Well, having picked up a cheap ($4.00) corncob pipe a while back and really not liking the filler bottoms, I figured I had nothing to lose.
I removed the filler in the bottom, drilled out the hole, and installed a wood plug. Also, the wood stem that protrudes into the bowl was removed - as seen in the 2 pics below. All work was done with a Dremel and Elmer's Woodglue was used for the plug. I did remove any glue from the inside of the bowl before it dried, and i'm going to add a little filler to the bottom (maybe) to level everything out. During installation, the plug went in just a hair too far and the Elmer's held it in place immediately; almost like SuperGlue - amazing.
Please note that the pics were taken before filler was added, final sanding, and clean up. But at the same time i'm not going to get carried away with a 4 dollar pipe either.
I removed the filler in the bottom, drilled out the hole, and installed a wood plug. Also, the wood stem that protrudes into the bowl was removed - as seen in the 2 pics below. All work was done with a Dremel and Elmer's Woodglue was used for the plug. I did remove any glue from the inside of the bowl before it dried, and i'm going to add a little filler to the bottom (maybe) to level everything out. During installation, the plug went in just a hair too far and the Elmer's held it in place immediately; almost like SuperGlue - amazing.
Please note that the pics were taken before filler was added, final sanding, and clean up. But at the same time i'm not going to get carried away with a 4 dollar pipe either.