Seeking General Info About Gourd Calabash w/Silver Rim

[cosmicfolklore]

I see a lot of pipes available with dents/dings in the metal and am assuming that's just what I can expect for a pipe that's around a century old or is this not the case?

The thing about dents and dings in sterling is that they’re totally fixable. But, in a way, they also tell the story of that pipe… so… it’s a personal judgement call.

 

[Searock Fan]

This thread reminded me of something I haven't thought of in years, I used to have a calabash and the meerschaum bowl was destroyed (that's another story) so I went out to the work shop and made one out of briar and it worked fine. If any of you want to try it you'll need a lathe. Haven't seen that pipe in a coon's age, wonder what happened to it!

 

[runscott]

BTW, working on old calabashes, I think was from 1911, can be tricky. When I started to clean this up so I could figure out the level of restoration, it literally exploded in my hands.
View attachment 155850

Wow!!!

I hadn't anticipated anything like that when cleaning, but I'll certainly be more careful in the future.

Regarding the cleaning of fixed-bowl gourds, I used alcohol on one recently and didn't get great results, but a lot of gunk came out, so that's better than it was. I just poured alcohol in through the mortise until it just showed in the bottom of the bowl, then emptied out a little, closed off both ends and shook. Did that several times, then let it air out for a while. It would probably be okay to add the alcohol, plug the mortise and just let it sit for a while, but I'm unsure whether or not soaking would damage the gourd.

Any ideas are appreciated - the only thing I've found by googling, is that fixed-bowl gourd calabashes can't have their internals cleaned other than scrubbing out what you can reach of the mortise.