I had this old bowl in my box that just looked like a Barlings. I took it out and studied under bright light and a loop. It had the arched Barlings over Make. The other side was stamped EL and Made in England (I believe). It had a serious crack in the shank so I superglued it and banded it. This little pipe became the definition of frustration for me. It was a beautiful and I was incredibly hopeful when I cleaned it up and prepared it for the new stem I had cut for it. The grain was very nice and to find that it was an older Pre-transition Barling’s pipe was exciting. The bowl cleaned up very well. The shank and new band looked great. All that remained was to finish working over the stem for it.

About that time my wife came down to the basement where I was working on it and we decided to go for our Saturday morning walk about. We had planned to take the bus down to an area we like to visit and check out the antique shops. This is something that we both enjoy so I put the little Barling’s my pocket and brought along some sand paper to work on it while sitting and waiting for the bus. We had a good morning, went to the Vancouver Flea Market and even found a couple of older Peterson pipes that I picked up. We decided to have some lunch before going home so we walked over to a nearby Korean BBQ and ordered a nice lunch.

While we were waiting for our lunch I guess the pipe fell out of my pocket. I did not notice until the waiter stepped on something and I heard a crack. Well the long and short of it is when we sat down to lunch it had fallen out of my pocket and when the waiter stepped on it the shank cracked off just ahead of the band. I had a sick feeling as I picked up the pieces of the broken old timer. My visions of a nice older Barling’s Pot shape were pretty much crunched. I put the pieces on the table and looked them over as we continue to wait for the meal and I grumbled about my stupidity in not zipping the coat pocket and also about bringing it with me in the first place.

Once we had finished eating and headed home I had calmed down enough to think about what I would do with the pipe. I took the pieces to the basement work table and turned on a bright overhead light so that I could examine the damages. As I looked at the broken shank I could see that the wood was darkened, almost burned around the crack. It was almost as if the heat in the shank had found a flaw in the briar and followed it outward to the surface. It had not gotten all the way to the surface but was just under the outer layer of the finish. So it appeared that the crack was worse than I had imagined.

That helped me to get over being incredibly frustrated and disappointed in the broken shank. So I spent some time looking it over and decided I could work with it. I decided to turn it into a nose warmer. The saddle stem I had made was too small in diameter to fit so I had to cut another stem. I cut off the ragged edges of the break and used a piece of sandpaper on a solid board to face the shank again. I also drilled out the shank and opened it up enough to accept the new tenon. The tenon is a bit shorter than normal 5/8″ to allow a little difference between the opening in the bowl wall and the mortise. I re-banded the shank for a second time to strengthen the shank after the previous break. I fit the stem to the pipe and sanded and polished it to a shine. Then I buffed and waxed the “new” little pipe. I made it such that I can one day put a church warden stem on the bowl should I desire to do so. For now though it is a nose warmer with a short taper stem. Total length is 4 3/4 inches.

Here are some pictures of the finished pipe. I had pictures of the pipe before and after the break but somehow they were erased so this is all I have left to show. I hope you can imagine what it looked like with the new saddle stem before it broke. But if not, you can see the new version. I am also ordering a churchwarden stem for it so I can fit one of those to it as well. Should look great that way as well.