polishing Bakelite stem – NebraskaPeteGeek

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

As a nearly lifelong Nebraskan and alumni of the University of Nebraska system, I do have an affinity towards corn as a symbol, a food stuff and a good old corn cob pipe. My heart goes out to every youngster who is missing front teeth during sweet corn season and life goal is to never be more than 30 feet from a cob pipe.

The University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL) football team has been known as the Cornhuskers since the 1900 season. Prior to that they were known as the Bugeaters, Old Gold Knights, Antelopes and my favorite Rattlesnake Boys. For a very nice history of the Cornhusker name I will refer you to this site: https://huskers.com/news/2017/7/24/origin-of-the-cornhusker-nickname. And by the way, Bugeater refers to the Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) not to some prairie culinary experience.

So, needless to say when I came across this ear of corn figural meerschaum pipe I had to bid.

The auction was won and the pipe liberated from the great state of California and brought to a state where it would certainly be more welcomed.

The pipe arrived the day before I had to go out with a crew from UNL for 5 days of Prairie Rattlesnake research. Now you see why I really liked the Rattlesnake Boys name. As typical with a hand carved meerschaum pipe there were no markings on the pipe indicating the provenance. And this pipe lacked a custom fit case which may have once had an indication of the maker. The stem also lacked any markings but it did sport the orific button drilling indicative of pipes made before 1920. The last thing to mention prior to showing the “before” photos is the sheer siE of the pipe. It was large. I photographed it with a standard size Kaywoodie Dublin for reference as I was preparing to give the corn meer a fresh beeswaxing..

Okay, below are some photos of the corn meerschaum prior to being worked on but post harvest (corny joke).

Background

I have nothing for this pipe, no country of manufacture, no company, no clue. As for the age, I can make some guesses. Again, nothing definitive but a reasonable hypothesis. Judging by the orific style button, I would think this pipe was from before 1920. In a great blog written by Steve Laug concerning the history of the orific button, he states that the pipe in his collection “come from the mid to late 1800s and the early 1900s, literally another time and place. For some of them I can identify the time period they were manufactured and for some I have only the faintest idea of the era. The earliest datable pipe I have is from 1912 – this is knowable from the hallmarks on the silver band on the shank of the pipe. The earliest ones in my collection appear to come from the 1850s and possibly earlier as far as I can tell.” (Whatever Happened to the Orific Button? | rebornpipes). From my personal experience I am unfamiliar with pipes made after the early 1920s with orific style buttons.

Another contributing piece of data supporting this claim is the material of the stem. It is a phenol-formaldehyde resin, also known as Bakelite. When sanding and polishing the stem the unmistakable aroma of formaldehyde was present.

Bakelite was invented by Leo Hendrick Baekeland (1863-1944) with the first of 400 Bakelite patents being granted in 1906. According to the American Chemical Society,

“Bakelite was also particularly suitable for the emerging electrical and automobile industries because of its extraordinarily high resistance (not only to electricity, but to heat and chemical action as well). It was soon used for all non-conducting parts of radios and other electrical devices, such as bases and sockets for light bulbs and electron tubes, supports for any type of electrical components, automobile distributor caps and other insulators.

Along with its electrical uses, molded Bakelite found a place in almost every area of modern life. From novelty jewelry and iron handles to telephones and washing-machines impellers, Bakelite was seen everywhere and was a constant presence in the technological infrastructure. The Bakelite Corporation adopted as its logo the mathematical symbol for infinity and the slogan, “The Material of a Thousand Uses,” but they recognized no boundaries for their material.

The Achilles heel was color. The pure Bakelite resin was lovely amber, and it could take other colors as well.” (https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/bakelite.html#properties-and-uses-of-bakelite)

Using Bakelite as a guide I estimate the age of this pipe to be from 1906 (origin of Bakelite)-early 1920s.

The Restoration

In my excitement to begin this restoration I apparently failed to photograph the pipe on a clean denim piece. Fear not, if you look closely there is a raggedy piece of denim underneath the white plastic envelope. The reaming was done with the Smokingpipes Low Country Reamer, General triangular scraper and 220 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel.

