NebraskaPeteGeek

Tag: “Corn Cob Pipe”

Customizing the Button Zone of a Forever Stem

May 6th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

This is a bit different from my typical restoration. I was chatting with a fellow Vacebook group member, Cash Gillespie, the other day about how Vermont Freehand’s Forveer Stems a are beautiful but the were just a bit too thick in the button zone. I said something like. “I frequently take a file to them and thin them a bit.” We continued chatting and I thought maybe folks would like a bit of a tutorial on working a stem. I’ll be doing this with a Forever Stem I picked up a while back for a Missouri Meerschaum Mark Twain.

Let me start with the selection. This can be overwhelming at first. Vermont Freehand is a great crew to work with. Now, I feel the need to warn you that the do take a week off for the Las Vegas Pipe Show so don’t expect a rapid response in October. Other than that they are “get ‘er done” guys and quickly post orders. Their Forever Stems page will give you the below options:

(https://vermontfreehand.com/forever-stems/)

Carefully select the stem for the pipe you want to customize. From there you can select the style of stem you are interested in.

(https://vermontfreehand.com/product/forever-stem-filtered/)

Then comes the toughest choice, color.

(https://vermontfreehand.com/product/forever-stem-filtered/)

(https://vermontfreehand.com/product/forever-stem-filtered/)

The choices will make you second guess yourself and want to buy more than one. I am sure this is fine with the Vermont crew but at $18 each this retired pensioner has to think long and hard.

The color I chose for th e MM Mark Twain was the Red Ambeer Tortoise. A few days later the stems arrived. Yeah, I said stems. I couldn’t choose between colors and I have a lot of cobs so I figured what the heck. Don’t judge. Anyway, the stem arrived and the Mark Twain never looked better. I heard the theme song to the Jeffersons playing in my head, “Movin on up”. Placing the pipe in my mouth kind of shattered my euphoria. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as I’d hoped. The thinner bit of a standard M cob wasn’t there. The bit was wider, which I liked but it was a touch too thick. Off with the tinfoild hat and on with the pondering cap. I thought for a minute and decided that a custom stem might need a customization to really make it live up to the name, “custom”.

I examined the stem then measured it with a caliper. It was 5.1 mm thick. I recalled reading once that Dunhil stems were regarded by many to be the most comfortable stems and that they were close to 4 mm thick. That would mean that I needed to take 0.5 mm from the top and 0.5 mm from the bottom of this new stem. Hmm, do I dare file this beauty and risk marring the gorgeous finish. Oh yes, I dare.

I figured that filing slowly while checking the thickness with the caliper would be the best way to proceed. I do not have a belt sander, this tool would be a great option if available but I’d imagine that you would want to use grit like 320 or finer and take your time.

My Forever stem felt a bit thick at 5.1 mm.

I used a pair of files to thin it down. The most important part is the side of the file that hits agains the button. Both of my files have a cuttign edge and a smooth non-cutting edge. I kept the non-cutting edge against the button as I didnt want to file that potion.

I used the below wooden block to raise the stem up off the benchtop and allow me to file with curved strokes and rotated the stem while filing. I frequently used the calliper to check the thickness. My goal was to remove about 0.25 mm from the top then flip the pipe and remove 0.25 mm from the bottom. If that felt good, great. If not, then additional filing would be done.

I had filed until I got to 4.6 mm and thought that felt very nice for my bite. Next, I sanded to remove the evidence of my filing. I began with 320 sanding sponge.

I moved through the series of sanding sponges working with finer and finer grit. Between each sponge I wiped was any sanding debris with a paper towel.

All the sanding reduced the thickness slightly more.

Next came the micro-mesh pads. I worked the stem with these from the 3600 grit through the 12000 grit. Between pads I would wipe the stem with a paper towel or soft cloth rag to remove debris.

The final polishing was done with Before and After Fine followed by the Extra Fine Polish. These were applied with a soft cotton cloth, AKA t-shirt rag and hand buffed.

There you have it, how I had a Forever Sten feel better for my clench. The whole process was done without the use of any power tools. Now, if you have access to those, things would undoubtedly go faster but for me this is a hobby of leaisure and not something I am in a hurry to complete. Yeah, if you think that sounds like a cover for saying that I am too cheap to buy and equip the shop of my dreams you are not far from wrong. Oh, I almost forgot, if you are interested where I got my sanding sponges and micro-mesh pads there are the links: Sanding sponges:

Micro-mesh pads:

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance, restorations or customizations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

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Below are some photos of the finished Forever Stem and it’s MM Mark Twian.
A Missouri Meerschaum Freehand Customization

April 22nd, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

In a previous blog about customizing a Missouri Meerschaum Riverboat Gambler I made the following comment, “Expecting perfection from a new corn cob pipe is kind of like expecting a perfect first date. Sure it can happen but more often than not the pipe will have flaws typical of cobs like a first date will undoubtedly have awkward, “damn, I should never have said that” moments.” () As far as cobs go, this is a rather expensive one Missouri Meerschaum (MM) lists the Freehand at just north of $50 (https://corncobpipe.com/product/freehand-corn-cob-pipe/). I have to say I was a bit disappointed when I held my new cob for the first time. The size was impressive and the stem beautiful but the nickel collar was wonky.

Given the wonkiness was not very much but it was enough to bother me.

When I tried removing the stem, the shank separated from the cob.

So now I had a new MM Freehand in two pieces, which I wanted, but not in the way I wanted. The stem fit was very tight and I was able to liberate the stem from the shank with more force than I thought necessary. Once separated the wonk was even more pronounced.

