Ron, on the subject of cobs... I got one at the local drugstore, just a plain old mm... the thing burned hotter than a firecracker with all the tobacco I tried and nothing would stay lit... I figured I had to be doing something wrong...
then I remembered I had an old dr grabow sitting in my desk from 3 or 4 years ago when I dabbled in pipes a bit... I dug it out, cleaned it up a bit and tried it out... it was much, much cooler, and everything is smoking much better, staying lit much better in it than in the cob...
I know grabow's are nothing special and a lot of people would recommend a cob over a grabow... is it possible the cob I got was just defective in some way? do you recommend I get another cob and try it out?
Also, I hear you're making some pretty sweet custom pipe lighters these days and would love to put in a special order...