Tag Archives: waxing a meerschaum bowl

Breathing New Life into a Well Seasoned Peterson’s Meerschaum Bent Pipe

by Steve Laug

The next pipe I have chosen to work on is a smooth finished, well patinaed Peterson’s African Block Meerschaum pipe. This one is a Bent Meerschaum pipe in a classic Peterson’s Bent Billiard shape. The rim top is flumed in the style of the 60s and 70s. Jeff and I are unclear where we picked this one up. Our best guess was we found it during a pipe hunt in November, 2024 somewhere along the Oregon Coast. This rich butterscotch and golden coloured patina on the bowl and shank adds a touch of depth to the pipe. The pipe was dirty with grime ground into the finish on the pipe. It was thick and oily feeling to touch. The contrast on the meer of the rich colouration/patina on the bowl and shank with the flumed top made a beautiful pipe. It had nicks and chips in the outer edge of the bowl. The inner edge looked very good. The bowl had a moderate cake and there was lava on the rim top and inner edge of the bowl. The Sterling Silver ferrule is oxidized and dirty. It is stamped Peterson’s [over] Dublin followed by Sterling [over] Silver. On the underside are three hallmark stamps – 1. Seated Hibernia (Ireland) 2. The Harp (symbol for the silver quality) 3. The upper-case italic letter “E” for the date of the pipe. The stem was in quite good condition with minimal oxidation, minor debris in the edge of the button and light tooth chatter on the top and underside on and near the button. I took photos of the pipe before I started my cleanup work. They tell the story and give a glimpse of the pipe. I took photos of the rim top and stem to show the general condition of the pipe. The bowl is moderately caked and the rim top and edges have lava overflowing on to them. The stem is dirty, lightly oxidized and has light tooth marks on the top and underside near the button.I took photos of the Sterling Silver ferrule to show the stamping around it. You can see that it reads as noted above. I did not capture the hallmarks on the underside. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the parts of the pipe to give a sense of the proportion of the pipe. I took some time to remind myself of the provenance of these Peterson’s Dublin Meerschaum pipes. I am pretty sure the pipe was made by the Laxey Pipe Ltd. on the Isle of Man for Peterson’s in Ireland (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Laxey_Pipes_Ltd). I quote from the Pipedia article in full:

Laxey Pipe Ltd. resided in a historical 19th century four-storey Man stone building at The Quay, Old Laxey, Isle of Man, which thankfully has been preserved. The company specialized in the production of Meerschaum Pipes using the Meerschaum mined by the Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation in the Amboseli basin in Tanganyika (since 1964 part of the United Republic of Tanzania). Please note: you may often find names like “Manx Pipes Ltd.”, “Man Pipe Co.” and others more, but there is no indication of another Isle of Man pipe producer other than Laxey Pipe Ltd. at any time!

Laxey Pipe Ltd. marketed own brands like “Manxpipe”, “Manxman”, “Manxland” e.c. Names like “John Bull”, “White Knight” (unwaxed), “Domino” (black, or lined) indicated some shapes / colours of Laxey’s own series. The stems either showed the astronomical sign for “male” or “man” (circle + arrow), or the crest of the Isle of Man, the 3-legged X in a circle. Manxpipes and Laxey’s other brands were available through pipe retailers in general, but also were sold (mainly) to tourists through their own shop in Laxey.

Furthermore Laxey Pipe Ltd. manufactured the meer bowls for Peterson, Barling, Nørding and others from the later 1960’s until 2001. Man Pipe e.g. was a brand distributed by Comoy’s. The bowls usually showed no nomenclature indicating the orderer. “Genuine Block Meerschaum” was engraved frequently. Often, just the stems were different, while bowls were the same.

Supply of meer from East Africa run out (Kenya / Tanzania exhausted, Somalia inaccessible), and thus the last Laxey meers were supplied to trade in May, 2001. Laxey Pipe Ltd. tried to survive continuing with briar pipes – mainly in the Danish style -, but to no success. It closed down business in July, 2002.

