Update: Yeah, I'm being a bit sore about this situation, my apologies. I'm one of those people that little stuff gets to me, but a good major tragedy? No problem. The breaking of the pipe has actually kept me up the last few nights, stupidly enough. Among other things, but this was a fixation point.
Meanwhile, Walker said no-go: they don't work on meerschaum. They forwarded me to Norwoods Pipe repair
http://www.norwoodspiperepair.com/, and I'm messaging with Floyd now.
As far as temperature, I think anyone who wasn't born yesterday could tell you that when hot glass is cooled too fast, it cracks. This is common sense. Since meerschaum is not glass, different things will either make less (or more) breakage possible under similar conditions. Pressure, manufacturing (or naturally-occurring processes), moisture absorption (not an issue with glass, obviously), flexibility and structure all play parts. In my semi-exhausted Internet browsing of what breaks happen on meerschaum, besides dropping, the other main killer of meerschaum is over-tightening of the screw-in bone mortise pieces that go into the shank. Since this IMP is not that kind of setup, yet has the same sort of break, I can only imagine my first time smoking it found a flaw exploited possibly by an overzealous carver shoving the teflon ring in there. It's only a guess. Floyd at Norwoods said I may have to switch over to a screw-in bone setup to take pressure off the shank if a ring can be fitted.
One other thought I had is the use of the meerschaum itself. My SMS meer I started smoking last May. It has had plenty of time for tars and other stuff to seep into the porous meerschaum, which will definitely alter how the crystalline structure of the sepiolite would react under conditions compared to an unsmoked pipe. Which would suggest how many guys have "smoked meers in the cold for years with no problems."
Maybe it's worth mentioning that a newer meer should be smoked more cautiously, not hot, not under "extreme" conditions until it has a good blob of tobacco byproducts coursing through it. I don't smoke inside, so there's that, too. Season up new meers in spring and summer? *shrug* Meers are also pretty tough when they're relatively free from defect, possible manufacturing flaws and aren't abused, I've been reading.
All conjecture. But, as mentioned, kind of an obsession lately. I'm not comfortable with thinking I, through all my careful approaches and love for knowledge missed something so much so that I would be considered at-fault. That's what's been eating at me, mostly. I care about my pipes something fierce, they're good friends.
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