Gluing Missouri Meerschaum Pipes

[Briar Lee]

I’ve been buying Missouri Meerschaum pipes now for nearly fifty years, and while they are truly the World’s Finest Corn Cob pipe, unlike a genuine Star Grade Lee briar pipe, the corn cobs used are by comparison, soft and prone to damage, that a Lee Star Grade would shrug off.

Almost 25 years ago I had the honor and privilege of spending a couple of hours inside the Missouri Meerschaum factory at Washington, Missouri. The manufacture of these pipes is fascinating, and they are not machine made, they are all hand made by Missourians using machines. Plaster of Paris and ordinary glue is used extensively, on special hybrid cobs raised locally and dried for about two years.

I bought this huge Freehand model during that visit, and a quarter century of use has resulted in the top of the bowl starting to separate.

I took ordinary Elmer’s Carpenter’s Glue, and applied three different applications last night, rubbed in the glue, heated it with a lighter, and this morning my MM Freehand looks a lot better.

Glue also works to seal up leaky cob pipes if they develop a leak around the shank to bowl.

I ordered a new Freehand last night for $35 just as close to my old one as they still make. These pipes were $25 at the factory in the late 1990s.

The models that are smooth polished are made using plaster of Paris to reinforce and strengthen the cob, which was an early patented process of MM.

The seal between hardwood shank and cob is made using ordinary white glue at the factory. If they ever leak, get out the Elmer’s glue and go to work.

But whether it’s a $5 Washington or $35 Freehand, all MM pipes are made from the same cobs, by the same careful methods, on the same machines, in the same factory as they have been for almost a century and a half.

If ever in the middle of Missouri don’t miss visiting the Missouri Meerschaum pipe factory.

They stopped factory tours about twenty years ago, when they put up a fascinating museum in the lower floor of the factory.

They still have their factory shop and an employee will answer any questions you might have about the pipes.

 

[didimauw]

Interesting. I've been using wood putty for many years. I've had to repair this legend 3 times in 8 years.

 

[FurCoat]

In my many decades of smoking cobs I've only had one burn out (legend) and one leaky shank that got fixed with Elmers. The two pictured below are over a quarter of a century old and show little sighns of wear.

 

[kcghost]

Cobs are decent pipes and durable as all hell.

 

[Spinkle]

I had an issue with an acrylic stem model that I purchased the stem wouldn't come loose to the point where the entire shank came out - the MM customer service response was use Elmer's glue to glue it back in, so can back up BriarLee on this point. It's official.

 

[Grangerous]

This one wiggled loose some time ago. I know all I need is a drop of Elmer’s white glue to fix it, but guess what?

I like it this way. It presses firmly enough into place to smoke, but it allows me two great things..

1.) Vert easy access for cleaning of the shank with a pipe cleaner and an opportunity for it to dry quicker.

2.) It disassembles into 3 small parts which I can toss just about anywhere

Some of you already know that I often toss my pipes right in with my tobacco.

 

[mso489]

Since I have a lot of pipes, I don't smoke my MM cobs quite as hard as some, but they get smoked regularly in rotation, and I haven't had need for glue yet, but I appreciate the information if they do need it. I regard them as permanent pipes, since I've never thrown one away. They generally smoke the bowl down to ash with no dottle and with no deterioration of taste. I like the down home look of them. The commercial production of MM cobs was started as a side business by a Dutch immigrant who soon found that selling his cob pipes paid better than his job. He founded the factory in Washington, Missouri, where it has been ever since.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I've had them a decade old and more with little to no damage. This one is six years old in the photo with no cracking or repair.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I ordered a new Freehand last night for $35 just as close to my old one as they still make. These pipes were $25 at the factory in the late 1990s.

Less expensive at retailers, tobaccopipes has them for $29.99.

 

[Briar Lee]

The cobs we are used to seeing on MM pipes are from a specially developed hybrid genetically engineered by the the University of Missouri during the 1940s to help Missouri’s cob pipe industry.

The MM visitor’s center museum is crammed with interesting written articles and relics of the past.

Today corn is harvested by sophisticated combines, but my father harvested his corn using a corn picker that bolted on and off his tractor. Before tractors the corn was picked by hand and husked by hand, but even my father’s old time corn picker would husk the corn, although it didn’t shell it.

My father raised hybrid corn, since the 1940s or perhaps earlier. I’ve never seen an ear of the type of corn that over 20 different factories in Washington Missouri at the heyday of pipe production used. But it had to be subject to much more variation in the size of cobs than modern hybrids, and they vary quite a lot.

My family owned a big, outdoor barbecue sized corn sheller my father never used. Most of his corn he took to a small hammer mill farmer’s exchange in Humansville and had “put on his books” so that he could later have so much ground corn in his dairy cattle ration.
He did the same thing with his soybeans and milo. He was so traditional he raised about ten acres of oats just so his friends in the neighborhood could all get together and thresh oats, and our mothers got to “cook for hands” and it was more of a hillbilly party than anything else.

I still keep the fence around his oat field. We might raise oats again someday, like the last crop in 1971.

Some amount of ear corn my father kept in a purpose built granary that’s been torched now for about forty years, after it suffered storm damage, to feed his hogs buckets of ear corn.

And as late as last year I could still scrounge old cobs from another corn crib in a big red barn a storm finally blew down.

I’ve made several cob pipes over the years, and the trick is finding a good cob.

It needs to be entirely dried out, but not so much it crumbles when you work it.