As noted above the silver is stamped Peterson’s [over] Dublin followed by Sterling [over] Silver. On the underside are three hallmark stamps – 1. Seated Hibernia (Ireland) 2. The Harp (symbol for the silver quality) 3. The upper case letter “E” for the date of the pipe. I have included the Peterson’s Hallmark chart below as it is a very helpful tool that I have used repeatedly to date my Peterson pipes.I found a larger photo of the letter section of the above chart. The letter stamp is a upper case italic “E” which dates the pipe to 1990. I know that the pipe was made on the Isle of Man by Laxey Pipe Ltd. out of African Meerschaum. It was made for export for Peterson’s of Dublin. From the hallmarks on the silver I know that the pipe (or at least the silver) was made in 1990. The flumed top on the bowl seems to make it older and maybe it is but the silver is definitely from 1990. That was as much as I could figure out.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and cleaned the reaming up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I sanded the walls smooth with some 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. It looked much better. It was smooth to touch. I scraped the rim top with the edge of the Savinelli Fitsall to remove the lava build up. I cleaned out the stinky smelling tobacco oils and tars in the shank and the airway in the stem. I used 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners and was able to remove the debris and the stench.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap. I scrubbed the inside of the bowl as well to remove more of the oils and build up there. I rinsed it off with warm running water and dried it with a soft towel. When I dried it off it was dull and a bit lifeless looking. The finish was spotty so I gave it a quick buff with a cotton cloth. It looked much better and the rim top looked clean. I touched up the nicks on the rim top and outer edge with a black stain pen. I had decided to leave them and not sand or remove them. It blended them in much better.I gave the meer a quick buff and then polished the Sterling Silver ferrule with a jeweller’s cloth to shine and slow down the process of oxidation. The ferrule really looks good even with a few small dents in the surface remaining. It has quite a nice sheen. I polished the bowl on the buffer with Blue Diamond polish and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to further polish it. I gave it multiple coats of Clapham’s Beeswax/Carnauba Wax and once it dried I had buffed it once again and gave it a quick buff with a clean buffing pad. I set the bowl aside and turned to work on the stem. I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with Obsidian Oil. It really began to take on a shine.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped the stem down a final time with Obsidian Oil once again and set it aside to dry. As usual at this point in the restoration process I am excited to be on the homestretch. I look forward to the final look when it is put back together, polished and waxed. I put the bowl and stem of this Peterson’s Meerschaum back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the meerschaum and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Clapham’s Beeswax/Carnauba Wax mixture and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The meerschaum has a rich glow with the wax and polish. The shiny black vulcanite stem is a beautiful contrast to the rich patina of the bowl and the polished silver ferrule. This Peterson’s meerschaum was made by the Laxey Pipe Ltd. on the Isle of Mann. The heavily patinaed finish on this pipe made it another fun pipe to work. It really is a quite stunning pipe whose shape and finish make it stand out. The thick/chubby shank makes it a very comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 59 grams/2.08 ounces. It is a beautiful pipe and one that will be on the Irish Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store soon. If you are interested in adding it to your collection let me know. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this pipe. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog.

