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Troubleshooting the Perfect Draw

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The Perfect Draw has salvaged many cigars for me. And made good cigars great cigars. However, there are times when the tool creates a tiny wind tunnel effect. The end result of this is a cigar that draws little smoke and makes a hard red cherry. I’ve tossed more than one cigar that draws fine but is frustratingly smokeless due to this.
Has anyone else experienced this?
 

icehog3

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I have not, my biggest foul has been piercing a couple wrappers on small RG cigars. Not sure what advice I could give regarding your experience. Crazy that you've experienced it multiple times as well.
 
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I’ve experienced the wind tunnel effect you’re describing occasionally. It only happens when I really go deep with the tool or give it multiple passes and clear too much material. I try to use the tool as little as possible and only go and inch at most into the cap end. If the draw is still not acceptable I’ll put it back and pick something else, hoping some more rest will open them up. If I do spark one up and it performs as you describe, it usually gets tossed. One time I cut a couple inches off and relit and the it smoked much better, but I haven’t seen consistent results doing that.
 
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I understand that to get those pictures of incredibly long ash a wire is often inserted into the cigar. I wonder if you could do the same thing from the cap end, plugging the hole.
 

Cigar Fan 29

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Hi guys,

For those who don’t know me, I’m Rod Kurthy, the creator of the PerfecDraw.

This is the first time I’ve seen or heard a discussion about this topic. Nobody’s ever contacted me to ask about it. But I too have had this happen. Only rarely, but I have dealt with it a few times.

There is no question about what is going on when this does happen. It’s based on physics, and as a research scientist, I always go back to science. Air flow will follow the path of least resistance. So we know that, in these cases, there is a pathway through the cigar with less resistance to air, so as you draw air through the cigar, the burning air is brought mostly through that path of least resistance, and causes more burning inside that path, resulting in a tunnel.

So we know what’s happening. The guesswork comes when trying to figure out why we have, not only a path of least resistance, but such high resistance in all other areas of the filler tobacco.

Most of us here have found that this is quite a rare occasion. There are reasons why we do not find tunneling very often when using the PerfecDraw:
  • I designed the PerfecDraw with circular blades that have undercuts, resulting in very sharp knife edges of approximately 28 – 30 degrees, just like a European or American chef’s knife. So these blades are intended to “cut” tobacco as you pull the PerfecDraw out of the cigar.
  • I also created three longitudinal channels cut through the blades. This resulted in creating new edges where the channel cuts through a blade, and these edges too are very sharp. But they are only a 90-degree angle. So being sharp, they grab tobacco, but only being 90 degrees, they “pull” tobacco instead of cutting it. So as you pull the PerfecDraw out of your cigar, these channels are intended to “pull” on the surrounding tobacco, slightly loosening it up.
  • Cigars are humidified. Some like the humidity of their cigars to be as low as maybe 62%, while others like a full 70%, and anywhere in-between. Humidity is water. The burning ember of the cigar is hot, causing the moisture in the tobacco to become steam. As you draw on your cigar, you’re drawing air, smoke and steam up into the cigar. That steam is absorbed by the remaining filler tobacco inside the cigar, causing the filler tobacco to quickly absorb more moisture as you’re smoking. As tobacco absorbs moisture, it swells a little. This swelling, combined with the fact that the “tobacco pulling channels” of the PerfecDraw has loosened up the surrounding tobacco a little, results in the center channel closing. So now you have a more uniform filler tobacco with less resistance to the draw because the PerfecDraw has removed some tobacco.

Above is what happens, in my experience, nearly every time. But again, there are those very few times that I too find some tunneling happening. And I too wonder why in those cases.

Certainly, the suggestion of rolling the cigar in your fingers, in an attempt to spread out the tobacco evenly within the binder/wrapper is a logical thing to do. And I know that I’ve found that sometimes that does the trick. But I’ve also noticed that sometimes it doesn’t work.

