Reclaiming Oil Saturated Briars

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telescopes

Pipe Dreamer and Star Gazer
An experiment Lee could perform would be to redrill the stummel and stem, scrap the bore back to the briar, and give the pipe a thoroughly good 0zone treatment with a good cleaning inside and out. Sand the outside and restrain the pipe. My guess would be that the pipe would perform as designed. My bet is that a standard cleaning simply can’t remove the build up in the stummel. Salt treatments alone will not be sufficient.
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,759
13,783
Humansville Missouri
There is nothing any sweeter or more beautiful on this planet than a Scottish heritage Campbellite mother.

And she works at it. She has a full length mirror inside the door to her bedroom and she does not exit unless she looks like the Queen of Scotland.

Her husband is boss of the barn, fields, and church but she owns him and her entire family once you step on her lawn which she has never mown, herself.

My Mama, never pumped her own gas.

Every old time Scottish Congregationalist Christian boy was taught by his Mama—

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.

While I could be mistaken, and these obviously oil soaked pipes have been soaked from the outside in with grime, or oil, or grease, or such other gunk,,,

Note the line where the second hard thirty minute toothpaste scrubbing has lifted that oil out, leaving raw briar, where above there’s the same natural oils and resins in the briar as when it left the factory.

83F97A7D-B444-4203-BFB5-15DE7E897077.jpegD365BA4E-1252-4BC6-B8F2-4896658279CD.jpegAE9FB019-D3F4-4098-91D4-16906CD7E404.jpegI’m not about to saw this beautiful old Lee in two, to prove a point.

But if I’m right that tobacco oil on the bottom and on the stem, is all the way through.

Where’s my can of sea salt?

I’ll need that to draw the oils out of the inside, but in the middle I’ll have to live with it.

And if I’m wrong and that’s grime from handling, I’ve not lost much in the amount of salt, you know?
 

telescopes

Pipe Dreamer and Star Gazer
There is nothing any sweeter or more beautiful on this planet than a Scottish heritage Campbellite mother.

And she works at it. She has a full length mirror inside the door to her bedroom and she does not exit unless she looks like the Queen of Scotland.

Her husband is boss of the barn, fields, and church but she owns him and her entire family once you step on her lawn which she has never mown, herself.

My Mama, never pumped her own gas.

Every old time Scottish Congregationalist Christian boy was taught by his Mama—

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.

While I could be mistaken, and these obviously oil soaked pipes have been soaked from the outside in with grime, or oil, or grease, or such other gunk,,,

Note the line where the second hard thirty minute toothpaste scrubbing has lifted that oil out, leaving raw briar, where above there’s the same natural oils and resins in the briar as when it left the factory.

View attachment 156067View attachment 156068View attachment 156069I’m not about to saw this beautiful old Lee in two, to prove a point.

But if I’m right that tobacco oil on the bottom and on the stem, is all the way through.

Where’s my can of sea salt?

I’ll need that to draw the oils out of the inside, but in the middle I’ll have to live with it.

And if I’m wrong and that’s grime from handling, I’ve not lost much in the amount of salt, you know?
You still need to wire brush out the stummel and/or drill it out to fully remove the tar and oils. I strongly suggest and Ozone treatment as well. The stem will need a tremendous amount of cleaning inside as well. Not to mention trying to clean the metal parts where they sit inside of the wood. Then and only then will your pipe be brought back to life enough for tobacco reactions to interact with cleaned briar and produce an effect that is not soured. Ozone does wonders after a pipe is completely cleaned.

Salt is NOT enough.
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,759
13,783
Humansville Missouri
Again, all I know about pipes I had to learn on my own, and with help from my friends.

There once upon a time was an old man in Springfield Missouri, who along with his son ran a pipe shop across from Battlefield Mall. His heyday there was the late eighties to about the time of the cigar boom. His specialty was selling meerschaum pipes, mostly to Campbellite mothers, I suppose.

Springfield Missouri is home to more different Christian sects than any place on earth. It is the buckle of the Bible Belt.



