Need meerschaum block!

[raywzhere]

Hello,

I work at a cigar shop wand would love to get into making pipes to sell at the shop and enjoy myself. I used to be a carpenter and body shop mechanic and would love to bring that knowledge to building pipes.

Anyways i was wondering if anyone would know where i can get cheap meerschaum blocks to carve.

Thanks,

Ray Carpenter

 

[daimyo]

Meer blocks are the hardest material to obtain in pipe making from what I have been told.

 

[phil67]

Pretty hard to obtain unless you run across the occasional kit on eBay.

Supposedly Vermont Freehand gets a few in stock from time to time, but so far I've never seen any available.

 

[bigjoe]

Meer isn't exported uncarved to keep the Turkish carvers working at home, so blocks aren't readily available.

 

[tobyducote]

Get some pre-drilled briar blocks and start with those...but even before you begin to start trying to carve a pipe, learn about them...learn about the mechanics of all aspects of a pipe..draft hole, chamber size, stem draw...etc. There is so much more to making a "good" pipe than just carving a shape from a block of wood or any other material...good luck, and grow your knowledge of what makes a pipe great and then go make great pipes

 

[phil67]

Not at all sure how true this is, but evidently it’s been illegal to export meerschaum blocks since the 60’s. The occasional and very rare available kits which are pre-drilled with a stem are considered as a ‘pipe’ and therefore exempt. Supposedly it’s supposed to protect the Turkish industry which it seems to have the distinct strong hold, as it were, on producing meerschaum pipes and their artistry for all these many years. Perhaps on more knowledgeable can shed more light on this subject.
You can obtain a kit HERE (if they are still available), but if one is going to pay that much money for a kit you might just as well purchase a finished pipe! Like NOLA said, get a pre-drilled briar kit, or if you’re more energetic purchase an briar block, stem material, etc. and go for it as all the materials and tools needed are more than easy to obtain from a plethora of places. I purchased a meerschaum kit sometime back in the 70’s, albeit I can’t for the life of me remember where I got it, but I know for a fact that it was quite cheap. I carved it during the evenings when I went up to Hayward Wisconsin for a two week Muskie fishing trip and it turned out quite good, but I have no idea what happened to it.
I purchased a briar kit just to give it a shot and wish to make more (hopefully from scratch) and it ended up quite well. Stick with the briar and forget about the meerschaum blocks as you’ll just end up chasing your tail. :wink:

pre-drilled kit

Finished pipe

 

[lonestar]

Pretty nice kit pipe Phil.

I have a few blocks of meerschaum, but honestly you'd be wasting a very expensive material to the learning curve. Briar is more demanding, but readily available. I haven't worked with the blocks I have yet, small odd shaped pieces that will take just the right finesse to make a good pipe from.

 

[tobyducote]

Phil, that's a nice looking pipe from a kit.

 

[zack24]

You might try pipemakersforum.com. They'll have sources of supply- more importantly, they'll have the information you'll need to make a pipe...Good luck!