Blog by Steve Laug

I picked this little BBB ** Bulldog up yesterday at a flea market for $16. It is stamped BBB in a diamond over ** on the left side of the shank. The other side is stamped 401 (shape number) over Made in England. The first four pictures below show what it looked like when I found it. It was hidden under a group of worn old pipes and this one and a little Comoy’s Guildhall became mine. The bowl was in pretty clean shape. The finish is clean with only a small dark spot on the shank where it must have touch a coal in an ashtray. The wood is not burned only darkened. The rim was clean but for a little tar. The bowl did not need to be reamed though it was a little out of round. The inner edge of the rim on the front right is a bit damaged from lighting the pipe repeatedly in the same spot. The double rings around the bowl were filled with wax in many spots and would need to be cleaned out for them to really show well. The stem had tooth marks on the underside and topside near the button and the tooth chatter on the oxidized stem would need some work. The BBB diamond was full of gunk and was oxidized with a greenish hue. Inside the shank and stem were dirty but would not take much to clean it up.

I put the next picture in to show the little Comoy’s Guildhall that I picked up at the same time and give a feel for the size of the pair. Both will not need a lot of work to bring them up to being ready for a smoke.

I used silver polish to begin with and cleaned the brass BBB logo. I wanted to see what kind of shape it was in before I began work on the stem. It turned out to be in great shape under the grime and oxidation. The BBB stamp is clean and sharp and the lines in the background are still visible. Once I had the logo cleaned I worked on the tooth chatter and tooth marks in the stem. I used 320 grit sandpaper to work out the tooth chatter and a lighter to heat up the bite marks and lift them out. I then sanded them with 320 grit sandpaper to remove the remnants of them. The next series of three photos show the stem after sanding tooth chatter and bite marks out of the stem.

I cleaned the rim by lightly sanding it with 320 grit sandpaper and then wiping it down with saliva until the tars were removed. The photo below shows the rim after the sanding and cleaning.

I sanded the stem with a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left by the sandpaper and then polished it with Maguiar’s Scratch X2.0. The next series of three photos show the stem as I worked on it with the micromesh sanding pads 1500-12,000 grit. In this case I wet sanded with the 1500, 1800 and 2400 grit micromesh and then dry sanded with the remaining grits of micromesh.

I gave the bowl a quick buff with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax. The next four photos show the polished bowl.

The next three photos show the stem after it has been polished with the micromesh pads up through 12,000 grit. I then used the Maguiar’s polish to finish off the polishing. The oxidation around the stem medallion and on the top sides of the saddle came off with some serious scrubbing with the polish. I also used a dental pick to clean out the two rings around the bowl cap of the bulldog.

The next series of four photos show the finished pipe, cleaned and ready to smoke. I rubbed the stem with Obsidian Oil and then once dry gave the whole pipe several coats of carnauba wax. The dark burn mark on the shank is only surface but still shows clearly in the finished pipe  – won’t affect the way it smokes though.