My family, on both sides, were Scottish Campbellites. My mother would never say a word when she heard recitations about the Ozarks being founded by the Scots Irish, but I knew better than to lump drunken, superstitious Irishmen into the descendants of the Celtic mercenaries, so prized by the Romans they kept them them as hind guard to protect and advise Roman generals.

I had to avoid letting my mother see me wear something green on St Patrick’s Day. Campbellite mothers view St Paddy’s day as just another excuse for drunken Irishmen to drink green beer.


The old man had his shop in the same strip mall as an extremely popular hairstyling salon (beauty shop) across from Battlefield Mall.

No woman wages a battle more devotedly and successfully against the inevitable theft of her youthful beauty than a Campbellite mother. Before she needs to she’ll go to a beauty shop once a week for maintenance and repairs.

(For all of my life, I’ve never seen why other men get all stupid in the presence of beauty queens. Scottish Campbellite women look like that until they die, then another one does their hair and makeup so they are buried, beautiful.)

The old man was a quick enough merchant to cater to the next door Campbelitte queens and sell them the best grade of meerschaums they would gift to their sons, husbands, brothers and boyfriends. His tiny shop in the late 1980s was reputed to sell more dollar volume of meerschaum pipes than any other retailer on earth.

My mother bought me my Beckler carved meerschaum there, for my 30th birthday in 1988. I visited the shop soon after.

He had an entire series of those cutaway meerschaum pipes that illustrate the coloring process of meerschaum pipes.

I used to watch him show pipes to the former beauty pageant winners, now mothers, in that shop.

He said that a meerschaum boiled in beeswax colored much more quickly than one not cured in such a manner.

Meerschaum is extremely porous. The pipes are carved still wet, and boiled in beeswax. It’s not necessary to wear white gloves to smoke meerschaums, as once was thought.

Tobacco smolders at nearly a thousand degrees. Water boils at 212 at sea level.

The oil rich smoke from the burning tobacco travels though the meerschaum until it’s cool enough the beeswax traps it. Thence, the beautiful colors, are only just under the surface.

(And he’d show those mothers those cutaways)

If he ever missed a sale, I never saw it happen.

Every time I was in his shop he’d ask about Mama, and I never had the heart to tell him that he truly, didn’t want to know.

He was a widower, an extremely nice old man, and I’d watched Mama break the hearts of three husbands, at least a dozen fiancés, and beaus too numerous to count since my father died in 1971.

My mother, could play a guitar, and sing like a caroling angel.

So can Rhonda Vincent. Mama, would approve, she surely would, of Rhonda Vincent:

Last year at the age of 60, Rhonda Vincent was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. My mother turned 62 in 1988.

But my mother, never had to dye her hair blonde. She would have, if it meant being part of the Grand Ole Opry, but she never had to, you know?

THE PRETTIEST FLOWER THERE
Rhonda Vincent

 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,621
44,832
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
Again, all I know about pipes I had to learn on my own, and with help from my friends.

There once upon a time was an old man in Springfield Missouri, who along with his son ran a pipe shop across from Battlefield Mall. His heyday there was the late eighties to about the time of the cigar boom. His specialty was selling meerschaum pipes, mostly to Campbellite mothers, I suppose.

Springfield Missouri is home to more different Christian sects than any place on earth. It is the buckle of the Bible Belt.



My family, on both sides, were Scottish Campbellites. My mother would never say a word when she heard recitations about the Ozarks being founded by the Scots Irish, but I knew better than to lump drunken, superstitious Irishmen into the descendants of the Celtic mercenaries, so prized by the Romans they kept them them as hind guard to protect and advise Roman generals.

I had to avoid letting my mother see me wear something green on St Patrick’s Day. Campbellite mothers view St Paddy’s day as just another excuse for drunken Irishmen to drink green beer.


The old man had his shop in the same strip mall as an extremely popular hairstyling salon (beauty shop) across from Battlefield Mall.

No woman wages a battle more devotedly and successfully against the inevitable theft of her youthful beauty than a Campbellite mother. Before she needs to she’ll go to a beauty shop once a week for maintenance and repairs.

(For all of my life, I’ve never seen why other men get all stupid in the presence of beauty queens. Scottish Campbellite women look like that until they die, then another one does their hair and makeup so they are buried, beautiful.)

