Turbocat’s Meerschaum Rehab Program

I miss the Sears of old in general, not just Craftsman tools as they used to be.

Do you plan on smoking it?

Do you have the beginnings of a plan for repairing the flexible stem?

Inspired by enjoying seeing what people are restoring, replacing and creating on various threads, especially Silver’s Restorations and Sawdust Journal among many, I decided to start this thread.

I will post my adventures in meerschaum pipe restoration, antique, vintage and fairly new alike from my collection that I plan on putting back into service. I hope you enjoy looking at the pipes and I hope that I may be able to share some tips that took me years of trial and error experimentation to develop that might help you if you have meerschaum pipes. If there is interest, I will show more details of specific steps in the future.

As a side note, I think it is a mistake to restore an antique meerschaum pipe beyond a basic cleaning and possibly polishing of metal parts if the pipe is for collection and display only. Also, restoration can often reduce the value and desirability of a pipe. Meerschaums can smoke a lot, forever, if maintained and antique meerschaum pipes show a chronology of tobacco juice, smoke, fire and their owner’s love or neglect over every day of their existence and I believe that’s worth collecting as much as the pipes themselves.

Here’s a pipe to kick this off-

This is a pipe that I plan on smoking so I decided to do a moderate restoration on it. My goal isn’t to erase its prior use, but to make it something I will enjoy using. I consider this a restoration rather than full maintenance of cleaning and waxing since I ended up removing some meerschaum and amber.







This is a large pipe, 9 1/2 inches long. I believe this pipe dates to the 1890’s. There is no maker’s information on it or the case remaining. I’m assuming it’s English since I bought it in a collection from England and for one other reason. It’s obvious this pipe was broken at some point. The stem was broken off and the shank was cracked where the stem screwed in. It was repaired with a new stem and a sterling silver repair band was fitted. The hallmark on the band is British from, I believe, 1902. The replacement stem is amber and was not fully finished by whomever did the repair. It’s just slightly larger in diameter than it should be and still had some tool marks on it and it wasn’t fully shaped.

I started with the stem. I couldn’t get decent before pictures that showed details of the issues. I worked it by hand with 30 micron polishing paper to slowly remove material and then worked it with finer grades of polishing paper down to 1 micron for the final polishing. Then I polished the silver repair band. This is the finished result.



Next I cleaned the pipe internally with 99% isopropyl alcohol and then sanded the cake out of the bowl starting with a piece of flexible coarse stripping pad, the type used for stripping paint. Then I finished sanding with 180 grit sandpaper. I didn’t bother trying to remove the cake down to meerschaum, but close.

Next I stripped the wax off of the pipe starting with 99% isopropyl alcohol and then with Acetone, leaving this.



Then I reworked the rim of the bowl. Someone had, in the distant past, scraped off the carbon with a knife and the rim was not totally level. I sanded it level using 320 grit sandpaper, then 30 micron polishing paper and finished it with 15 micron. That stain on the edge ran deep, so it stays.



Then I worked the entire surface of the pipe with 30 micron polishing paper to take it down enough to get rid of the majority of the surface scratches and imbedded dirt. I didn’t do much to the shank. It had few scratches, so just enough to remove dirt. When that was finished, I did a final polishing with 15 micron paper. Then I waxed it. Two coats of Trewax. I have settled on using this wax for my pipes after a lot of experimenting, the reasons are too involved to explain here. Here is the finished pipe.

Your skill with meers is really something to see; I've enjoyed following this thread.

Neat to hear about the white spot on the shank, no experience with meers so I would have expected that to be a bigger problem. The stem compliments the coloring of the pipe really well.

Once again, I think it looks 100% better without the "patina" that collectors (of anything, really) value so much. Plus, it's interesting to see someone who knows what they're doing with a specialized material apply their skill.

Any ideas on repairing cracks in a meer lining for a bowl. I got a hairline sideways crack in the bowl lining of a little ML italian sitter I wanna shore up/ full repair if able