After each smoke I take this

http://www.smokingpipes.com/accessor...oduct_id=93243

and scrape the inside to rid it of any extra residue.

I wouldn't say I had elbow grease force but I still used it.

Is this bad practice?
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To put it bluntly, yes. Especially if you don't have a cake on the sides of the bowl. You run the risk of scraping into the wood and damaging the bowl itself. To clean out the inside of your bowl after a smoke, use the scoop to pull out the extra tobacco/ash and then fold a pipe cleaner with a loop at the end(or just in half if you want to reuse the same one you cleaned the stem with), and whisk it around in there to take out any loose ash.
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Guess I'll be inspecting the bowl tonight. =/
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I usually let it cool and use my finger so that I'm not taking off the cake.
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