Another oldie. This is a Yellow Bole Spartan that was my grandfather’s. It was given to me after he died in 1979. I’m smoking his favorite- George Washington.
@PappyJoe That Calabash looks experienced👍🏻 Personally, I think I would leave it, unless the bowl is somehow compromised. It seems @KA9FFJ got a meerschaum brightened up, maybe if you could just brighten the rim a little? @KA9FFJ might has some tips on how to clean it up a bit without taking away “it’s experience”.
@RockyMountainBriar The reason I don’t smoke the calabash more is the three cracks in the bottom. I found this one about 6 years ago in a junk shop. You should have seen it before I cleaned it.
@PappyJoe Ahh. I did buy a new bowl for an old, old calabash, I bought without a bowl, several years ago. The bowls are harder to find now. EBay might have some, they make different sizes, I had to replace the cork seal in mine, it fits perfectly now🙂
@RockyMountainBriar I have looked several times at some of the websites that sell the replacement bowls but haven't been able to figure out which one to order as there doesn't seem to be a standard size. The part that touches the cork on mine is 38.1mm. The sizes to choose from seem to be 23.5mm, 32.5mm and 42.5 mm.
I've considered mailing it to one of the places but they are all in Turkey and I would wind up spending more on shipping back and forth that is worth the effort. I did email one yesterday that's supposed to be in California about replacement bowls but I haven't heard back from them.
@PappyJoe If you measure the gourd opening without the cork, where does that leave you? Installing a new cork seal is not terrible. Just make sure to cut the ends that meet at a 45 and a “forward slash” orientation …. if you would remove the bowl by a clockwise turn, or a “back slash” if you would remove the bowl with counter-clockwise turn. A little Elmers glue and your good. I think I applied a light coat of cork lubricant (used for the cork joint seals on my clarinet) to the cork after the glue dried. I didn’t want to use a “full-on” wax or something that would deteriorate the cork, or possible melt then stick and seize the bowl to the cork😳
@RockyMountainBriar I thought about replacing the cork also as the old cork may have shrunk over the years. I don't have to twist the bowl to take it out, I just lift it up. There is enough tension from the cork to keep it from falling out if I turn it over.
My Monday morning pipe is a meerschaum I found eight years ago when I first started searching for estate pipes. I found this unsmoked one for $7.00. This style of meerschaum pipes are called Saxophone pipes because the stems are two or threes segments and the shape from the side looks like a saxophone.
@RockyMountainBriar This one taught me the danger of buying a meerschaum at an antique junk shop. It looked great and was unsmoked. The first time I smoked it, I saw several hairline cracks. One was around the base of the turban and another was on the stummel. When I smoked it a second time to make the cracks appear again, I applied a thin amount of superglue across the cracks. I keep it as a display piece now and this was the first time I've smoked it in at least five years.
My last pipe of the day. This one was a gift from @xDutchx who was an active member on This Pipe Life until he disappeared a couple of years ago. He is missed. Smoking some McClelland's Master Penman.
This is the first estate pipe I purchased back in 2014. It’s a Savinelli Non Pareil 9604 which was in a box of pipe parts at an antique shop. It was missing the stem so I bought it for $10 and sent it off to have a stem made.
Last pipe of the day is the closest I have to a birth year pipe. It's one of the transition model Kirsten pipes from the early 1950s. If you go by what's on pipedia.org, its a 1960s Third Generation pipe but I sent photos of it to Stacey Thrasher, the grand-daughter and owner of Kirsten pipes in 2017. She looked it up in their files and told me it was one of the transition pipes because it only had one O-Ring and the bowl sat in a cup on top of the pipe. It's also a Kirsten Companion as it is stamped with K. She wasn't concerned about it not having the Patent Number or Patent Pending on the body of the pipe because some pipes did not get stamped properly.
I bought the meerschaum bowl to go along with the original briar bowl and a new bit with O-rings. What I like about the Kirsten pipes over other metal pipes like the Falcon is how easy it is to clean.
@PappyJoe Easy to clean if done soon and often😉. Nearly every Kirsten estate pipe I bought had the endcaps and stems stuck as heck from having not been cleaned and the gunk and tars really “glue” them in. About half of the Kirsten’s I have are the older ones without o-rings though. I’d like to get a nice smooth large meer bowl like that for mine, nice.
@RockyMountainBriar Which goes to show how lazy some people can be. It’s real easy to pull the front cap off, pull the bit off and run a tissue through the aluminum body. Hell, Kirsten even gives you a ramrod to push it through.
@PappyJoe Very Art Deco that one is, even though from the 50's. The shank/stem reminds me a lot of the old WWII volunteer posters and the way they were sketched.
