Could chrome cause a health issue on a plated tobacco pipe?

A. I think that a metal pipe is a very poor choice as it will get far hotter to hold than a ceramic or wood or meerschaum pipe will.
As far as the butane lighter goes, no problem as the pipe will never attain the temp of the lighter. It takes more heat than the lighter is capable of and it will be for a few seconds only.

A. Copper can cause dermatitis, nickel definitely can and is widely banned from applications in contact with skin. Chrome plating is commonly porous, which is partly why we usually have a nickel underplate.
All of which, of course, is insignificant compared to inhaling the known carcinogenic fumes of tobacco.

A. POISON IS POISON THOUGH IT COMES FROM A GOLDEN CUP.

A. Hi Peter. My bet is that the screens are in fact either stainless steel or unplated brass despite the housing holding them being nickel-chrome plated brass.

Although stainless steel is a more expensive material than brass, by the time you nickel plate, then chrome plate the fine wire that the screen is made of, it probably costs more than stainless ... and the first few brands I googled were either stainless or plain brass.

Regards,

A. Hi. Chrome plating is used on knives, serving spoons, bar equipment, etc., so I think it should not be a hazard. But any time you use something for a purpose for which it was not intended, everyone is only guessing what the designer had in mind and made allowance for; and there are no epidemiologists tracking who is using the items in various unintended ways.

It takes us weeks to track down food poisoning causes through a process of elimination: "10000 people ate the meatloaf, so that's not it; 9800 ate the jello ... maybe it's Romaine lettuce from Northern California?"

"What's causing all these illnesses in Flint? We changed the water supply but we tested it a hundred times in the lab, so that's one thing we're sure it's not!" So if some strange interaction between some grade of pot smoke and Danco 36262"B" chrome plated brass faucet strainers did occur, who would possibly know in a reasonable time frame :-(

Regards,

A. In my opinion, this is one of those situations where the ease of procuring a known-safe option (stainless) makes answering the question- of whether chrome plate is safe when exposed to higher temperatures- simply a matter of curiosity rather than necessity, and I tend to agree with Ted here. Although I admit I am also curious! I've seen chrome plate discolor at temps typical of a motorcycle exhaust pipe, but whether there is any offgassing associated... well, that's an interesting question.
With the accessibility of a wide range of options from online vendors, you can simply avoid the issue entirely. I found myself in the opposite situation recently with a missing aerator on a non-standard sink faucet, and bought a pack of 25 stainless handpipe screens off Amazon for less than the price of a single chromed one at the local hardware store, which wouldn't have fit anyway... it's certainly worth a gander. Cheers to your health!

As Rachel implies, you can readily get 50-120 handpipe screens in brass, steel, or stainless at a cost of something like 5¢ to 10¢ each. These are sold for the purpose; that sounds more practical than repeated letters and phone calls to a manufacturer of sink strainers about their applicability to pot pipes. Have a toke and chill :-)

Luck & Regards,

A. I'm gonna go ahead and say any brass screen, plated or otherwise is not good for smoking weed.
Brass contains zinc and it is toxic when melted.
This is not a problem with tobacco because you puff away after it is lit and it never reaches brass melting temperatures.
With weed you hold the lighter over it while you toke until the bowl is cashed out.
This process means the butane flame can easily bring the brass beyond melting temperatures and then you are poisoning yourself with zinc.
Chrome plating is not going to stop this and will likely simply crack on the surfaces of brass that is molten so it's not going to contain the zinc.

A. Hi Robby. Thanks for the warning, but zinc is not toxic -- it's a vital micronutrient. Many people take zinc supplements, especially for their cold-easing power.

The issue for welders is that at welding temperatures the zinc will vaporize into white clouds of zinc and a welder can inhale an overdose.

The melting point of brass is over twice the melting point of zinc on the F and C scales. Pot is still illegal in New Jersey for a few more months and I'm not familiar with the technique you describe, and whether it can actually reach the 1700 °F melting point of brass or the vaporization point of zinc or brass but it doesn't sound likely to me.

Regards,