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Out of rounding is just what is sounds like. Aside from an opera pipe, tobacco chambers are drilled or turned with a gouge that leaves a perfectly round hole. It’s rare that pipes will be conditioned with varying degrees of ‘out of round’, but here are some of the causes and effects of this condition.
Smoking: Proper packing, lighting, and tamping will ensure that a small ember centers in the tobacco and doesn’t come in contact with the wood, but uneven packing could cause the flames upon lighting (and re-lighting) to work their way toward one side. Sometimes a condition statement will say “slight out of rounding due to reaming and/or smoking” and this is usually a result of this. Gentle smoking and cake buildup may help the issue.
Reaming: Perhaps I should say ‘uneven reaming’. This is the real culprit for most ‘out of round’ chambers. There are various reamers on the market that evenly and gently scrape the sides of the cake. Sometimes, when a smoker encounters a particular stubborn piece of cake, they might use a knife, rotary sanding drum, or any other tools to scrape and scratch. Unless they really know what they are doing (meaning being careful and even), this can cause serious damage.
In the first photo, you can observe a smooth pipe that has been ‘over reamed’. By looking at the parallel, yet uneven, scratches in the chamber, I can see that this was poorly reamed with a drum sander on a rotary tool. The bowl is slightly larger, and uneven.
In the second photo, you see a sandblasted bowl that has an ‘out of round’ area near the front – most likely the result of using a knife so scrape thick cake near the top. Since this makes the wall thinner in one area, the burn will be uneven and it could really damage the pipe.
Obviously, the pipe in the third photo would never be for sale. It has been reamed extremely unevenly, over reamed, and even funneled. This happens once in a while and the thinner walls simply can’t take the heat, which warped and cracked the bowl.
In conclusion; use proper reaming techniques. Your pipe will last longer (especially if you wipe it out after every few bowls to prevent too much build-up in the first place). Very minor ‘out of rounding’ is often just at the top of the rim (from using a knife) and the knife bouncing will make ‘chatter marks’. Once a pipe gets over or unevenly reamed, there is no going back, and each is reduced in value and condition accordingly with explanations.
Next up: Cracked buttons and tooth marks.
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