So, too, the factory's machinery which removes the husks and shells the corn. The pipe cobs, which are dried for two years in twin storerooms measuring approximately 100' by 45' each, are piled eight-feet deep. When demand outstrips production heat drying, nearly a lost art, can speed up the process to as short as two weeks. Once cured, the cobs are sent down a conveyor where they are gang sawed into predetermined lengths. A similar drum fine-finishes the pine pipe stems.
Lathes trim the outside of the bowls, while corers ream holes for the tamp and the draw.
Custom orders range on up. The company's labor force, near 100 at the turn of the century, now numbers in the mid-40s. All Missouri Meerschaum corn is grown in bottom lands along the Missouri River near Washington. The Tibbe family sold their enterprise to the Otto's, friends and acquaintances, in 1912. Steve Otto, the third generation of his line, relinquished control of Missouri Meerschaum in 1978 to a consortium of businessmen from St. Louis interested in keeping the Tibbe heritage alive.