Monthly Archives: September 2014

Giving It the Old College Try, As a Favorite Substitute Teacher Used To Say – Robert M. Boughton

Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“What is the real purpose behind the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus? They seem like greater steps toward faith and imagination, each with a payoff. Like cognitive training exercises.”
— Author Chuck Palahniuk, in a Seattle Times interview, November 18, 2005

INTRODUCTION
Attention, working memory, processing speed, long-term memory, visual processing, auditory processing, logic and reasoning are the primary aspects of cognitive thinking, or the ability to learn. That’s why I kicked myself, in the figurative sense of course, the other day when I finished this restoration project and discovered I had deviated from my normal habit of photographing each part of the project – in this case, the pipe before it was restored. I mean, that’s not really an important step, after all, only the key to understanding the significance of the end product.

My excuse is that I bought a lot of eight pipes on eBay, knowing they were in foul condition but rather desperately needing more ware for my online store, and in the repetitious task of documenting all of their original conditions from every angle, the one slipped past me. However, being more attentive by nature, I have managed to forgive myself, if not without some wicked self-chastising.

Anyway, I bought that particular set for several reasons: nobody seemed to see what I did, that hidden in the apparent wreckage (at least to someone with an eye to get past all of that) were an unusual Savinelli huge billiard, a Ropp cherry wood, a smooth and well-colored old meerschaum bulldog and a Longchamp pigskin billiard, all of which appeared to be vintage; the bidding was low, I thought – I won for $32.50 with free shipping, more than the price for any one of them with careful work – and I was determined to have them, without sniping, at a sane cost I was confident of achieving by scaring off the competition with a max bid that had to seem outrageous to the others who were watching. I wonder if any of the unfortunate amateurs even took another look to see who won. And, oh, the thrill of victory in the best example of the open market that is eBay, even at its downright dirtiest.

Only one of the eight, a very old corncob, was burned out. In fact, that is putting it over nicely, for there was a glaring hole in the bottom that I confirmed with a poke from my pocket three-in-one pipe utility tool, but even it offered an excellent age-browned stem and gold-colored shank plate that fit an old restore with a crack I’ve been working on. The beautiful Savinelli Punto Oro marked “Herman Marcus” – which the eBay seller misidentified in the ad as a “Neiman Marcus” – on the right shank is very badly caked like the others and has an original short stem that for whatever hair-brained reason was bent up and back and not surprisingly has a chunk out of the lip. Call it foolhardiness or even plain arrogance, but I think I can fix the chunk. The other six pipes are finished, but this account concerns only one.

THE PIPE RESTORATION
My blog today is about a lesser-known pipe brand called Monarch, which was established in Hartford, Connecticut in the 1930s and also distributes the Carey Magic Inch and Aerosphere pipes. Specifically, this concerns an apple shaped sitter with a bizarre patented tenon that screws into the shank. Once inserted with great difficulty, the tenon leaves a jet engine-like protrusion with a tiny piece of the rod that snaps onto the stem. At the time I believed my greatest problem would be disassembling the pipe, as something within the complex tenon system went awry and left the stem and cap spinning out of control with no purchase whatsoever. Naturally, I consulted my friend and mentor, Chuck Richards, first. He examined the pipe, sighed, made a doubtful face and suggested I give the whole thing a hot alcohol flush to see if that might loosen things up. But he was making no promises. And so, just for backup, I emailed our host, Steve, and posed my question. He said he had encountered the same problem once or twice in the past, and the only way he was able to get the pieces apart was to wiggle the stem carefully back and forth for as long as it took to do the job. Steve suggested the process could take some time and be quite tiring.

And so I decided upon a course of compromise. I gave the pipe a normal cold alcohol flush just to remove some gunk, which it did, and as I was quick to wipe up the overflow, it cleaned the bowl and shank well also. Then I commenced the wiggling. Steve was correct. The darned thing wanted to put up a fight. But maybe I lucked out, or the pipe just felt the negative vibes beginning to emanate from my psyche, because after about a half-hour of this nonsense the stem popped off. I was sure I had broken it!

Uncovering something out of a sci-fi comic book from back in the day, before anyone from Earth at least had ever traveled into space, or perhaps more like a diagram one might see in an old tech manual on airplane engines, I grasped the bowl and shank firmly in one hand and seized the curious bulb with two fingers of my free one and tried my hardest to twist. This approach got me nowhere but hot and sweaty.
Acutely aware of how easily I might demolish the entire pipe with one fell move but needing in the worst way to get that thing out of the shank, I wrapped the extending end of the tenon in a few small pieces of cotton and found some pliers. I started with the least necessary force and worked my way up a few notches before thinking better.