Now given, it was only a couple of degrees off but it bothered me.

To remedy the stem collar fit I first had to remove the collar. The glue here was holding fast, unlike the shank… I used a heat gun to heat the collar and soften the glue.

The heat worked and the collar was removed.

Looking at the stem, I wondered why it was so darn tight. It had been sanded as evident by the sanding marks on the tenon.

The one side of the tenon looked as if it had been polished to a high gloss. Weird, is all I could think. I sanded the tenon with a 400 grit sanding sponge until I got a tightness which I thought more appropriate.

I looked at the collar wondering why it was not fitting the shank. It was even in thickness.

When placed standing upright the stem had a cant to one side. It is hard to notice in this photo but trust me it was there and annoying.

Upon close examination of the collar I saw the issue. There was an inner flange to the collar which was not flush with the outer collar. Hmm I thought, “how can this be adjusted?”

I looked through a snuff tin of various parts and scraps from previous restorations and found a solution in true Redneck Merican fashion – a gun and a hammer. Well not really a gun but a spent .44 Mag case which had donated much of its length for a band at some time. I thought the brass case could be tapped with a hammer to straighten the flange of the collar.

It worked. Although it did take some fine tuning by flipping the collar ofer after adjusting too far.

The inner flange was eventually made flush with the outer edge of the collar.

Now when pressed back onto the shank, the stem stood upright perpendicular to the benchtop.

The collar was glued in place using brown cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue).

Since the shank was no longer fixed to the cob, I thought that I may as well trim the inside tobacco chamber end of the shank. I know this is not necessary but it was already apart so why not? I marked the excess shank with a pencil.

Below is the marked shank removed from the cob.

I used a cutoff bit in the Dremel rotary tool to cut the end from the shank and smooth it.

Once reinserted the shank end could be just seen.

The shank was glued into place using Elmer’s white general purpose glue. The glue was applied to both surfaces, pressed together tightly and allied to dry for 15 minutes.

Below is a photo of the mounted shank as it was drying.

Since I had a few minutes until the glue had dried, I thought, “why not use the new tapered bit from Vermont Freehand to open up the airway in the stem?”

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance, restorations or customizations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

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Below are a couple of photos of the finished Missouri Meerschaum Freehand.
The Riverboat Gambler with a Forever Stem Customization

April 17th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

Expecting perfection from a new corn cob pipe is kind of like expecting a perfect first date. Sure it can happen but more often than not the pipe will have flaws typical of cobs like a first date will undoubtedly have awkward, “damn, I should never have said that” moments. I recently bought three brand new Missouri Meerschaum Riverboat Gamblers with very pale complections, brass collars and white stems.

My thought was to dye the stummels black and make some very sharp looking custom cobs. Well the thought worked out well for two of the three pipes. The third pipe had a stem that was cracked at the base of the tenon. This crack led to a break while trying to remove the stem. This is not something that I have had occur with a new pipe but I wasn’t too upset by it thinking that this was an excuse to purchase a Forever Stem from Vermont Freehand for the pipe.

A drywall screw was used to pull the broken tenon from the shank.

“To the Internet!” was the battle cry. I chose and ordered a replacement stem from the great options from Vermont Freehand. The shipping was quick and I soon had a replacement stem. I still wanted to dye the cob and stem black as I was very happy with how the other two Riverboat Gamblers turned out.

I wanted to maintain the Missouri Meerschaum logo sticker so I covered it with Vallejo Liquid Mask. This is a quick drying latex that is used to keep paint from areas where it is not wanted. Once dried it can be easily peeled off.

The cob and stem were sanded with 320 and 400 grit sanding sponges. I do not like to go finer than that before dying briar due to my thoughts that finer sanding does not allow the dye to penetrate as well into the wood. I was not concerned with masking the band at the end of the shank since the brass collar would completely cover it.

Once the sanding was completed I prepared the dye gear. This included a cork to plug the tobacco chamber and act as a handle, a lighter for flaming the wet dye, a bend pipe cleaner as an applicator, a paper towel surface cover and the Fiebing’s Leather Dye in black. I also had a heat gun to heat the cob before applying the dye.

The cob was briefly heated then painted with the black Fiebing’s Leather Dye. The first coating was applied and quickly absorbed into the cob and stem. I tried to flame the stummel but there was just nothing to burn.

I applied a second coating of Fiebing’s this time the flaming attempt did work but very briefly. The pipe was taken to a vise where I clamped it and allowed it to dry overnight.

The next day I applied a third coating of black dye and set the pipe to dry for two hours. Once completely dry I wiped/rubbed the cob and stem with a paper towel to remove any of the dye that might come off on a person’s hands while handling it. I then proceeded to apply a coating of Danish Oil to the cob and stem. I used a fluffy pipe cleaner to apply the Danish Oil.

I allowed the Danish oil to dry for about an hour and applied a second coat. This one was allowed to dry for another hour.

I peeled the Liquid Mask latex from the logo sticker.

The mask did exactly what it was supposed to do and kept the dye from coloring the sticker.

The last steps included giving the pipe a couple of coats of carnauba wax with the buffer followed by a hand buffing with a microfiber cloth.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance, restorations or customizations.If you are interested the two Riverboat Gamblers from the earlier customizations are available. Feel free to message me in the comments if you would like one of them. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

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Below are some photos of the finished RIverboat Gambler 2.

How it looks after one bowl of Prince Albert. The light interior of the tobacco chamber is now properly colored, as well.