It is a pleasure to post this second blog piece by Bill Tonge. In this particular refurb what makes it of interest to me is that it was a pipe that I sent him. I figured it might be a good project for him to play around with. It had solid bones and a new stem that I had fit to the shank. There were definitely some issues with the pipe but I figured Bill would come up with something creative. And he certainly did. This reworking of a pipe epitomizes what I quoted Bill as saying in his first post. I am quoting it again here as it is very apropos to his old pipe: “As a person that is economically challenged, I enjoy fixing up the ugly ducklings. I take pride in taking that $5.00 pipe that no one else wants and converting it to something that fits beautifully in a pipe collection.” Here is Bill’s article on reviving or reimagining an old pipe. I think that he has indeed taken an ugly duckling and created something to be proud of. Thanks so much Bill, for sharing your work with us yet again.

I received this pipe in the mail from Steve. He thought it was an interesting project. He had turned a new stem as well as cleaned the bowl and shank.

This pipe had quite a rough texture on the outside, some very deep crevices, as well as what turned out to be a crack about a quarter of the way down the bowl.

So I decided to sand this pipe down as smooth as it would go and then fill the crevices. After sanding it I filled the crevices with a Gorilla Glue & wood dust mixture. After it set up I sanded down the creviced area and applied the rustication. I then proceeded to sand the whole pipe down in stages starting at 100 grit and finishing with 1000 grit. Then I put the micro mesh pads to it and finished up with a wax and buff again only using a Dremel to apply the wax.

I have to say that I like the way this pipe turned out and that the other small blemishes add character to this pipe. I also like the grain on the bottom of the pipe. For anyone that is interested I do not own any dyes but rather use either a Sharpie marker or food colouring to colour my rusticated areas.

Thanks to Steve for the interesting pipe.