Sitting down and applying all of that processing (in particular visual), logic and reasoning I mentioned in the beginning, I noted the small opening in the exposed end of some sort of rod as yet unknown to me but most certainly to become so. And I remembered something (learning) I had done before to extract similar parts jammed in admittedly more sturdy objects. Rummaging through my toolbox, I found a small screw and screwdriver and with all due respect for the frail pipe, not to mention the unknown integrity of the odd tenon, forced the screw a short distance into the hole, where it jammed as I had intended.
Reversing the turn of the screw, no pun intended, I was rewarded almost at once with movement of the rod. Soon it became loose enough to finish by hand, and then the whole, approximately two-inch, grimy rod, along with the bulbous end and the stem cap, were in my hands. I know pride is supposed to be a sin, but not in all cases, and at any rate, there it is.

The patented supertenon, which appeared not to be intended for removal in order to accomplish such trivial tasks as cleaning the pipe now and then, suddenly told me, as clearly as if it spoke the words, why I found it and the inner shank coated with vile muck accreted over the decades. Intense alcohol scrubbing with stem cleaners corrected that problem.

But then there were the bowl and rim to make right again, and I emphasize that term. The iniquitous conditions of the two, un-photographed as they may be, can be approximated by a shot I took of those areas of another pipe from the same lot:Although clearly not even the same material as the Monarch apple, the rim scorching and cake buildup in the bowl are for all intents and purposes identical.

I reamed that bowl with vigor and then sanded it, first with 150-grit paper and then 400, for about 40 minutes, until it was completely clear of carbon and down to the briar at the top. I used 220 on the rim, then micro-meshed it with 2400.

In this way time flew, and the hour arrived to reassemble the pipe. I really had no idea how that would go, but after a few tries I managed, with the rod inserted through the holes on either end of the bulb and decorative cap that was attached to it, to turn the crazy tenon as far as it would go back into the shank. Relieved that the cap was snug in place, I made several tries to line up the tiny exposed end of the rod with a space station-like dock deep inside the hollow stem. For some odd reason I felt like Major Tom floating in a tin can. At last I heard a happy click of connection, and the pipe was as whole as it could be.
You see, that was the problem right there. Even after I buffed up the stem with red Tripoli and White Diamond, and the briar with the works, I just was not satisfied with the wicked little Apollo 13 shimmy thing going on between the stem and the tenon. My attention, working memory, processing speed, long-term memory, visual processing, logic and reasoning were all whirring at full capacity as I tried to rationalize putting this piece of horse pucky up for sale on my new Web store, but something in my subconscious still refused to learn this new trick.

Therefore, I went to the Google chalkboard to see if I could work it out by looking up “Monarch tobacco pipe tenons,” which was actually a suggested search, and found images of them. And what do you know, but right there, number one, was my hideous creature. Take special note of two items of intelligence we can gather from this photo: the significantly greater length of the rod sticking out of the bulb, and the still far too big of a gap between the exposed rod and the connector in the stem of my Monarch. The first thought I had was to disassemble the doggone thing again and see if I had somehow made a mistake – which does happen sometimes – and perhaps the tenon was screwed in too tightly. I’m sorry to say it wasn’t.

Still, the exercise in self-doubt was a success in that without it I might not have observed the length of the tenon loose in my hand again and imagined it re-inserted into the shank without the bulb and cap in the way. I mean, I never really liked it from the beginning, let’s face it, and so the notion of tossing it into my growing assortment of pipe odds and ends was rather appealing.

I made a battlefield decision and thought, what the heck. I’ve already spent too much time on this fanciful, vintage and even patented experiment in pipe making, so what are a few more minutes? After re-screwing in the rod without the bulb and cap, I snapped on the stem – and it indeed was a much better fit.
CONCLUSION
Now that all is said and done, I am happy that I did the work of making this sad example of pipe craft look beautiful again and ready to smoke in some fashion. But the bottom line is, I don’t even want to keep it around to use for my own enjoyment, so I certainly won’t sell it to anyone. First thing after finishing this blog and dispatching it, I intend to remove the pipe from my online store, where I have already posted it for $35. To me that would be the same as robbery, and even offering it free with the purchase of another pipe would be a cruel joke to play on some unsuspecting customer. Besides, it would only come back to me by the power of three times three. Maybe I’ll give it to a friend who is particularly fond of apples, with a copy of this blog. At least I have made it reasonably easy to remove the so-called tenon now.

