This little Bruyere pipe came to me in a box from a friend in Germany. It had a lacquer coat on the bowl and the rim was blistered a bit and the outer edges damaged from tapping it out. The bowl had a light cake that was incomplete – leaving the bottom of the bowl uncaked. The stem was oxidized but did not have any tooth marks or dents on it. The overall condition was promising and needed a bit of time. I removed the stem and put it in the Oxyclean bath that I have made up. It takes a full scoop of Oxyclean and two cups of warm water. It has a lid so I shake the mixture until it is well mixed. The stem sat in the bath while I worked on the bowl.

I reamed the bowl with the smallest bit on my Pipnet reaming set. I wiped the top of the bowl and the outside of the bowl with cotton pads soaked in acetone to remove the lacquer finish. I find that while the acetone does not remove the lacquer it does soften it enough that it sands off easily. I set up the sandpaper on the board I use for topping a bowl and work the top of the bowl on the sandpaper until it was smooth and the roughened edges were not as noticeable. I then used sandpaper to bevel the outer edge of the rim to further hide the rim damage. I sanded the entire bowl using 380 grit sanding pads and removed the remaining lacquer finish. I wiped it down between sanding with acetone. The final sanding was done with micromesh sanding pads 1500-12,000 grit. I restained the bowl with a medium brown aniline stain, flamed it and then buffed it with White Diamond.

I took the stem out of the bath and wiped it dry with a rough cotton cloth that removed the moisture and also removed the top layer of oxidation. I then buffed the stem with Tripoli and White Diamond before returning to the work table to sand it with micromesh pads. I sanded it with 1500-3200 grit micromesh pads and water. I dried it and polished it with the Meguiar’s Scratch X 2.0 polish. I wiped it down and then finished the sanding with the 3600-12,000 grit micromesh. I dry sanded with these grits. Once the stem was smooth and shiny I put it back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with White Diamond and multiple coats of carnauba wax.