Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1890-06-16
WHERE PIPES ARE MADE.
CURIOUS THINGS TO BE SEEN AND
HEARD IN A FACTORY.


Great Care Required to Make Good
Mecrschaum Pipe-It L. Dihicult to
Tell Real Meerschaum.
Nassau street, between Beekman and
Cedar, is built double There is a row of
shops and stores in front with a narrow
sidewalk and another row of factories be-
hind. There are many curious things made
in these factories, which front on small
areaways and oldtime courts. Silverware,
canes, badges and small machinery of all
kinds are made there. Besides there are
several pipe factories. One of the most in
teresting of these pipe factories is near
John street. 1t is a room on the first floor
lighted by two windows which never have
a ray of sunlight. The man in charge of
the factory was born in Austria and learned
the profession which his father had before
him. He is a man well along toward SO
years of age, with gray hair and mustache.
He wears a pair of gold trimmed spectacles,
and when he works puts on gold trimmed
eyeglasses over them. He is very proud of
his business
my father lived in Vienna in the old
time" said he HE was genius He
passed six examinations in his profession,
in amber, meerschaum, rubber, ivory,
wood and metals. At that time a man
had to serve an apprenticeship for long
term before he became a journeyman; then
he had to travel around and see the world
before he was allowed to open shop. My
father had II natural genius for his profess
sion, and passed the examinations without
having to serve an apprenticeship. He
proved that he was not an apprentice"
QUEER CARVINGS.
There are many things in the back room
which show that both the father and the
son were geniuses in their profession. There
is the cap of a tool handle in which Will
lam Birnbaum, the man who has charge,
had made n set of chessmen. The box is
one and a quarter inches in diameter by
half an inch in height. There is room in
it for the whole set. He has things which
he made when he was Is, which show the
kind of an apprenticeship he went through.
He does not show these things to all of
his customers, but he keeps them put away
in a cabinet with a number of carved OBJ
jects. One of them is an amber skull. It
is less than three-quarters Of an inch high,
but the bones and articulations are dis
tinctly marked. The carving is SO fine
that a magnifying glass has to be used to
see it in detail. Another is a holder, where
monk with hollow head for cigarettes
is laughing, but in requires magnifying
glass to see the lines of his mirth. The most
costly of the pipes represents mermaid
holding conch shell close to her breast.
Her scaly tail is twined about a large
branch of white coral which will become
brown when the pipe is smoked. Each
scale is perfect. The mermaid has much
more expression in her face than have
some IF the big statues in Central park,
though there is hardly half an inch of
meerschaum on which to carry the lines.
The man in charge had pride in his
work. He took the reporter in his work
room and showed him the raw amber and
meerschaum, the half finished pipes and the
finished carvings.
COST OF RAW MEERsCHAUM.
The meerschaum comes from Turkey in
boxes. A box holds about fifty pounds and
is worth from $50 to $780, according to the
like plaster Of Paris smoothed off and
rounded The amber looks like beeswax
or large pieces of resin. It comes in pieces,
and is worth from 81 to $50 pound.
Meerschaum to make IS pipe costs about
80. The amber tips raw cost about one
quarter or one-half as much.
When an order comes for q pipe the
proprietor goes through the stock of meer-
schaum to get piece out of which the
pipe can be cut with as little loss as possible
Four-fifths of the meerschaum is wasted,
though the chips are often saved and made
into imitation meerschaum pipes. The
meerschaum is first cut on a circular saw
into piece little larger than the pipe
If the cutting shows holes or cracks the
piece is cast aside Then it is soaked in
water for fifteen minutes and cut the
rough shape with knife. Then a hole is
drilled through it and it is turned with a
half motion. After the turning the stem
is inserted. 1t is smoothed off when dry,
boiled in wax and polished: thenit is ready
to be sold.
The amber is worked with a chisel and
turning wheel. The chisel is sharp and
razor like. a clumsy operator would cut
his fingers of with it. An old operator
takes the piece of amber In his hand and
rounds it with the chisel, the forefinger of
the left hand serving as a guide for the
chisel to play. When it is rounded it is
held against the face of a roughened wheel
until it is turned to approximately the re-
quired size. Then it is put in the same
| turning wheel and a hole is bored through
| it. This is for the more common and
cheaper amber stems, the kinds that are
put in briarwood pipes which sell for fifty
| and seventy-five cents. It does not take
more than quarter or half hour to finish
| one of these stems.
IMITATION MEERSCHAUM.
A stem for a more costly pipe will take a
day. The shortest time in which good
meerschaum pipe can be made is three
OdyS Audt 10 loT d pam Plpe. IL bAc plpo
is to be carved that time has to be added,
Workmen have spent months on carving
| one pipe.
The dust and chips from the amber and
| meerschaum are saved. The amber dust is
melted and made into amberline. The
| meerschaum dust is chopped up and work
ed into paste, from which imitation meer-
| schaum pipes are made 1t is common
idea that real meerschaum can be told from
| imitation meerschaum by the fact that real
| meerschaum floats on water, but imitation
meerschaum floats also. Imitation meer-
schaum can be made which will color bet
ter than real meerschaum does, though it
does not last SO long and the color is likely
| to come in streaks 1t is hard for q man
| who is not In the business to tell a real
| from an imitation meerschaum.
1t is hard to make an estimate of the cost
| Of pipe from the cost of the materials, as
80 small a proportion of the raw material
can be used. To get a stem for a big pipe
I