New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart

[Mister Moo]

Originally Posted by spectrrr

Nasty on the outside, I assume its Vulcanite... the good ones look fine but still taste like **** when you lick the outside.

I heard there are people who sell used pipes and they pee (or worse) on the stems before they ship them. Never knew why. I always clean and sterilize each pipe I buy in case... you know.

Scour the inside of the stem with a bristle cleaner and alcohol, then:

I never tried this but a reliable hardcase told me a tablespoon of OxiClean in a quart of water soaks nasty vulcanite clean in 30-minutes or longer and, he said, doesn't think it'll hurt any ink or nomenclature on a stem. Do a test soak first if there's any nomenclature you care about on these pipestems. Sounds like the easy way to me.

There is the traditional soak in 100% chlorine bleach. It really works well but will damage nomenclature on a stem unless it's covered with a dab of Vaseline. Bleach takes an hour or three and it leaves vulcanite black as ink but feeling a bit furry. After a bleach soak (and water rinse) it'll need to be rubbed out with mild polishing abrasive. I never used sandpaper to clean stems - only MicroMesh polishing cloth (1500-12,000 for perfection). Depending on how furry the stems are post-bleach you may be able to skip sanding and find that a paper towel rubdown with toothpaste and/or baking soda will finish things up nicely.

Finish with a light rub of olive oil.

I used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser followed by toothpaste once. I thought it worked so-so; no trick to try it - some people swear by Magic Eraser. Personally I didn't think it worked very well (but it worked so-so, right?) on bad oxidation, I hate the feel of the things in my hand and I felt it needed a lot of rubbing pressure. Try that if you have one around. Nothing ventured. Any of these processes will make vulcanite or ebonite stems look like new and render them tasteless.