After having read of Brian’s restorations on Smokers Forums I wrote and asked him to do a write up on one of his pieces for the rebornpipes blog. He willingly submitted this piece for me to post for him on the blog. I appreciate his willingness and enjoy the process he spells out in his refurbishing work of the Wiking. It is a pleasure to have Brian write for us. Without further ado here is the article and photos:
This is my first blog article on pipe restoration. The pipe was a dirty Bari Wiking with a badly charred rim and heavily oxidized stem that can be seen on the following photo. The photos and article will spell out my process.
First I always clean oxidation from the stem. Before soaking the stem I coat the stem spigot (tenon) and the Bari logo with Vaseline.
I then use an old butter box half filled with 50% bleach and 50% water and drop the stem in the mixture for 30 minutes.
After removing it from the bleach mixture I rinse the stem with fresh water. I reassemble the pipe and then use a retort with 99.9% isopropyl to clean out the inside of the stem, shank and bowl.
The pipe was then buffed. The result is a BRIAR REBORN!
rebornpipes 
I just received this from Brian:
Yes Steve to stem is pitted after bleach, I just buff with brown stick (middle cut) yhen white stick (finishing cut) the rim I use white stick to polish the rim taking of the char. Then use Carnauba resin on open mop to finish the briar off. If you require any further information just let me know. The next time I will put more information. I forgot I also give the stem a coating of Carnauba wax resin. It seems to stop the stem from oxidizing.
Regards Brian
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I likewise would appreciate more on the stem restoration…it is a very handsome job!!
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Ken, I wrote Brian and asked him what his process included. He wrote back and I posted the response in the comments. He also did a second piece for us and it includes a bit more of the process.
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Brian I would love to hear about how you took care of the rim and the out of round bowl. I would also be interested in hearing about how you brought the stem back to a gloss after the bleach roughens the surface. Thanks.
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