I did a salt/alcohol clean on it, and it smokes great, nasty-free. I've ordered a couple really nice pipes, but I can't complain about this one. I will refinish it and keep it.
Take your stem off, plug the draft hole with a pipe cleaner w/ plastic wrap. Fill the bowl with large grain salt, and then fill the bowl with everclear or something and let it soak for a couple of hours. (I usually let it sit in an egg carton for about a day).
Everybody says to use kosher, so that's what I did. Dunno why except one person said that fine-grained table salt might expand and break the stem. Oh, and kosher has no iodine I think