caudio51 said:
What do you guys use to clean the pipe?
there's always the salt/alcohol method. put a pipe cleaner in the pipe, fill the bowl with salt, add about 10 eye dropper drops of "everclear" or something with very high alcohol content, let it sit for 24 hours, remove excess salt (it will be brown), give the pipe a few days rest, and you should be good to go.
that is the last step, after you do the scraping of excess cake, cleaning the bit, etc.
there's also the "boiling" method most professionals use, with a "retort". they place a cotton ball in the top of the bowl.. put some alcohol in the retort (a glass test tube like thing), connect it to the stem of the pipe, heat the alcohol to boiling, it goes up the stem and into the bowl, remove from heat, the alcohol comes back into the retort (a little dirtier), repeat about 10 times... supposedly is the best way to clean a pipe. i just had 2 of them done like this by my local B&M, waiting to get them back (a mastro de paja and a da vinci).