Meer cleaning questions?

[brass]

I had previously owned a gourd calabash with meerschaume bowl and thought the smoke was dry but uninteresting. Could have been the tobacco, not the pipe.
I purchased a carved lattice meer bent billard from SmokingPipes.com recently and was very impressed with the first smoke. The pipe was light and the GLP JackKnife Virginian was wonderful. As a matter of habit, I usually clean my pipes after each smoke. I couldn't run a cleaner through it, so broke it apart. The tenon, while not a screw-on, was some kind of funky design and I couldn't get a cleaner through it, either.
Do meers use require special designs to join the stem to the shank? Perhaps require extra thin cleaners? I spent less than $100 for this pipe. I saw several for $60 to $70 - carved figures and animals. Can I expect these to be durable and smoke well? How much do I need to budget for decent meer smokers?
Thanks.

 

[drwatson]

I spent about 80 bucks on mine and smokes very well. I have an SMS and it has the screw push pull tenon. I just drilled it out alittle made the draw alot better.

 

[topd]

How about a photo of your tenon type. I'm familiar with several and yours may need it's hole drilled a bit larger as drwatson suggests.
In the 60's and 70's most pipes were drilled to accept the tenon screwed directly into the meerschaum. On some, the tenon is made of some hard material other than plastic, I don't know what it is though:


Most quality pipes made today use this type of tenon. They are the best in my opinion:


Some of the master carvers have been using this tenon. It's made to accept a small filter:


I run a cleaner through my pipes after each smoke, but don't disassemble them except for once in a while. The less you mess with it, the less trouble you'll have.

 

[condorlover1]

Actually the comments by TopD are absolutely correct. The older the pipes are the more headaches they seem to accumulate. My meerschaum from the mid 1980s has the 'female' part of the stem union that screws into the mortice of the pipe and that connects with the 'male' part which fits into the stem. In the old days the stem had a threaded bone piece that was cemented into the amber stem with the meerschaum mortice part of the pipe was threaded. This meant you screwed your stem directly into the meerschaum pipe. This is why if you buy old pipes like this on sites like Oi Vay dot com always ask the seller if the stem fits tightly. Usually they lie as the meerschaum threading wears out which is why you see so many silver bands on these types of pipes. I normally have the knackered part cut off and the mortice rethreaded with a longer amber stem. In reality if it isn't busted leave it be or get a specialist like Tim West to do any adjustments.

 

[brass]

I don't upload pics often and will have to figure out the procedure for this forum. But after reading replys here, I think it is the screw push-pull tenon. I used a pipe pic to clear the tenon/stem and was able to run the cleaner through the pipe. Packed it with Escudo. The Meerschaum certainly "opens" the flavor compared to my briers.