Proper Care And Feeding of a Bone Stem?

[monty55]

I just got this old pipe in. It's a briar churchwarden from the 19th century (unmarked, but heavily used). It has a threaded bone (antler it looks like) stem. I am thinking about restoring it to the point were I could smoke it, but I'm not sure. There is a lot of cake in the bowl and it could have some soft spots or near burn outs, again not sure unless I ream it and clean it. But I also may just leave it as it is, as a display of an old briar in my antique section. But, if I did want to restore it, what is the proper care and feeding of a bone stem? Is it cleaned and polished as any other?

 

[peckinpahhombre]

You're a man - so you should know, as all men do, that the bone must be fed or it will shrivel and wither away.

 

[cmdrmcbragg]

+1, Peck

 

[monty55]

:rofl: Yes, um.. I agree. But.. what about the bone pipe stem?

 

[sablebrush52]

The stem isn't bone, it's horn. The screw in tenon IS probably bone. Bone tenons can be fragile, so you need to treat it with care. The horn stem can be polished, but not on a buffer as you can easily snap the bone tenon. Get yourself a set of micromesh pads and use them to smooth out the stem. The tenon can be cleaned like any other tenon with alcohol. Scrub out the shank, stem and tenon like you would any pipe, using bristle pipe cleaners and alcohol. The chamber can be reamed like any other chamber, and there is always the risk that you could find that the wood has been compromised. But you won't know until you have removed the buildup. If there is damage, you can use pipe mud to surface the inner side of the chamber, and that should do the trick. Just be careful when assembling or disassembling the pipe for cleaning. With these very old pipes, the weak spot is the bone tenon. But with careful handling you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[condorlover1]

That is lovely representation of a clay pipe as it appears to have a foot on the base of the bowl. Does the stem screw into the shank?

 

[disinformatique]

You better let a pro do it, Joe Case's brother-in-law runs a fantastic restoration service and charges very less if you're in the US go ahead and contact them at Briarville
Cheers,

Chris

 

[monty55]

Thank you sable!

 

[mso489]

I bought a nice Vuillard apple on deep discount (the way I often do) from Iwan Ries. It's a nice smoking

pipe. The only slight cheesy aspect is that the bone on the shank is faux (acrylic no doubt). After reading

this post, I'm much happier with this pipe. It's a nice one, and could have cost me twice what I paid.

 

[misterlowercase]

Off topic here,

but I wonder about albatross bone...
...it used to be popular,

how the hell did they harvest all the bones?!?!?
http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/infos/barling4.html
Really,

I'm curious.