I believe the point is that if the tobacco was unable to follow the normal routine of swelling and filling in any looser channel, something’s going on with the filler tobacco that may resist spreading apart. I don’t know how many have ever deconstructed cigars. I sometimes do that when I come across a bad cigar, or sometimes just due to curiosity. Most of the time I find that the filler leaves all almost fall apart as I cut open the binder. But occasionally I find that the tobacco leaves inside are sort of lumped, or stuck, together. It’s more difficult to pull the filler leaves apart, whereas most cigars have filler leaves that almost fall apart themselves upon opening up the cigar.

My personal opinion is that, for some reason, when we do find that rare case of tunneling, it’s because that cigar is one where the leaves inside are virtually stuck, or almost “glued” together, so they can’t separate. That could be due to sugars and oils in certain tobacco leaves that cause them to adhere to each other more. Or some other unknown reason.

Now… for anyone who sees this happening more often than just rarely… I believe there are three possible reasons:
  • There may be one particular brand of cigar that you smoke that is more susceptible to what we might call “lumping” of the filler tobacco. If you’re finding that your tunneling problems are most often with one brand of cigar, you could think of not using that brand.
  • You may be using the PerfecDraw improperly. When you insert the PerfecDraw, while inserting it you should be either rotating it or “watch winding” it back and forth. This allows the pointed, flattened tip to sort of “chew up” the tobacco as it’s inserted, to prevent expansion of the tobacco, which could expand the cigar and crack the wrapper. But once you have it to the proper depth, you should STOP ROTATING it, and pull straight out. Some incorrectly assume they should continue rotating and rotating the PerfecDraw after it is to depth, and even continue rotating as they pull the shaft out of the cigar. When continuously rotating, it clogs up the blades and tobacco pulling channels, so you do not pull on the surrounding tobacco. In other words, it’s more likely to leave more of a “hole” without loosening up the surrounding tobacco. So just be sure – rotate on the way in…no rotating when you pull the PerfecDraw out.
  • Or maybe you’re simply unlucky with the cigars you smoke.

So those are my thoughts.

Have a great holiday season everyone – and for you old farts like me, stay safe from the plague.

Rod
 
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Hi guys,

For those who don’t know me, I’m Rod Kurthy, the creator of the PerfecDraw.

This is the first time I’ve seen or heard a discussion about this topic. Nobody’s ever contacted me to ask about it. But I too have had this happen. Only rarely, but I have dealt with it a few times.
It's the exception, not the rule, and I have no hard scientific data to definitively link the "tunneling" issue to the tool. Those sticks may have smoked that way regardless. My experience with the perfecdraw is mostly positive.
 
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Personally, after some 30+ years of smoking cigars, I was reluctant to purchase anything... a metal shishkabob skewer worked. A few plugged CCs that never opened called my hand and I broke down and bought one. In the cigar world, this one tool has been amazing, allowing me to smoke previously (and stored till help arrived) cigars. I have not had this phenomenon happen.

Rod, I'd like to say, "Thanks!" I pray that this tunneling effect never happens to me.

For when it does happen, I will remember to gently massage the cigar to move things around a bit.

This has been enlightening.

Peace of the Lord be with you.
 
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By the way, here is a cigar the Perfect Draw could not save (yes, I have had that problem 2X), a Cohiba Lancero. Only Cubans could roll a cigar that, using the PD it still had the draw of a telephone pole. Yes, I inserted the PD until the cherry moved (2X on different trajectories - with prayers ascending in great expectation) and still nothing - not even tunneling.

 
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Interesting post, Rod. Before reading it, I would sometimes twist the tool when exiting. No more. However, even when I twisted it when pulling it out it still worked almost always. Great tool. I have two...one for the patio when my wife isn't home, and one for the garage when she is. :giggle:

By the way, the first one was purchased when they first came out, and the second one was purchased recently. The newer version has some nice updates...the ridged cap is easier to unscrew and the screw cap at the bottom of the tool is handy as well. It's nice to see a product that is actually better after an "update."
 
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