Salt And Alcohol Treatment On Meerschaum?

[photoman13]

Is this how you get the tars and mold spores out of estate meerschaum pipes?

Can you sand the outside of it?

Also do you use Carnuba wax on the outside of it?

 

[shaintiques]

Salt and alcohol can neutralize the porousness of the meer. I normally just ream and scrub the inside with hot water. Technically you can sand the outside but you will sand off meer. Beeswax is normally what is used to seal the outside.

 

[photoman13]

I probably won't smoke this one with just a scrub it is very nasty.

 

[loneredtree]

Is this how you get the tars and mold spores out of estate meerschaum pipes?

No.

Can you sand the outside of it?

No.

Also do you use Carnuba wax on the outside of it?

Not a good Idea.
I would ream and sand out the chamber.
Al may be able to comment on this . :puffpipe:

 

[photoman13]

this pipe smells like mold. How do I get rid of that smell

 

[weezell]

YODA,Where are you......

 

[mrgunnar177]

probably carving our pipes

 

[rcstan]

On my meer I find that a shotgun 12ga brush works well in getting bowl deposits out without using a pipe knife or reamer. I have wiped the inside of the bowl with a rag soaked in vodka with no ill effects, and I mean wipe not soak. Anything else will do damage.

Water softens the meer so no water.

 

[papipeguy]

I'm not an expert on meers, however,I did spend over 33 uears in the industrial mineral business. This material is an anhydrous magnesium silicate, which is very close to talc. So, its a soft mineral, hydrophobic but also oleofilic- meaning it is prone to absorbing oils. This is why the meers take on that nice amber to brown coloring. The oils from your hands and that of the tobacco permeate the mineral structure.

I'd be gentle with cleaning it and stay away from true abrasives. The salt and alcohol treatment should work and a good scrubbing with plain water should not hurt it.

All this being said, I would still defer to the experts on here when it comes to cleaning as I'm just an old retired mineral guy.

Good luck with your project.

 

[ace57]

I have a old Meer and when I got it smelled bad and when I cleaned it smoking it tasted bad.

I put cooking vanilla in the bowl for a day then dumped and wiped out, filled her up with baccy and the bad crap was gone. I smoke it every day now.

 

[tbradsim1]

You can sand the inside, for the tar above the middle of the bowl when I"m smokeing it and it gets hot, get a q tip and swab the top inside of the bowl, you get the thick black tar like deposits , I also very carefully after sanding a quick wipe with a small rag with everclear rung out so it is barely wet ,water I read will be absorbed and destroy the pipe The old cajun

 

[tbradsim1]

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[photoman13]

Guess I didn't know what I was getting into with a restoration.

 

[koshersmoke]

Did you try taking it apart and puting the bowl part in the oven at a low temp to try to kill any mold and bake off some of the funk and oily tar. wipe any goo that comes to the surace of the bowl insides with a rag or q tip. thats just my thoughts. I wouldnt think a little heat would do any harm because they get hot when smoked. That way you dont risk doing damage with sanding water or alcohol. you can prob clean the stem with alcohol and pipe stem cleaner / conditioner. :|

 

[john218]

My meerschaums were bought new years ago, while stationed in Turkey, so I never had this problem. A quick check online shows the melting point of beeswax as between 144 and 148 degrees fahrenheit. Putting the pipe in the oven will probably melt the beeswax. There are some online posts on using food grade beeswax on the bowl to refurbish it. I couldn't find anything online on cleaning a fouled meerschaum, just general maintainance cleaning, but it may be out there. As for carnauba wax, I would never use it on a meerschaum. What comes to mind is using the charcoal treatment but there may be a problem of it getting embedded in the pores of the meerschaum. Just throwing it out for discussion. I would like to know the answer. By the way, thanks to rcstan, I learned of another source for a pipe reamer. I've been planning on getting a brush of some sort for light reaming.

 

[baronsamedi]

You can scrub the bowl and shank with an alcohol soaked brush or rag but do not soak under any circumstances. The way I'd do it is ream and sand the inside of the bowl, brush out with alsohol and a soft brush/Q-Tip/Soft Cleaner and allow to dry. If it truly has mold spores in it, then take all the plastic parts (like mortise) out and heat it in the oven for at least 30 minutes at about 200°F. That'll kill the suckers. You will have to reapply beeswax after that though, because it will melt off the pipe. I wouldn't do any sanding on the outside. Use a rag soaked in alcohol and don't let it stay wet for too long. It's more time consuming but it will work out better for you. If there was mold in the pipe, you may want to replace the mortise and tenon, if it is a push-pull.

 

[photoman13]

The one in question I sold to a friend who really wanted it regardless of the problems. I do have another that fits this case though. I would be a little nervous about putting the pipe in the oven.

 

[zanthal]

I've been reading up on this in anticipation of my first meer arriving.
It's recommended that you clean them after every smoke, if I remember correctly, because meerschaum doesn't require a build-up of cake to protect it.
I'm a little concerned about another warning I read, is that you have to be particularly careful to light ONLY the tobacco and not scorch the top of the chamber rim of a meerschaum.

 

[taerin]

Unless you buy a Van Cleef pipe from Storient, then you pay him over a hundred bucks to have him personally scorch the rim :rofl: I guess then it doesn't matter so much!

 

[taerin]

Speak of the devil and he shall come :worship: