Tampers (Common Items)

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John
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I currently use a Czech tool to tamp my pipes, but don't like that the face of the tamper is not completely round and a bit small. I've seen those pipe nails which made me wonder if there are any other common household items that you guys have used and liked.
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Maynard
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My son plays golf so I use golf tee’s 90% of the time.
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Fr_Tom
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John wrote: ↑Sun Nov 11, 2018 11:44 pm I currently use a Czech tool to tamp my pipes, but don't like that the face of the tamper is not completely round and a bit small. I've seen those pipe nails which made me wonder if there are any other common household items that you guys have used and liked.
Golf tees are good. I have seen people use a regular nail. I seem to do a lot of tamping with either a Chinese pipe nail or my finger.
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9 Iron
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I use one of these 99% of the time. They’re fairly common and I always seem to have one on me.

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Kevin Keith
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I use a golf tee. Easy and they are always around.
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Houtenziel
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I've used the bottom end of my Old Timer pen knife, a thimble, a framing nail, a deck screw, a twig with a flat end, a 1/2" dowel, and an old AA battery(not recommended). On occasion I will just use my bare finger if I can't find my pipe nail. Bare fingers are no fun to tamp down a charring light with though.
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John
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houtenziel wrote: ↑Mon Nov 12, 2018 8:18 am I've used the bottom end of my Old Timer pen knife, a thimble, a framing nail, a deck screw, a twig with a flat end, a 1/2" dowel, and an old AA battery(not recommended). On occasion I will just use my bare finger if I can't find my pipe nail. Bare fingers are no fun to tamp down a charring light with though.
I like the 1/2" dowel idea. I have some spare dowel rod in the gararge from the pipe rack I just made. Thanks everyone!
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John
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Thanks for the dowel rod idea. Here's what I made out of one tonight.
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Houtenziel
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Cool! Way fancier than the one I used, which was basically just a 3" section of scrap dowel :)
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Houtenziel
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While not necessarily the most common item, I had a friend who used a valve out of an old motorcycle engine as a tamper. That was probably the most manly/cool tamper ever.
“To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
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