Cigar Surgery

[rhcolbert]

I'm sure this has been brought up, but no idea how to search for it.

anyone ever cut off a significant portion of a damaged cigar to salvage it? How were your results when smoking?

ive got about 7 I just did some serious amputations on to save them from the spread of infection. Some punch India regional releases that were long as hell wrapped in silver foil. Fakkin feet were shot  to hell and split really far up. 

Others were some RA Asian RE that are some kinda figudaro. Splitting where the feet tapered to the widest part.

Smoking the punch right now. It's actually WAY better than I remember the full size being, but they do have several years age now. I think I let them set a while hoping they would fix themselves before I gave in to Victorian area surgery!!

[JohnS]

The most likely reason why the feet of your cigars have split is due to a significant change in temperature and/or relative humidity where they are stored (or have been stored). Personally, I wouldn't be inclined to trim the feet for this reason, rather, I'd trim a cigar if it's plugged, or at the head if I'm smoking in humid conditions and the moisture has built up, thus affecting the taste of the cigar.

[Smallclub]

I have cut many churchills and double corona that were obviously overfilled (=plugged) in two halves with great success. It takes some vegetal glue to prevent the wrapper of the foot side half to peel off. You end  up with 2 smokable mini robustos…

[rhcolbert]

Being all REs I think they went thru hell before they made it to my door.  Only cigsrs I own that had the issues. Bulk of both boxes was fine, these 7 sticks were just utter shite.

Wish it was minor issues, shoulda taken a pic of how shit they looked. 

[Notsocleaver]

If you are careful, you can peel the top layer of the triple cap off of most cigars and use them as little bandages for you split feet. Just glue them on with pectin. They will hold the wrapper together and keep the cigar from splitting further as you smoke it.

[Smallclub]

4 minutes ago, Notsocleaver said:

If you are careful, you can peel the top layer of the triple cap off of most cigars and use them as little bandages for you split feet.

Yes. You can use rolling paper as well.

[seattledude]

I had this one today. Poor thing got damaged during shipping and was cracked all the way up to the middle.

I have very little hope, but to my surprise it smoked fine (didnt look very good during the process) and binder held up. Was great smoke!

[Drguano]

Last week I had an SLR DC with some age that looked like hell but smoked fine with no help at all.

[Mycroft]

I just smoked a cigar that I accidentally trod on. Draw was a bit messed up but a good smoke all the same. 

[Texwrangler]

I was given a Parti Lusi last month.   I never have time for a 2 hour smoke, life just doesn't like me enough to allow me that much 'enjoyable' time.    So I cut it right in half and smoked the foot end first.   No problem at all with the wrapper and it smoked great and lasted about 45 minutes.   Looking forward to finishing off the other half soon.   I know this doesn't count as surgery, but now I get to enjoy the cc twice :-).

[JR Kipling]

I use cigar glue. I received some cigars thrown together in a single plastic bag & some had damaged wrappers. (Please use those cigar bags with individual slots to protect them !) If the cigar glue doesn't do the job, I can smoke the leaf in a pipe. It's not the same as smoking a cigar, but a cob pipe adds a little sweetness to the smoke that is quite nice. So, for me, it's very rare when a good cigar is completely lost.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[maxcjs0101]

On 2/25/2017 at 11:07 AM, seattledude said:

I had this one today. Poor thing got damaged during shipping and was cracked all the way up to the middle.

I have very little hope, but to my surprise it smoked fine (didnt look very good during the process) and binder held up. Was great smoke!

I've had this issue before and it was not because of damage during shipping.

I concluded that when the box was opened for inspection, the blade used actually damaged the cigar.  

[BuzzArd]

23 minutes ago, maxcjs0101 said:

I've had this issue before and it was not because of damage during shipping.

I concluded that when the box was opened for inspection, the blade used actually damaged the cigar.  

Had four boxes arrive like that last summer. None were smokeable drawing through the side rather than the lit foot.  Disappointing, but the vendor made good.  

Used a couple for photo shoots and photoshopped the damage.  Nice to have a prop I didn't have to worry about. 

[LordAnubis]

Im yet to come across a cigar that has been damaged so much that it was unsmokable. One time i have a cigar split in the middle of the cigar, through the binder. When you try to draw the air would come in from there. SO i just moved the band over that section and it smoked fine. Ask some of the London boys... i've smoked some cigars that burst into mushrooms before

[maxcjs0101]

18 minutes ago, LordAnubis said:

Im yet to come across a cigar that has been damaged so much that it was unsmokable. One time i have a cigar split in the middle of the cigar, through the binder. When you try to draw the air would come in from there. SO i just moved the band over that section and it smoked fine. Ask some of the London boys... i've smoked some cigars that burst into mushrooms before

Finally someone can take the cheapskate crown from me

[polarbear]

If I'm in a pinch, I've repaired really split wrappers with RYO cigarette papers before
Worked well and I noticed no major difference in profile when the heat hit the paper

Most of the time I will cut up some POS NC and some of its wrapper to patch a decent CC with cigar glue if required  

[canadianbeaver]

We use tiniest bits o honey, ummm, honey.