The old man was a quick enough merchant to cater to the next door Campbelitte queens and sell them the best grade of meerschaums they would gift to their sons, husbands, brothers and boyfriends. His tiny shop in the late 1980s was reputed to sell more dollar volume of meerschaum pipes than any other retailer on earth.

My mother bought me my Beckler carved meerschaum there, for my 30th birthday in 1988. I visited the shop soon after.

He had an entire series of those cutaway meerschaum pipes that illustrate the coloring process of meerschaum pipes.

I used to watch him show pipes to the former beauty pageant winners, now mothers, in that shop.

He said that a meerschaum boiled in beeswax colored much more quickly than one not cured in such a manner.

Meerschaum is extremely porous. The pipes are carved still wet, and boiled in beeswax. It’s not necessary to wear white gloves to smoke meerschaums, as once was thought.

Tobacco smolders at nearly a thousand degrees. Water boils at 212 at sea level.

The oil rich smoke from the burning tobacco travels though the meerschaum until it’s cool enough the beeswax traps it. Thence, the beautiful colors, are only just under the surface.

(And he’d show those mothers those cutaways)

If he ever missed a sale, I never saw it happen.

Every time I was in his shop he’d ask about Mama, and I never had the heart to tell him that he truly, didn’t want to know.

He was a widower, an extremely nice old man, and I’d watched Mama break the hearts of three husbands, at least a dozen fiancés, and beaus too numerous to count since my father died in 1971.

My mother, could play a guitar, and sing like a caroling angel.

So can Rhonda Vincent. Mama, would approve, she surely would, of Rhonda Vincent:

Last year at the age of 60, Rhonda Vincent was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. My mother turned 62 in 1988.

But my mother, never had to dye her hair blonde. She would have, if it meant being part of the Grand Ole Opry, but she never had to, you know?

THE PRETTIEST FLOWER THERE
Rhonda Vincent

But what about okra?
 
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telescopes

Pipe Dreamer and Star Gazer
Appropriation, and all that.
I am so glad you chimed in on the last two points you made. A person who identifies and was raised with a certain identity ought to be able to use the terms they want. Otherwise a who genre of music needs to be tossed out the window. I did laugh at Kemosabe. @sablebrush52 's insight to add that to the phase was a great piece of modern pop culture humor. Laughter and humor. Please don't let those two sink into the sunset.
 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,565
27,066
Carmel Valley, CA
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee!

I challenge you to cut that piece of crap in two. If doing so proves you right, you'll have crowing credit for weeks. I'll send you the price of a new Lee Pipe.

But reality will show it's like this:
Pipe%2Btranchée%2B6.jpg



C'mon, belly up and do it.
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,759
13,783
Humansville Missouri
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee!

I challenge you to cut that piece of crap in two. If doing so proves you right, you'll have crowing credit for weeks. I'll send you the price of a new Lee Pipe.

But reality will show it's like this:
Pipe%2Btranchée%2B6.jpg



C'mon, belly up and do it.
Once upon a time about 15 years ago my teenaged daughter was competing in local barrel racing contests and of course her mother and I attended every event until she was old enough to legally drive herself. After that we made most of them, just for her mother to embarrass her, if nothing else.:)

But on one of those outings somehow one of my Kaywoodie #13 Large Dublins found it’s way into a feed bucket full of tack, and the bucket was left outside in the elements for a few years, and when I emptied the bucket full of water, there was my completely waterlogged Kaywoodie.

My wife and daughter were both devastated and blamed each other for leaving that bucket out, and allowing my pipe to be ruined, and I had to make peace by saying it wasn’t hurt at all, it just needed drying. Besides it was my fault. I promise they weren’t careless where I left my pipe.

The pipe was almost coal black.

The water in the bucket (which was in an open stable where rainwater from the roof could pour in) was clear, not stagnant, and all the fancy little pieces of tack weren’t stained. The leather pieces were black, but neatsfoot oil restored them all.

The oils (resins, tars, whatever) in tobacco are something like the tannins in walnuts. Those oils are a powerful staining agent, They’ll stain old men’s fingers brown where they hold their home rolled cigarette.