There was some cake removed though not a tremendous amount.

The interior of the tobacco chamber was carbon coated and I attempted to remove the carbon cake without damaging the meerschaum.

The rim of the pipe did not have a noticeable layer of lava. Like Forrest Gump said, “One less thing to worry about”.

The airway of the shank was cleaned with bristle pipe cleaners dipped in 95% ethyl alcohol and was quite clean.

The interior of the stem was cleaned with bristle pipe cleaners and ethyl alcohol and was also relatively clean. The cotton swabs were used to clean out the threads of the mortise.

The stummel was scrubbed with warm water and a nylon scrub brush. The stummel was dried with a cotton hand towel after being rinsed.

Back at the workbench the stummel looked better without the years of grime.

The scrubbed rim was markedly cleaner than before.

The next phase of this restoration was to apply fresh beeswax to the stummel. I have a kitchenette in the basement close at hand to the workbench. On the stovetop I heated a pan with water. Inside the pan I placed a small canning jar wil solid beeswax. The water is heated by the stove and melts the beeswax. This also allows me to turn off the flame and the hot water keeps the wax molten for a longer period of time. With a large stummel like this, extra time is a benefit. The tobacco chamber was plugged with a wine bottle cork to keep wax from entering the chamber. While the wax was melting I used a heat gun to heat the stummel.

As I was heating the shank I was a good deal of beeswax melt and pool in the carvings. I had not seen excess wax like this before on a meerschaum pipe. This indicated that the stummel had likely been waxed sometime after its initial carving.

The molten beeswax was “painted” on using a paintbrush dipped in the molten was and applied to the hot meerschaum. This was difficult to photograph as both of my hands were busy with either the paintbrush, stummel or heat gun. Several coats were applied and the pipe moved around in the heat to allow the molten wax to evenly be absorbed by the meerschaum. I waxed the Kaywoodie meerschaum also while I had the wax heated. The below photo shows both pipes are cooling.

Back at the workbench the stummel was looking very nice withit’s new wax. The color had deepened and assumed a very appropriate yellow gold.

The Bakelite stem had a couple of small tooth dents on both top and bottom. The button end of the stem was sanded with a 40 grit sanding sponge to allow the cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue) additional surface area to bond to. I planned on using clear thin CA to fill the dents.

I “painted” the CA over a wider area than I needed to fill so that the CA could be blended during the sanding. The CA was allowed to cure on its own as I did not know how the CA drying accelerator would affect the Bakelite.

Below, you can see a couple of CA fill on the underside of the stem.

Once cured the CA was filed smooth then sanded. The entire stem was sanded with a series of sanding sponges 350-3500. Between each sponge I rubbed the stem with Obsidian Oil and wiped it with a paper towel.

The stem was then worked with 4000-12000 micro-mesh pads. Again between each pad the sem was rubbed with Obsidian Oil and wiped with a paper towel.

The stem was polished with Before and After Fine Polish followed by the Before and After Extra Fine Polish.

The final steps were to take the pipe to the buffer where the stem was buffed with Blue Diamond compound. The stem then received several coats of carnauba wax and a final hand buffing with a microfiber polishing cloth.

I think this Corn Meerschaum is a wonderfully carved piece of work. The graceful curves of the stem with its translucent deep red Bakelite and amber-like fitting to the shank accentuate the earthy image of nature’s bounty. The beeswax deepened the color of the stummel to a very fitting shade. The pipe is large and smoking it would be a long term commitment, perhaps perfect for watching a football game. I do wish that I knew more about the country of manufacture or the carver but that is likely lost to time. As for the present I am looking forward to smoking this pipe and imagining the journey it has taken to reach southeast Nebraska.

The dimensions of this meerschaum pipe are:

Length: 7.55 in./ 191.77 mm.
Weight: 3.12 oz./ 88.45 g.
Bowl Height: 3.43 in./ 87.12 mm.
Chamber Depth: 1.81 in./ 45.97 mm.
Chamber Diameter: 0.83 in./ 21.08 mm.
Outside Diameter: 1.75 in./ 44.45 mm.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. 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.