Will this pipe work?

[mooster]

Thanks for the replies. I read that, for the first few smokes, a meerschaum should be held by the stem while hot. Something to do with the beeswax. Does this sound right?

My technique has been to carefully handle the pipe by the stem until I do something to screw up the pipe (appearance wise), then I just treat it like another pipe. It depends on how much of a slave you want to be to the pipe. Touching the bowl while it's hot can lead to fingerprints in the beeswax, or removing spots of beeswax which leads to uneven coloring, but doesn't affect the smoking at all. And you can always rewax the pipe later if you wish.