My Kaywoodie was stained coal black from those oils inside the briar.

I was tempted to saw it in half to find out, but that might have caused another ruckus, you know?

My daughter is 31 and I can’t remember ever once raising my voice to her, or her to me.


Her mother, does the lecturing, pleading, yellingetc.

I serve as an example.

My father never once raised his voice in anger to me.

It’s our way of life.
 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,565
27,066
Carmel Valley, CA
Er, thanks, I guess.

BUT: Actual facts, such as showing the results of (bifurcation?) two halves of a controversial pipe would be the least controversial post I can think of.

We are short of facts here. Seeing the innards of that pipe would satisfy a lot of us. And make you a hero (well for some time)

Come to think of it, I do not know the provenance of the pipes and photo I posted above.

PS: Many of us love your anecdotes/stories/remanisces so keep on keeping' on. However, it would be good to separate them from facts and a straight answers to a question .
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,759
13,783
Humansville Missouri
Er, thanks, I guess.

BUT: Actual facts, such as showing the results of (bifurcation?) two halves of a controversial pipe would be the least controversial post I can think of.

We are short of facts here. Seeing the innards of that pipe would satisfy a lot of us. And make you a hero (well for some time)

Come to think of it, I do not know the provenance of the pipes and photo I posted above.

PS: Many of us love your anecdotes/stories/remanisces so keep on keeping' on. However, it would be good to separate them from facts and a straight answers to a question .
If I cut any pipe in two, it should be the worst oil soaked of the three.

004F8B1C-4600-4DA9-B7D0-18F271E1B326.jpegThere were three oil soaked pipes from the same seller.

That’s the worst one.

It’s the top $1.50 grade of Yello Bole.

It’s as black as my old Kaywoodie left in a wet feed bucket for a few years.

It’s had two salt treatments that both came out coal black.

All three pipes cost $27 delivered, $9 each.

Now, at one time that Yello Bole was a living part of a heath plant.

When it was alive it had capillaries that allowed water to circulate.

What if the blackness of the outside is just a thin layer of stain, like that meerschaum that was posted?

In other words, the middle will not be stained, just the inside and the outside layers.

And if the middle is black, then it’s because the capillaries filled up.

I’ll think on it, but it seems a dirty trick to play on a pipe that gave somebody such faithful service.

I don’t think I can ever prove where the oil came from, that’s darkened it inside and out.
 
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telescopes

Pipe Dreamer and Star Gazer
If I cut any pipe in two, it should be the worst oil soaked of the three.

View attachment 156135There were three oil soaked pipes from the same seller.

That’s the worst one.

It’s the top $1.50 grade of Yello Bole.

It’s as black as my old Kaywoodie left in a wet feed bucket for a few years.

It’s had two salt treatments that both came out coal black.

All three pipes cost $27 delivered, $9 each.

Now, at one time that Yello Bole was a living part of a heath plant.

When it was alive it had capillaries that allowed water to circulate.

What if the blackness of the outside is just a thin layer of stain, like that meerschaum that was posted?

In other words, the middle will not be stained, just the inside and the outside layers.

And if the middle is black, then it’s because the capillaries filled up.

I’ll think on it, but it seems a dirty trick to play on a pipe that gave somebody such faithful service.

I don’t think I can ever prove where the oil came from, that’s darkened it inside and out.
Don't think, just do it. This is NOT a case that can be won on rhetoric alone. Evidence, my friend. Evidence. Besides, our friendly moderator will forward you at least $9.00 for a better pipe.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Briar Lee, there's much warmth in the familial memoire afoot here, that doesn't really need (nor want) the pipe coloration discussion for validation.

I tend to the take the pipe stummels sawed in half as illustrative of the pipe coloration under discussion.

I have let four or five unfinished briar pipes color over time with no polish, wax, or oil applied. These include three Savs and a Peterson. I have also maintained three Iwan Ries house pipes certified by them to be Algerian briar oil cured by Edwards/Benton pipe makers, so have been able to see how they color over decades.

