Tuning And Maintaining Leather Hoses (tundora/khalil Mamoun...)

[cymptom]

Well I just spent a good 25 minutes scraping up this old post by Tangiers about how to tweak leather hoses so that they are airtight. The original post is found here: http://www.hookahforum.com/index.php?showt...154&hl=tape

Tuning leather hoses:

Leather hoses are made of three pieces, the long center section (known as the "hose part"), the stem piece (The piece that fits into the hookah and into the smaller end of the hose part, and the head piece (The end you smoke out of). The glycerine in tobacco doen't evaporate, yet it still makes wood swell as it is absorbed. This is what kills most wooden ended hoses. Also, the harsh, metallic buildup in metallic cased tips (Head pieces). In a non-washable, non-leather hoses metal cased head pieces are often the cause of death. Also, rust buildup.

With leather hoses, you can remove the head and stem piece, clean them out weekly, and the hose will last a long, long time. Until a little glycerine gets absorbed and swells the joints slightly, the hose is actually "looser" than it will be in its maturity.

Using electrical tape, put tape on the inner tapers between the stem and head pieces and the hose section. Don't put the tape too close to the wet hole that smoke travel down, because the tape tends to slip down, covering the hole. Even though your hose's stem and/or head piece might fit tightly, you still want to put at least one revolution of electrical tape on there, because electrical tape makes a better seal than naked wood. [Its better to wrap up and down than to wrap the same circle several times.]

As time marches on, the hose will get tighter and tighter until it is perfect. Clean your stem and head piece out weekly and replace electrical tape in joints as needed (when they slip down and cover the wet hole, where the smoke travels through). An inexplicable tightness in the draw that can be erratic or constant might be attributable to loose electrical tape. Also, sometimes the leather, saturated with glycerine, tears and becomes loose, making for a problem in the ends of the hose piece. Take a pair of needle nose pliers and remove the loose material. You actually will be tearing some of the insides out of your hose, a little anyways, but don't freak.