All the pipes I own are estate pipes, which is a fancy way of saying they are used. I’ve found most of them at local antique shops, where you can find some gems for really nice prices. However, they’re usually in varying states of cleanliness. One pipe I bought recently still had a quarter of a bowl’s worth of unsmoked tobacco in it, and a thick cake on the meerschaum (yeah, I know. Not cool). Once I cleaned it up, however, it turned into one hell of a nice pipe.

There are various methods for cleaning a pipe up, such as buying expensive cleaners and restoration kits, but for the most part you can get by with stuff you already have around the house. I recommend following the advice on Pipedia.

Stem Cleaning

Most of the time you’ll want to spend time cleaning up the stem. If the stem is Vulcanite, chances are it has lost the nice satiny-black finish and is now brown with flaking bits of white nastiness where the previous owner bit into it. Restoring the stem is as easy as giving it a bath in bleach for a few hours, making sure to cover any logos or metal bits with petroleum jelly.

That will leave the stem nice and black, but chances are it will feel pretty rough afterward. What you should do now is get some fine sandpaper and sand it smooth, then buff it smooth. Once that is complete you should be left with a nice black stem that looks new and feels smooth. 

After that, rub some olive oil into the stem. Why olive oil? That will give it a nice sheen but it will also protect against oxidation (which is what turned it brown in the first place). Vulcanite is very porous, and the oil will settle into the grooves keeping the oxygen out.

Here are some stems I cleaned recently in a bleach bath. I suspended them with carboard to keep the metal bits and tenons out of the bleach. I also put pipe cleaners in, but this is largely unnecessary.

Bowl Maintenance

The bowl can generally be left the way it is, unless there’s a bunch of nasty black “tar” on the rim or if you want to bring the bowl back to a virgin state and break it in yourself if the bowl is a briar and needs breaking in. Use a reaming tool (or be super careful with a sharp knife) and ream out any caked-on tobacco. 

To leach out old ghosting smells or nasty flavors, get some salt. I use kosher salt, but sea salt or any table salt works fine. Fill the bowl up with the salt, then use a very strong, clear alcohol (I use vodka for this) and add a few drops until the salt is saturated. Let it sit for a few hours like this then clean it out. The salt should look pretty nasty when its done, and most of the nastiness should be gone.

I’ve heard you don’t want to get the salt/alcohol on the outside of a meerschaum pipe, but I don’t know exactly why or what it will do if it happens. I believe it will eat away at the wax coating of the meerschaum but I have no experience with this to see if it is true.

To get rid of the “tar” left around the rim of the bowl, use nature’s own solvent. Yes, that’s saliva. Spit into a cup or a plate or something, and use an old toothbrush to scrub it gently into the mess on the pipe. With a little patience and a lot of spit, the gunk should come up quite nicely and leave you with a clean pipe.

Here’s a meerschaum pipe I cleaned. Before it looked nasty, like this:

A little of the tar was actual charring, so I had to sand it a bit and reapply some wax. Afterward, it ended up becoming my favorite pipe:

I’m still a novice when it comes to cleaning, restoration, and repair. But with time and by using this blog as an outlet my skills will improve! I hope you find it interesting and enjoyable.