Along with the pipe bowls pictured sawed in half, I take from my experience with the coloration of briar pipes that the coloration comes from exterior exposures combined with the heat from the burning embers within, as well as the careful application of hand buffing with abrasive paper towels and cloth, and soft cloth rags, and/or jewelers' cloths, over years.

At least two of the oldest pipes have taken on the appearance of actual polished stained finishes with the application of no polish, wax, or oil. I'd entertain proof to the contrary, but as of the past forty years, this is my conclusion from the evidence at hand.
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,759
13,783
Humansville Missouri
Don't think, just do it. This is NOT a case that can be won on rhetoric alone. Evidence, my friend. Evidence. Besides, our friendly moderator will forward you at least $9.00 for a better pipe.
There are mysteries in life that cannot be explained, but not many.

I think I’ve solved this mystery, of why a pipe obviously colored by the oils of burning tobacco would, if cut apart, have only a thin layer of coloring on the outside and the inside, and none in the middle.

If the pipe was meerschaum, the reason is that the beeswax stops the closing from being taken through the pipe, then wiped off by cleaning.

This has been known since at least 1885, and probably much longer, as boiling meerschaum pipes in beeswax was old news, then.



I’ve known that oils from my face will shine up a pipe since I’d see Harry Hosterman run his Grabow against his nose, going on sixty years ago.

If Harry had a meerschaum, those oils would have been a substitute for beeswax.

——
Beeswax has been used since prehistory as the first plastic, as a lubricant and waterproofing agent, in lost wax casting of metals and glass, as a polish for wood and leather, for making candles, as an ingredient in cosmetics and as an artistic medium in encaustic painting.

Beeswax is edible, having similarly negligible toxicity to plant waxes, and is approved for food use in most countries and in the European Union under the E number E901.
—-

Why, that a cut apart pipe will deceive reasonable people enough to have them deny their own eyes, that it’s been discolored by long use of burning tobacco, is quite simple to explain.

The man who smoked all three of my oil soaked pipes, loved them dearly.

He kept them oiled, perhaps waxed.

Occasionally he’d smoke one so many times the wood swelled up from trapped moisture and the shank on one even cracked.

But eventually the tobacco oils that beeswax stop in a meerschaum were stopped by the oils from his hands or face, on briar.

It takes much longer for tobacco oils to color briar than meerschaum, but the process and explanation, is the same.
 

telescopes

Pipe Dreamer and Star Gazer
There are mysteries in life that cannot be explained, but not many.

I think I’ve solved this mystery, of why a pipe obviously colored by the oils of burning tobacco would, if cut apart, have only a thin layer of coloring on the outside and the inside, and none in the middle.

If the pipe was meerschaum, the reason is that the beeswax stops the closing from being taken through the pipe, then wiped off by cleaning.

This has been known since at least 1885, and probably much longer, as boiling meerschaum pipes in beeswax was old news, then.



I’ve known that oils from my face will shine up a pipe since I’d see Harry Hosterman run his Grabow against his nose, going on sixty years ago.

If Harry had a meerschaum, those oils would have been a substitute for beeswax.

——
Beeswax has been used since prehistory as the first plastic, as a lubricant and waterproofing agent, in lost wax casting of metals and glass, as a polish for wood and leather, for making candles, as an ingredient in cosmetics and as an artistic medium in encaustic painting.

Beeswax is edible, having similarly negligible toxicity to plant waxes, and is approved for food use in most countries and in the European Union under the E number E901.
—-

Why, that a cut apart pipe will deceive reasonable people enough to have them deny their own eyes, that it’s been discolored by long use of burning tobacco, is quite simple to explain.

The man who smoked all three of my oil soaked pipes, loved them dearly.

He kept them oiled, perhaps waxed.

Occasionally he’d smoke one so many times the wood swelled up from trapped moisture and the shank on one even cracked.

But eventually the tobacco oils that beeswax stop in a meerschaum were stopped by the oils from his hands or face, on briar.

It takes much longer for tobacco oils to color briar than meerschaum, but the process and explanation, is the same.
Noooooooo. You just made this up with your own set of alternative facts. That is NOT how science works.

Do a spectrum analysis of chemicals using capillary action with a kit. It is clear that the color is constant. It leaves a trail. Stop with the alternative facts.
 
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