04 | October | 2012 | rebornpipes

Al Jones

Well, I fell prey to yet another GBD 9438 in Tapestry finish on Ebay. Yes, another chair leg stem, my fourth this year. However, this time I made a somewhat foolish offer on this particular pipe using my Ebay Android phone app. Using the phone, I completely missed that the seller stated a piece was missing from the stem and the large detailed photograph of the damaged area.

When the pipe arrived, the briar looked in great shape but the damage loomed large. In the ad, the seller offers that he could do the repair for an additional $15. I was skeptical, but curious as to how he might accomplish this feat. The seller replied that Walker Briarworks did his repair work. I did contacted Dave Wolfe at Walker and was not surprised to learn a $15 repair was not an option. Unfortunately, neither was getting a new stem made and transferring the brass rondell. Dave told me that vulcanite stock in that diameter (22 mm) was no longer available.

So, it appeared the repair was left to my own hands. I considered trying to patch it with Superglue, but as you can see, the missing piece was quite large. I didn’t think it could be done nor be durable enough.

I decided the best way to repair the pipe was to cut off the broken button and reshape a new one. I made the cut with a hobby saw and there was no turning back.

Using a small, flat blade needle file, I made a cut on both sides of the stem for the crease. Than, using a heavier metal file I carefully carved out a new button. I went back to the flat needle file to remove some of the heavier file marks. I used both files to shape the button into a “football” shape. additional flat, tapered shape needle files were used to open up the stem hole.

Using some 600 grit wet paper, I sanded out the file marks from the stem. Next the stem was polished with increasingly finer grades of wet sand paper, advancing from 800>1000>1500 and 2000 grit papers. I then polished the stem on the buffer with some Tripoli rouge. I used the final two grades of micro-mesh (8000 and 12000) to bring up the shine. The last steps were to buff the stem with White Diamond rouge followed with a final polish using automotive plastic polish.

The bowl was soaked with Everclear and sea salt and the shank cleaned with alcohol and bristle pipe cleaners. I buffed the bowl with Tripoli, White Diamond and then several coats of carnuba wax. The briar was also polished by hand with Paragon wax.

The finished pipe came looks great and should offer many more years of service.

I finished up the refurb on a London Made billiard. It is a big pipe 7 1/2 inches long. This one was by far the worst one in the lot of three large pipes that I had in my box to refurbish. The rim was in very rough shape with burn marks on the right hand side and dents and scuffs from banging out the dottle. The bowl was heavily caked and the stem and shank were virtually plugged with tars.

I reamed the bowl and cleaned the shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and a shank brush and isopropyl alcohol. Then I gave the bowl an alcohol bath over night. The next morning I took it out of the bath, dried it off with a soft cloth. Once it was dry I sanded the bowl with micromesh sanding pads (1500-6000 grit) until it was smooth. I wiped it down with a cotton pad and some isopropyl to clean off the sanding dust and any remaining oils from my hands. I restained it with an oxblood aniline stain thinned with isopropyl alcohol.

I went to work on the stem after that. The stem was in bad shape. There was a very deep cut mark on the top of the stem about a 1/4 inch from the button. There was also a bite through hole on the underside of the stem. I cleaned and sanded the stem until it was black once again. I left the area around the button, on top and bottom, a bit rough and then filled the cut on the top with krazy glue. I greased and inserted a pipe cleaner in the slot and then filled the hole with krazy glue. Once the glue was completely dry I sanded the two fills I made with sand paper – 400, 600 grit, and then micromesh sanding pads from 1800-6000 grit. (I have read of concern by different folks on how the super/krazy glue can melt or cause damage on vulcanite. I have now been using this process for several years and never had a problem. I have used it on both vulcanite and Lucite. In the past weeks I have also used it on a nylon stem without any probems.)

I took the pipe to my buffer and finished the refurbishing with a buff of White Diamond to polish the finish on the bowl and the stem. I gave the entirety several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean flannel buff to give it a shine.

Here are the pics of the finished pipe (once again I forgot to take pictures of the pipe before I worked on it). Thanks for looking.