The first MM pipes used reed stems, and the best source I know for those is old busted bamboo fishing poles.

Later on, MM and it’s competition used a small corncob for the front shank, and still today there’s a cob pattern applied to the hardwood dowels that replaced the cob shank.

MM had out a model called Radio that used the same Bakelite for a stem used in old time radio cases.

When I toured the actual production floor about 25 years ago I bought a discontinued model called the Yangtze that used a genuine Tonkin cane bamboo shank. The bowl of this pipe today is the Patriot model, with hardwood plug insert.


Perhaps the biggest MM pipes are the MacArthur series named after the famous general, who had an aide from Washington Missouri who put the General in contact with the factory, much to MM’s profit and delight. They are not as expensive as a Freehand, because the Mac uses an ordinary cob, just uncut. Freehand cobs are very rare, in that huge size.



MM got a huge head start on rivals because MM had a patent for a method of using Plaster of Paris to strengthen the cob, and had the biggest factory, most dealers, and a catchy name.

The number of cob pipe factories dwindled down to where MM bought out the last other one, Buchner’s, in the middle 1970s.

I’ve seen Chinese “homages” of MM pipes.

They don’t have the special hybrid cobs, that our pipes do.

 

[Briar Lee]

Less expensive at retailers, tobaccopipes has them for $29.99.

In today’s world, it’s incredible to me that MM still makes little novelty pipes for keychains and souvenirs for a dollar or two, but the two main grade smoking size pipes are $7.50 and $15, more or less.

All MM pipes are born of the same cobs, but they aren’t fashioned as equals.

All production of pipes is on the top floor of the ancient factory, which uses ancient machinery, but of course they’ve modernized packaging.

The most expensive Freehand models are plastered, polished, stained, and placed on a walnut display rack.

And of Freehands, the best are much wider at the top than bottom. My old one that’s starting to have the plaster separate is a more desirable one than the more cylindrical new one, I just bought.

All their production I saw made big enough to smoke was essentially done freehand, more or less. I don’t think 25 or so years ago MM cataloged the un plastered “naturals”, or if so they weren’t too proud of them.


The best ones are filled with plaster and finished by polishing. MM has huge awards they won at expositions back when only a Missouri Meerschaum had the plastering process.

When I was there, they had one old man that would select the biggest cobs and turn the Freehand on one machine, in a corner, then it would go back on the line.

They only had three to pick from the day I visited in the late 1990s, and the other two were on display racks.

The Freehand is a true hillbilly Lee Five Star.

But all in all, I think the plastered and polished General is the best value for the money. It’s a large hardwood plug pipe for about $14.

 

[Chasing Embers]

hillbilly

I've only ever seen them smoke clays and briar.

 

[Briar Lee]

I've only ever seen them smoke clays and briar.

Most of em’ smoke cheap cigarettes today, that don’t chew or dip snuff.

But even say back fifty years ago, every drug store had a card of Missouri Meerschaum pipes and the only people I saw buy them were kids like me.

Grown men smoked a briar pipe, in public.

Maybe Harry Hosterman had cob pipes he used when nobody was looking.

But corn cob pipes were always a Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer type thing, you know?

Those old men gave me expert advice on how they made them when they were kids.

 

[Casual]

Here’s my rumination on cobs. In small town corn country of Ontario in the 70s, my dad taught me how to make a cob pipe from a discarded ear and a reed from around the lake. All it took was some knowledge and a ubiquitous Swiss Army knife. He always seemed to enjoy the ones I made for him, even if I never saw him smoke one.

 

[HopHand]

View attachment 103236
This one wiggled loose some time ago. I know all I need is a drop of Elmer’s white glue to fix it, but guess what?

I like it this way. It presses firmly enough into place to smoke, but it allows me two great things..

1.) Vert easy access for cleaning of the shank with a pipe cleaner and an opportunity for it to dry quicker.

2.) It disassembles into 3 small parts which I can toss just about anywhere

Some of you already know that I often toss my pipes right in with my tobacco.
View attachment 103238

I have two of the Wooden MM pipes that come apart in the same way. I also decided it was a perk not an issue for the same reason. Ive got it in a little snap box with about 2 bowls of baccy. I drop it in my pocket when I head off to other farms to fix harvesters as it's tiny and I don't have to worry about breaking or forgetting it.

 

[HopHand]

Handy information thank you.
Do you have any suggestions for fixing the very bottom of the bowl? I've yet to have any damage occur with any of my mm pipes but do have 3 brand new pipes I ordered off Amazon that arrived with busted out bottoms and were unsmokable. At under 7$ I just set them aside and moved on but if they were fixable it would be fun to do so if just for the experience.
Side not it's probably not smart to order Pipes off Amazon?‍ 6/10 has issues.

 

[Bobby Bailey]

Handy information thank you.
Do you have any suggestions for fixing the very bottom of the bowl? I've yet to have any damage occur with any of my mm pipes but do have 3 brand new pipes I ordered off Amazon that arrived with busted out bottoms and were unsmokable. At under 7$ I just set them aside and moved on but if they were fixable it would be fun to do so if just for the experience.
Side not it's probably not smart to order Pipes off Amazon?‍ 6/10 has issues.

A fitted wood plug is how I would go.

 

[sleepy57]

Use titebond waterproof wood glue. It dries fast and permanent I've never had a stem come apart after I re glued it with Titebond (the waterproof part makes the joint immune to loosening at the very area that will see steam and water droplets if you chug your pipe.
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