Smoking pipes

[Wiley]

Do ya'll think dogwood (cornus florida) would make a good pipe? I've got some extra pieces laying around waiting on them to adequately season and have been thinking of making a pipe or two from it. I really like this wood, real tight grained, hard enough to be polished very smooth. If it won't make a good pipe I can come up with other stuff to do with it. Looked around on the internet and couldn't find too many examples of pipes made from dogwood so I thought I'd ask.

[RedBear1313]

wood that will make a good pipe needs to be both super dense and non poisonous.

that's why they use the burls of the briar bush.

it's the tannins in some woods that are poisonous.

[Wiley]

It's definitely dense, almost as dense as briar burl. As far as I know it's non poisonous. I do know it contains at least enough tannin to react with iron and turn dark. Might soak it in water for a long time and attempt to leech as much tannin out of it as I can if it's any real concern.

[RedBear1313]

since i'm no chemist I can't say how to determine the poison level.  (i can't say the amount of tannins directly correlates with the amount of poison)

I think it just depends on the type of tannin.

I used to work in cabinetry and I know some exotic and spalted woods are poisonous to breathe the dust or smoke out of.

like rosewood, prolly cocobola.

and spalted means that it fell, began to rot, then became petrified.

[Wiley]

I know what spalting is. It's a few different kinds of fungus eating away at the wood. Personification is a different thing entirely, it is a process that occurs to wood in an anerobic enviroment like a it fell down in a bog. Without air to nourish most of the fungus and bacteria that normally break wood down, it petrifies, slowly turning itself into something of a fossil over the course of thousands of years.

As far as woods go, dogwood is listed as having no adverse health effects in terms of working with it. Probably a good sign it will make a good pipe. A good number of domestic woods are as nasty as some of the exotics, I like to look up the woods i'm working with on wood-database, they have a pretty good list of the commonly used woods and their effects on the body.