Blog by Steve Laug

This Danish pipe stamped Bari Senior Mandarin was in my pipe box for quite awhile before I got to it. You have to understand that at that point box of pipes awaiting refurb was full of about 300+ pipes. It is down to about 30 now. It was a busy winter and spring as I cleaned up the lot. It rains here in Vancouver for most of the winter, so refurbishing is a nice dry past time.

The Bari Senior Mandarin came out of the box looking like the pictures below. I grabbed my camera and took a couple of shots of the pipe before I worked on it. It is a large bowled pipe with nice grain. It was dirty and just needed reaming and cleaning. The rim had a build up of tars and what some lovingly call pipe lava. The finish looked to be okay under the dirt. There were a few small dents in the sides of the bowl that would need to be looked after. The stem had some oxidation but no tooth marks or dents.

The stem was a relatively simple cleaning job. The oxidation was easily removed with a good buff of Tripoli and White Diamond. I scrubbed the inside and outside of the stem to get rid of the tars and tobacco juice in the airway. The bowl was reamed back to a thin coat of cake and the rim was cleaned of the tars and lava buildup with Murphy’s Oil Soap (undiluted) I wiped the bowl down with a soft cloth and some oil soap to clean away the grime and grit on the bowl and shank. I cleaned the inside of the bowl and shank with a shank brush, bristle pipe cleaners and regular pipe cleaners dipped in isopropyl alcohol until they came out clean. I steamed out the dents with a wet cloth and hot butter knife. Once they were repaired I then buffed the bowl and stem with multiple coats of carnauba wax.