At a high temperature the salt vaporized and combined with the silica in the body of the clay to form a glassy or ‘silicate glaze’. The kiln was fired 32 to 36 hours before maximum temperature was reached; it was cooled the same period to prevent crazing (minute cracking) of the glaze (Blair, 1965:15). This description of glazing refers to stoneware in the mid-nineteenth century potteries near Akron, Ohio. However since the Pamplin kiln was the same sort of “walk-in” kiln, the detail would fit, and it is substantiated by Miss Thornton’s statement of firing time.
From the scarcity of glazed pipes among the many that we examined, we conclude that the majority were finished without glazing.
REED STEMS
The stems sold with the factory pipes were made from switch cane Arundinara gigantea known locally as reed and once abundant in the Great Dismal Swamp in southeastern Virginia (R. H. Woodling to Chas. H. Meadows, May 15, 1969). (The stems used with the pipes made by the Home Industry usually came from the same source.)
The reeds were cut in 12 foot lengths by men in boats, allowed to dry for six months, cut in lengths and reamed out. Some were put in a machine and bent (Miss Thornton, Dr. O’Brien).
Cork plugs or washers were used in the base of the pipes to hold the stem in place. Some were still in place in pipes we examined. A plug mill, a high pressure machine, extruded the cork plugs which were cut off by wire (Heite).
(Replacement reed stems for clay, hickory, or corn cob pipes, retailed in the grocery stores in Lexington, Missouri, for 10¢ per dozen about 1916).
PIPES MADE BY THE FACTORY
A number of people and institutions with varying numbers of Pamplin Factory pipes in their possession have given us an opportunity to examine them. The largest number of specimens were in the hands of the following.
Our attention was first called to these pipes in 1968 at the Craft Club in Arrow Rock, Missouri, where some of them appeared for sale as an unusual item. They obviously had been underground, for the bowls and bases were still filled with earth containing numerous rootlets growing through the pipe cavities.