@vtgrad2003 The basic of the body dates back to the 1930s when the pipe was invented by Professor Frederick K. Kirsten who worked for Boeing at the time. Kirsten was the man who responsible for creating a number of interesting things like a cycloidal propeller that is still used on tugboats today (originally it was designed for airplanes but didn't work out.) He also designed the wind tunnel at the University of Washington that was built in the late 1930s and was still in use a few years ago. Kirsten also invented everything from lights for airports to World War II air-raid sirens. He held more than 100 patents (information from https://www.aa.washington.edu/AERL/KWT/history).
The story on the pipes is that Kirsten was a cigarette smoker told by his doctor to stop smoking cigarettes. He built the first Kirsten radiator pipe from scrap aluminum from Boeing and showed it to his doctor. The doctor supposedly told Kirsten he could continue smoking the pipe if he made one for him.
The basic design of the body of the pipe hasn't really changed. Even the "bent" or cavalier style Kirstens have that same squared off Art Deco look.
Comments
I’m not smoking a rotation as much as making a conscious decision to smoke every pipe I have.
That Calabash looks experienced👍🏻 Personally, I think I would leave it, unless the bowl is somehow compromised. It seems @KA9FFJ got a meerschaum brightened up, maybe if you could just brighten the rim a little? @KA9FFJ might has some tips on how to clean it up a bit without taking away “it’s experience”.
The reason I don’t smoke the calabash more is the three cracks in the bottom. I found this one about 6 years ago in a junk shop. You should have seen it before I cleaned it.
Ahh. I did buy a new bowl for an old, old calabash, I bought without a bowl, several years ago. The bowls are harder to find now. EBay might have some, they make different sizes, I had to replace the cork seal in mine, it fits perfectly now🙂
I have looked several times at some of the websites that sell the replacement bowls but haven't been able to figure out which one to order as there doesn't seem to be a standard size. The part that touches the cork on mine is 38.1mm. The sizes to choose from seem to be 23.5mm, 32.5mm and 42.5 mm.
I've considered mailing it to one of the places but they are all in Turkey and I would wind up spending more on shipping back and forth that is worth the effort. I did email one yesterday that's supposed to be in California about replacement bowls but I haven't heard back from them.
If you measure the gourd opening without the cork, where does that leave you? Installing a new cork seal is not terrible. Just make sure to cut the ends that meet at a 45 and a “forward slash” orientation …. if you would remove the bowl by a clockwise turn, or a “back slash” if you would remove the bowl with counter-clockwise turn. A little Elmers glue and your good. I think I applied a light coat of cork lubricant (used for the cork joint seals on my clarinet) to the cork after the glue dried. I didn’t want to use a “full-on” wax or something that would deteriorate the cork, or possible melt then stick and seize the bowl to the cork😳
I thought about replacing the cork also as the old cork may have shrunk over the years. I don't have to twist the bowl to take it out, I just lift it up. There is enough tension from the cork to keep it from falling out if I turn it over.
Keep’em coming PappyJoe🙂👍🏻
This one taught me the danger of buying a meerschaum at an antique junk shop. It looked great and was unsmoked.
The first time I smoked it, I saw several hairline cracks. One was around the base of the turban and another was on the stummel. When I smoked it a second time to make the cracks appear again, I applied a thin amount of superglue across the cracks. I keep it as a display piece now and this was the first time I've smoked it in at least five years.
Smoking some McClelland's Master Penman.
You're killing me!
I bought the meerschaum bowl to go along with the original briar bowl and a new bit with O-rings.
What I like about the Kirsten pipes over other metal pipes like the Falcon is how easy it is to clean.
Easy to clean if done soon and often😉. Nearly every Kirsten estate pipe I bought had the endcaps and stems stuck as heck from having not been cleaned and the gunk and tars really “glue” them in. About half of the Kirsten’s I have are the older ones without o-rings though. I’d like to get a nice smooth large meer bowl like that for mine, nice.
Which goes to show how lazy some people can be. It’s real easy to pull the front cap off, pull the bit off and run a tissue through the aluminum body. Hell, Kirsten even gives you a ramrod to push it through.
I have Kirsten envy for @opipeman’s (if I recall correctly) sweet Kirsten Cavalier with the Meerschaum bowl.😔
The basic of the body dates back to the 1930s when the pipe was invented by Professor Frederick K. Kirsten who worked for Boeing at the time. Kirsten was the man who responsible for creating a number of interesting things like a cycloidal propeller that is still used on tugboats today (originally it was designed for airplanes but didn't work out.) He also designed the wind tunnel at the University of Washington that was built in the late 1930s and was still in use a few years ago. Kirsten also invented everything from lights for airports to World War II air-raid sirens. He held more than 100 patents (information from https://www.aa.washington.edu/AERL/KWT/history).
The story on the pipes is that Kirsten was a cigarette smoker told by his doctor to stop smoking cigarettes. He built the first Kirsten radiator pipe from scrap aluminum from Boeing and showed it to his doctor. The doctor supposedly told Kirsten he could continue smoking the pipe if he made one for him.
The basic design of the body of the pipe hasn't really changed. Even the "bent" or cavalier style Kirstens have that same squared off Art Deco look.