The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1895-11-25
coLoRINo YOUR MEERscHAUM
How to DO 1t and the Care You Have to
7e Take of Your Pet Pipe.

10 Take of Your Pet Pipe.
From the st. Louis Post-Dispaecn.
Few smokers of meerschaum p:res
are masters of the art of keeping them
clean and giving them that beautiful
color which makes the meerschaum the
favorbte of all pipe smokers. Tba word
meerschaum Is a compound of two
German words-meer. sea. and schaum.
foam. Meerschaum Is a mineral clay
found in Turkey and Germany.
Pipe dealers will rarely tell about
the fine art of coloring and preserving
your meerschaum-
The most common complaint about
meerschaum pipe is that 1t will not
color beautifully. even after months OF
most careful attention. If genuine
meerschaum in a pipe does not take on
good color the fault Is with the
smoker. Ignorance is the general
cause of the nasty, muddy discolora-
tion of the fine clay. Another reason
why a pipe turns out 50 badly is that
the owner overdoes his smoking in his
zeal to get 1t colored. He smokes con-
stantly. When one pipeful of tobacco
Is smoked out he Immediately refills
the bowl and goes on putting. When
warm from smoking he lays 1t ON the
marble mantel to cool off where 1t will
be- safe. 1t Is with him night and day,
and he smokes it-particularly If he Is
an Englishman-in the cold street, the
warm office and house.
One day, perhaps. 1t Is found broken
In it's case and the owner wonders who
has been handling 1t. He does not con-
slider that meerschaum is susceptible
to heat and cold. expanding with one
and contracting with the other, and
that a sudden change from heat to
cold or cold to heat may have the most
destructive effect upon 1t and even
snap 1t in many pieces, particularly
IL it be a most elegantly carved pipe
or one with many angles and curves.
Laying 1T upon "a cold marble mantel
will often cause 1T to break from the
sudden contraction. Pipes of meer-
schaum have frequently been known to
snap off at the stem and drop from the
mouths of smokers when they fncau-
tiously rushed from a hot room in win
ter into the freezing atmosphere OF the
street
If you ever made an attempt to color
a meerschaum pipe you may have no.
ticed that in your eagerness to paint
1t beautiful brown you have filled
III again and again Immediately after
smoking and while 1t was still hot
from the former charge of tobacco.
You have noticed. also. that in a short
time the pipe Is burned and you have
destroyed every vestige of hope that II
for the smoker of a meerschaum to
know that the pipe should become
cold before smoking 1t a second time.
The reason Is easily explained. ~
In preparing the meerschaum, after
the artist has finished cutting the de-
Sign and has shaped the bowl the I'm
ished pipe Is boiled in wax. Wax Is
used for this purpose because II pene-
trates the pores and serves to keep the
or coll
oring matter is the oil of the tobacco.
and not the oil of nicotine. as Is err
roneously supposed. This oil, of
course comes from the inside and not
from the outside surface of the pipe.
The OH of tobacco sinks into the meer-
schaum, which is of a very fine. porous
clay. The oil is stopped by the wax
before 1T is driven out by the heat to
| the outer surface. If 1t were not for
| the wax the coloring matter would
| pass out by oozing to the surface and
| get rubbed or drop off and the pipe
| could never be colored. No smoker
| should try to hurry the coloring of a
| pipe, for the wax will be driven out
| and the dry. raw clay will not color
| properly.
| The smoker should also remember
| that the nearer to the top of the bow
| the wax Is kept and preserved the finel
| and broader will be the coloring. Tit
| pine therefore. should never be hllec
| to the top. If this fact were more gen
/ orally known among smokers we woulc
| not see so many meerschaum pipe:
| with a dirty brown color at the top
| where the oil has been forced out by
| the great heat of the tobacco.
In smoking the smoker should taxi
long. slow puffs. The smoker shoult
| have a care not to handle the pip'
| with perspired hands or fingers, as tbs
i sweat is injurious to the clay. havini
| acid In IL. This perspiration on TIL
pipe while heated will give the surfac'
i a notified appearance which never car
i be eradicated, and the pipe will b
ruined for artistic purposes beyond re
I.demptfon
Never cover the pipe with a coat o
channels leather. Channels skin alb
serbs the wax and when the coat !
taken from the pipe 1t Is freQuentl,
found to be covered with blotches. Re
member that the bowl of a meer
schaum pipe should never be touches
by anything while hot. or even Will
IL Is warm.