Replacing a Broken Tenon & Restoring a Family Heirloom Pioneer Meerschaum

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Blog by Steve Laug

While I was travelling in Nepal I was contacted by a fellow here in Vancouver about restoring a pipe that had originally belonged to his grandfather. We planned on getting together once I was home. I called and within a few hours he was at the door with the pipe. We are dog sitting my daughter’s dog Frank and he rang the alarm to let us know someone was at the door. I met him on the porch and looked over the pipe. He lovingly took it out of his pocket and showed me the hard case in his hands. It was a good looking black hard case that was in good condition with a few wear marks on the surface. Little did I know what I was getting into with this restoration.He handed it to me and I opened the case. This is what I saw. The case bore a Pioneer Genuine Block Meerschaum label on the inside of the cover. It had the classic Pioneer covered wagon logo below the words. The bowl had some colour/patina on the shank and bowl. The rim top was dirty with tars. There were some small cracks in the shank ahead of the Sterling Silver band on it. The band was oxidized and dirty with black tarnish. The stem was acrylic. The bone tenon was snapped off in the shank but the stem end was clean and open threads. The bowl was dirty as was the inside of the stem.I took the pipe in to work on. I would call the owner once I had finished it. I had a few pipes in the queue ahead of it so I was slow getting started. Between that and the shortened attention span due to the jet lag of many time changes on the journey home I did not start working on it until Friday, March 1. I took it out of the case and brought it to the table. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition at this point. You can see the grime and dirt ground into the bowls sides and heel. Looking carefully at the left side where the shank joins the bowl there appears to be some signs of small cracks. The bowl also had some carved flowers on the bowl side on the right side of the bowl.I took photos of the rim top and bowl to show the build up of tars and oils on the top and edges. You can also see the snapped tenon in the photos below.I took a photo of the heel of the bowl to show the developing patina on the curves of the bowl bottom. It is a pretty pipe.I tried to loosen the broken bone tenon with a little alcohol around the edge of the tenon and the mortise. I put the alcohol in with an ear syringe. I examined it and found that the tenon had been glued in place. There was a thick coat of glue on the tenon and oozing out at the top of the mortise. I examined it and saw a lot of small hairline cracks in the shank coming from under the band. I think that when the shank cracked many years ago someone had glued the tenon in the shank to strengthen the shank. The fact that the tenon was glued made the next steps tricky. I was worried that if I drilled it out I might crack the shank worse. I put a bit in the drill and carefully turned the bowl onto several different drill bits by hand. I was able to remove some of the tenon but I stopped after the 11/64^th drill bit. My concern was that if I went any further I would break the shank.I stopped the drilling and worked on the rest of the tenon with hand files. It was slow and tedious work to remove the glued remnants of the bit from the shank. I used round, oval and half circle files to open the mortise and thin down the tenon pieces. I spent over eight hours slowly and carefully filing out the broken tenon and opening the shank for the new tenon. I polished the meerschaum bowl and shank with micromesh sanding pads to minimize the scratches. I was able to polish out many of them. There was no way to remove all of them without damaging the shape of the bowl. I opted to leave them as they are a part of the pipe’s story. I used 1500-12000 grit sanding pads to smooth it out and polish the meerschaum and the silver band. Each sanding pad brought more shine to the surface of the bowl and shank. I waxed the bowl with Clapham’s Beeswax/Carnauba mix. I covered the bowl and the shank with the wax and once it dried I buffed it off with a soft cloth to raise a shine. I changed my original plan to use another bone tenon when I could not completely, safely remove the old tenon. I smooth out the mortise sides with the files so that I could use a different push tenon instead of a threaded one. I had a Delrin tenon that would work with some slight adjustments. I set the bowl aside and turned to work on the stem.I used a Dremel and sanding drum to reduce the diameter of the threaded portion slightly, knocking off the highspots on the threads. The fit was perfect in the stem. I put a drop of clear CA glue on the tenon and pressed it into place. I shortened the tenon on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess length for a good fit in the shank. Once I finished shortening it I polished the tenon with micromesh pads to make a smooth fit in the shank.This Pioneer Bent Billiard Meerschaum is finally finished. There were points in the process that I really wondered if I had bit off more than I could chew. It was a painful process to see the bone tenon that had been glued in slowly – and I mean very s l o w l y take shape and open the mortise to receive a the new tenon. The pipe has a rich patina on the shank and developing up the bowl sides. The polished acrylic taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and hand buffed the pipe with polish on a soft cloth. I did not want to chance damaging it on the wheel. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of Clapham’s Beeswax and buffed it with a clean microfiber cloth to raise the shine. The finished Pioneer Meerschaum Bent Billiard is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is .99 ounces/28 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this challenging meerschaum pipe. I am going to call the pipeman who owns it later today as I know he is excited to see it. Thanks for your time.

