Live And Learn

[karam]

From what I understand, Missouri Meerschaum uses a water based, non toxic glue. Typically called a PVA Glue.
In my decades of woodworking experience, only water will will dissolve it.
There's a waterproof or Type 2 PVA, but that's a different animal.

There was a post a little while back with someone complaining of a sticky gooey substance at the bottom of his cob pipe.
Hot water steam from the tobacco 'loosened up' the glue...

Thanks for that, I figured it is water based, or dissolvable by water because the one time I attempted to flush my MM pipes the metal rings on the shank came off. I never tried alcohol on them. Either way I'm so far up the cult of water flushers that the inability to do it just puts me off.

 

[Bluemonter]

Thanks for that, I figured it is water based, or dissolvable by water because the one time I attempted to flush my MM pipes the metal rings on the shank came off. I never tried alcohol on them. Either way I'm so far up the cult of water flushers that the inability to do it just puts me off.

You won't dissolve the glue in the joints.
That would take allot more effort.
Any blobs of glue at the bottom of the bowl will eventually loosen up...

 

[anotherbob]

from my experience which is by no means authoritative cobs and meers ghost more intensely then briar but don't hold onto ghost for nearly as long. They're kind of like that friend that is head over heels in love with every single cute lady they meet and yet by next week they don't even remember her name.

 

[magicpiper]

A friend would swear by how wonderful his Captain Black Grape was. Like an idiot, I reluctantly gave it a try. As expected, it was awful. The ghosting in my MM cob was off the Richter scale. The only way I could get rid of it was to fill that pipe to the brim with something like SWR and freight train the living crap out of it. I got that sucker so stoked up one night that it looked like smoke stack lightning shooting out the top. It did the trick!

 

[Jim Sobie]

It will fade, just clean the shank out really well with some alcohol, maybe give the plastic stem a good rinse(If it has a stock MM propionate stem, alcohol can soften it up). Power through it with a burley blend, or something heavy in Latakia if that suits your fancy.

One interesting thing that was suggested to me by an old timer is setting your cob in a sunny window.. I thought to myself, this sounds like BS, but I respect the experience of my elders so I gave it a shot and let it sit for 2-3 days. I'll be damned if it didn't clear a deer tongue ghost out of a cob.

I'll second the window trick.
I've found a few bowls of PA or CH willl eventually clean out a ghost. It just might taste funky during that time.