A long-standing DadsPipes client contacted me one day with an interesting project. As part of a large and ever-growing collection of pipes, he had acquired a very well used vintage meerschaum pipe carved in the shape of a hand holding a bunch of grapes. The laundry list of needed repairs was extensive – a good overall cleaning, shank cracks, a loose and chewed up stem, and filling in a broken and missing piece of the carving.
Here is the pipe as it looked on arrival in the shop. The pipe is on the larger end of things, with the stummel alone measuring almost 5 inches from front of bowl to the end of the shank and over 3 inches tall. My first impression was that it definitely needed a good cleaning – there was a lot of old wax, dirt and grease packed into the many nook and crannies of the carving. The rim of the bowl was also jammed with carbon.
Unscrewing the stem and Cherrywood shank extension from the stummel revealed two cracks in the shank. Thankfully, they did not penetrate into the mortise, but they still posed a structural risk to the pipe.
The original stem was made of faux horn and featured an orific bit. In most pipes, an orific bit is a hallmark of a pipe made before about 1928, but I’ve seen them used on Bavarian style hunting pipes made much more recently. Also of no help in establishing the pipe’s bona fides was a complete lack of markings on the stummel.
All I really had to go on was the amount of obvious use the pipe had experienced. That dark amber coloration only comes from a lot of smoking. If I had to guess, I’d say that this pipe was made sometime in the early 20th Century, perhaps by a German or Austrian carver familiar with the construction of Bavarian style pipes.
While I was handling the stem, the bark came away from the cherrywood shank extension. I set it aside to reattach later.
The stem was rather firmly attached to the end of the wooden shank extension. Unsure of the connection method used here, I dripped some 99% isopropyl alcohol into the seam between stem face and shank extension and let it sit for a few minutes before gently turning the stem back and forth until the glue released its grip. As it turned out, the shank extension had male threaded tenons on both ends.
With the pipe finally broken down into its component parts, I began to formulate a plan to restore this unique pipe to its former glory, beginning with a good cleaning. Even that basic maintenance would be a job in itself, as these close-up shots reveal. There was a LOT of old wax, grease and general dirt wedged into the carvings.
To get the cleaning started, I used a dental pick to carefully remove the carbon “lava” packed into the rim. A brass tire brush, used lightly, helped clean up the remnants. Not wanting to ream this bowl lest I crack the stummel, I instead used a pen knife and a sanding dowel to clear the chamber of a light amount of carbon.
With the worst of the carbon off of the stummel, I attacked the wax and dirt buildup with the gentlest cleanser – plain clean water. I scrubbed the stummel with a toothbrush to gently soften and lift away the grime of decades, using the dental pick here and there on the more stubborn bits. One may think that plain water might not be effective, but the results below say differently.
Pro Tip: use only enough water to get the job done. Meerschaum is porous and will readily absorb any liquid, which can soften the meerschaum and risk damaging the carvings.
Setting aside the now clean stummel to rest and dry out, I turned my attention back to the stem. Temporarily mounting the stem to the cherrywood shank extension, I used a bit of wood glue to reattach the loose bark.
When the glue had dried, I wrapped some masking tape around the barrel of the shank extension and cut off one of the threaded tenons. Mounting the part in the lathe, I faced the end to make it true and flat before drilling a 5/16″ mortise in the new flat face.
Moving back to the stummel, I used a fair pile of pipe cleaners and cotton swabs dipped judiciously in alcohol to clear the built up tars and debris from the shank and airway.
My plan was to glue the modified cherrywood shank extension permanently into the meerschaum shank. This would both provide a solid substrate to shore up the shank cracks and remove the constant twisting force on the shank exerted on the delicate meerschaum when mounting and unmounting the stem. It was likely that overtightening of the stem in the shank caused the cracks that I now needed to repair.
Before gluing in the cherrywood piece, however, I wanted to wax the meerschaum. Soaking the stummel in melted beeswax with the cherrywood shank extension in place could be problematic, and as you’ll see later, the stummel barely fit in my wax pot to begin with. To both fill the shank cracks and prevent them getting jammed up with wax, I pushed some Mahogany tinted wood filler into the damages areas. While not a perfect match, the reddish filler was pretty close to the colour of the meerschaum.
