
same, unless there is some minor difference between the ingredients bought 
in France and those in the US.  My greater suspicion is that our troubles 
have been a factor of climate, with the humidity here making it harder to 
get the mix to adhere properly to the wood.  In any event, over the past two 
years I have had to recoat a fair number of bowls here in the shop because 
of problems with the coating chipping away from the wood - typically the 
next morning after application it would be peeling away on about every fifth 
bowl, whereas the majority worked perfectly fine.  So, the cause of the 
problem is still a bit of a mystery.  I've been working on a better fix for 
this for some time, and I finally think I have a superior carbonizing 
mixture.  It combines superior "stick" with superiority over the old mixture 
in another way - it does not fade and turn grey with time.  This will be 
very good news indeed for all those collectors who do not smoke their pipes, 
but buy them for display!  I hope that this mixture will retain its satin 
black finish for years to come, even if unsmoked.  I've been working on the 
problem consistently since early this year, and sent out some tester pipes 
with various combinations of the current ingredients to friends here in 
Europe and abroad, and the reports resoundingly came back in favor of the 
new mix, so that's going to be the standard for my pipes from now onward. 
All of these just-posted pipes use the new mixture.
Thanks for your time!
Happy smoking,
Trever Talbert
http://www.talbertpipes.com