Restoring a Gourd Calabash with a Meerschaum Bowl from an Estate

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Blog by Steve Laug

Jeff and I always keep an eye for Gourd Calabash pipes. We pick them up at a variety of spots – antique shops, auctions and periodically we purchase them in estates that we buy. We bought two calabashes from an estate of a pipeman in Plano, Texas, USA on 03/30/2022. This was a great example of a great looking Calabash. It has a well-made block meerschaum cup that fits well in the gourd. The meerschaum cup had a thick cake in the bowl some darkening around the inner edge and rim top. The cup had some patina developing around the cup top. The gourd itself was quite clean on the inside with some tars on the sides of the gourd. There is a new cork gasket around the gourd top that was dry but was in good condition and when rejuvenated would hold the cup in place. At the shank end of the gourd there was an acrylic shank extension. There was no stamping on the shank or gourd but it reminds me of many of the Pioneer Gourd Calabash pipes that I have worked on. The stem was well made fancy vulcanite and was oxidized, calcified and had light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started the clean up on the pipe. It should clean up amazingly well. Jeff took photos of the meerschaum cup, bowl and inner edge. You can see the moderate cake in the bowl. tars/lava around the inner edge of the bowl and the lava and darkening on the op round the bowl edge. He also took photos of the stem. It is oxidized, calcified and has light tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. He took a photo of the gourd bowl and a close up of the briar shank extension. The fit of the meerschaum cup to the top of the gourd is snug and looks good. The acrylic shank extension fits well against the gourd and against the stem. He removed all the parts and took photos of the parts of the pipe showing the inside and the outside of the gourd and the meerschaum cup.Over the years I have worked on quite a few Gourd Calabash pipes like this one. The shank extension, the stem and the way the bowl fits all say to me that it is an American made Pioneer Gourd Calabash. As such it is hard to pin down a date for it. So, it was time to work on it. Jeff cleaned up the pipe for me. He carefully reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the exterior of the gourd and the meerschaum with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to clean off the grime off the finish and the overflow of lava on the rim top. The cleaning had removed the grime on the rim top. He cleaned up the internals of the gourd with the soap and a brush as well. He cleaned the airway in the shank, mortise and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove all of the oils and tars in the pipe. He soaked the stem in Briarville Pipe Stem Deoxidizer and was able to remove much of the oxidation, calcification. When it arrived here in Vancouver it was a clean pipe and I knew what I had to work with. I took photos of it before I started my part of the restoration. I took a photo of meerschaum rim top and the stem to show their condition once it arrived in Canada. Jeff was able to clean up the cake and the lava overflow that was shown in the rim and bowl photos above. The rim top looked very good but there was some darkening to the top and inner edge of the bowl. The stem looked better, though there were light tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button.I took a photo of the bowl with the stem removed to give a sense of how it looked. I also took it apart to show how clean the parts are. I started my work on the pipe by greasing the cork gasket in the inner edge of the gourd. I worked some Vaseline into the cork and set it aside to let it soften the cork and make it more elastic.I set the gourd aside to let the cork absorb the Vaseline and turned my attention to the meerschaum cup. I sanded the rim top and the underside of the cup with a set of 2 inch sanding pads for 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I used the 320-600 grit pads on the underside, the cone of the cup. I used the 1000-3500 grit pads on the rim edge and top. They work amazingly well and are easy to manage and sand smooth.I worked on the meerschaum cut with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping it down after each pad with a damp cloth. It really began to have a rich shine by the last pad. At this point I rubbed the meerschaum cup down with some Restoration Balm and buffed it off with a soft cloth. The cup really shone.I set the meerschaum cup aside and rubbed the gourd down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the finish on the bowl and shank. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the gourd. I worked it in with my fingers to get it into the bowl and shank surface. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I wiped it off and buffed it with a soft cloth. The gourd really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I put the cup on the gourd and gave both several coats of Conservator’s Wax and buffed them by hand. The pipe really looked good at this point and once the stem was on it would be a beautiful pipe. I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem at this point in the process. I sanded out the chatter and marks on the stem surface with a set of 2 inch sanding pads for 320-3500 grit sanding pads. They work amazingly well and are easy to manage and sand close to the sharp edge of the button. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a coat of Obsidian Pipe Stem Oil. It works to protect the stem from oxidizing. I set it aside to dry. I put the stem back on the “Pioneer” Gourd Calabash with a Meerschaum Cup and took it to the buffer. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond to polish the vulcanite. Blue Diamond does a great job on the smaller scratches that remain in the vulcanite. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. I am amazed at how well it turned out. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is a beautiful Meerschaum Cup Gourd Calabash – the vulcanite taper stem, the polished gourd and meerschaum cup combine to give the pipe a great look. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 8 inches, Height: 4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 1 inch. The weight of the pipe is 4.13 ounces/117 grams. This is another pipe that I will be putting on the rebornpipes online store in the Ceramic and Meerschaum Section shortly, if you are interested in adding it to your collection. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this beauty!

As always, I encourage your questions and comments as you read the blog. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog. Remember we are not pipe owners; we are pipe men and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on into the trust of those who follow us.