I allowed the wood filler to cure overnight before gently removing the excess from the surface of the shank. Then it was time to plug both chamber and shank mortise openings in preparation for waxing the meer.
I use a small crock pot to melt pure beeswax. It takes a while to liquify the wax, but I don’t have to worry about the wax cooling and setting prematurely. When the wax was ready, in went the stummel. I let it sit for a few minutes on one side, then turned it over to wax the other side.
After about 5 minutes in the wax, the stummel seemed to have absorbed as much as it could, so I pulled it out of the pot and set it on a towel to cool. As this pic shows, there was a lot of excess wax clinging to the exterior of the stummel. After removing the plugs, I used the heat gun to melt away the excess wax, letting it drip off the pipe back into the wax pot. A soft brush helped get the buildup out of the deeper spots of carving.
And here is the stummel after removing the excess beeswax and hand buffing it with a soft towel. The colour didn’t change dramatically as sometime happens with meerschaum pipes, but the overall impact is just as significant. The meerschaum is clean, shiny and smells gently of honey.
With the work on the stummel now complete, it was time to get the stem sorted out. The pipe’s steward had requested a new acrylic stem, so I dug through my supplies and selected a short Cumberland Acrylic saddle stem as a nod to the original faux horn. Here you can see all four pieces of the puzzle – the refreshed stummel, the modified cherrywood shank extension, a Delrin tenon I made up in house, and the new stem blank.
First up was to glue the tenon into the stem with a bit of two-part epoxy. Note the funneled end of the tenon. This helps smooth out the flow of the smoke through the pipe.
While I had the epoxy mixed, I applied some to the threaded tenon of the cherrywood shank extension and screwed it into the meerschaum shank. I left the pipe to sit until the epoxy had cured, then test fit of the new stem. Looking good!
As you can see if the pic below, the new stem was slightly larger in diameter than the shank extension. I used a few different files to remove the excess material for a good fit, then took the stem blank to the lathe for a bit of modification. I turned the shoulder of the saddle stem to create a faux trim ring at the shank face, replicating the contours of the original stem.
Turning the stem on the lathe left a rather abrupt transition from the saddle to the blade of the stem. I used files and sandpaper to smooth things out. When I was happy with the shape of the new stem, I slid a pipe cleaner through the airway and heated the acrylic over the heat gun until it became pliable enough to introduce the required bend. This pic shows the new stem after bending, with the original stem for reference.
This old meerschaum pipe was now clean and functional. It could be smoked in this condition, but my work here was not quite done. I now had to try to recreate the missing finger. For this job, I decided to use a small amount of epoxy putty. After kneading a wad of putty to thoroughly mix the two parts of the epoxy, I rolled the putty into a somewhat crude sausage shape and pressed it into position on the stump of the finger.
There is open air all around the new finger, so I had to hold it in place until the epoxy took hold. As it firmed up, I began shaping the sausage into more of a finger shape using a dental pick and various needle files and sandpaper. The dental pick proved to be a great tool for carving in the fingernail and smoothing the epoxy in the tight spaces my fingers could not fit.
When I was happy with the look of the new digit, I set the pipe aside to allow the epoxy to cure completely. When I came back to it the next morning, I experimented with stain pens, using a couple different colours to turn the stark grey epoxy to a deep red/brown to complement the colour of the meerschaum. The match isn’t perfect, but a casual observer would not notice anything is amiss.
I finished off the repair by applying a touch of hot beeswax to the new finger to give it the same sheen as the rest of the pipe.
Finally, after many days on the bench and a few tense moments, I took the pipe to the buffer and polished out the last of the sanding marks in the new acrylic Cumberland stem.
The finished pipe has come a long way from where it began. The sad, neglected meerschaum is clean, fresh and shining again after its time in the beeswax. Better yet, the shank cracks are repaired and the modifications made to the shank extension and stem will help ensure that similar damage will not happen again. This vintage meerschaum pipe is ready to take its place in its new steward’s collection and rotation.
I hope you enjoyed following along on this rather technical restoration. Some of the techniques used will be old hat to experienced pipe restorers, while others, like the use of off-the-shelf wood filler, are admittedly more creative. I hope you picked up a trick or two along the way that you can apply to your own repair work.
Until next time, Happy Piping! Here’s the finished pipe.
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