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$8 Estate Pipe

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Jitterbugdude

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I have an estate Meerschaum pipe that does that. It sounds like somebody gargling mouth wash every time I take a draw on it. (once the pipe has heated up) I've thought of re-drilling the air hole to see if that makes any difference, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

The limiting factor on the older meers is usually the screw in tenon. They have a very small air hole. Just use a small drill bit and twist by hand to ream the hole, go very slow. Start small and go up a drill size if needed. I've done that to a few of my older meers and it makes a big difference. One of the meers though I had to use the drill bit with an electric drill- it was tough plastic.
 

Matty

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I have a pipe that used to gurgle no matter what. I found the problem to be the face of the tenon on the stem, the hole made a sharp corner creating a point for condensation to form. The solution was to make a smoother transition of the small hole to the larger diameter of the mortise in the shank. Essentially I used a few diamond dremel bits as small files and shaped the smoke hole of the tenon into an internal cone shape eliminating the sharp corner. My pipe always smokes nice and dry now.
 

Knucklehead

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Thanks for the tip guys, I'll give those a try. Other than the gurgling, it's a nice bulldog Meers.
 

Knucklehead

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UPDATE: I drilled the hole in the tenon to 1/8 by hand turning the drill and reshaped the tenon face. No more gurgling! Thanks guys.
 

tryals15

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I found another barely smoked estate in North Carolina last week. I really liked the design of it, so I splurged at $10.

IP5U9171-2.jpg

It says:

THE TINDER BOX
UNIQUE
MADE IN ENGLAND

Any advice on cleaning up the stem? It looks a bit faded from its former glory.
 

Jitterbugdude

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Any advice on cleaning up the stem? It looks a bit faded from its former glory.

If you have some buffing compound and a wheel just buff it up. If you do not have a wheel you can rub olive oil on the stem and then buff it with a rag. You can also buy Obsidian Oil. It is sold at most pipe shops. It's kind of like olive oil. It'll give you a nice shine but only for a short while.
 
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