To me, this is the real purpose behind the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Learning.

John’s First Restoration – A Danish Sovereign Peewit #30

8 Replies

When John and I got home from our pipe hunt we spent the evening and the next morning working on the pipes he had found. We figured that the best way for him to learn how to refurbish pipes was to work on this lot together. That way he would learn as he worked with me on the pipes and we could discuss any issues that might arise during the process of the cleanups. He was intrigued with the idea and liked working with his hands so it seemed like this might be a part of the pipe smoking hobby that he could use to unwind and clear his thoughts from the heavy work of his day to day work as a Presbyterian minister. For his first pipe to refurbish he chose to restore a Danish Sovereign Peewit Shape #30. It is shown in the picture below and is the second pipe in the first row at the top. Walking through the entire process with him on this pipe and one of the others that he did taught him everything from removing the cake, cleaning the finish on a bowl and restaining it to cleaning and polishing a stem to the point that it shone. Once again I forgot to take photos of the pipe before we started but remembered after I had reamed it with a PipNet reamer. The bowl was badly caked and the rim had a thick buildup of tars and oils. The briar had a nice blast on it and the stain was worn in quite a few spots. The stem was odd on this particular pipe. The tenon had a sleeve on it that added diameter. It appeared that somewhere along the way the shank had been redrilled larger than the original tenon so the sleeve was a necessity. The bowl was drilled way off centre to the right so the airway entered the bowl on the right side of the bottom of the bowl. The bowl itself was round but the pipe itself was way out of round with far more briar on the right side than the left. John scrubbed the bowl with a tooth-brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and the old finish. He used a dental pick to remove the remainder of the buildup on the top of the rim. He rinsed it under running water to remove the soap and grime and dried it with a soft cloth. He used a dark brown stain pen (thanks Greg) to match the stain on the bowl in those areas on the shank and rim where the stain had worn off. He buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax and hand buffed it with a shoe brush. The stem needed a lot of attention. There were some tooth dents in the surface of the stem on the top and bottom side. We set up the heat gun and heated the vulcanite to lift the dents. We also adjusted the bend in the stem while we were at it with the heat gun. The next photo of the end of the tenon shows the sleeve that had been added to the tenon to increase the diameter. John sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the calcification and the oxidation. He also used that to sand out the remnants of the tooth marks after we heated the stem. He then sanded the stem with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratch marks left behind by the sandpaper. Once finished he moved on to sand with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I had him rub the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. He buffed the stem with White Diamond and then we waxed it with some Renaissance Wax (he will not have access to a buffer at home so I was trying work as much as possible without one). I had John give the pipe another coat of Renaissance Wax and buff it with a shoe brush to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below in all of its new sheen. I think John will enjoy smoking this one. I know when I refurbished my first pipe it seemed to smoke exceptionally well. I think it is the time spent bringing it back to life that makes this happen. Great job on this one John, it is a refurbished pipe to be proud of. Be sure to let us know how it smokes when you fire it up.

Restoring a Peterson Dunmore #72

6 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

The Dunmore line from Peterson really is a stripped down pipe. The one that I worked on this weekend was in essence a system pipe. The lack of a ferrule is made up for by a stylized carving around the shank end. The stem sits snugly against the end of the shank but is not flush with the diameter of the shank. The saddle on the stem has a different flair than a regular Peterson pipe. The one we found had a Plip stem. This particular Dunmore was found by my friend John when we went pipe hunting this weekend. We had a blast as can be seen from the haul of pipes that he picked up below. The Dunmore is picture at the top left of the first column in the photo below. below. While John worked on restoring the oak pipe rack that he had found I worked on his Peterson Dunmore. This old pipe had some beautiful grain – birdseye on both sides and cross grain front and back. The bowl almost perfectly aligned with the grain on this one. I forgot to take pictures of the pipe before I began cleaning it up so the only one that is left of the pre-clean is shown in the group photo above. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and then cleaned out the sump and the internals of the bowl and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol until all came out clean. The finish on the bowl was virtually non-existent as it had worn away. I wiped it down with acetone to clean the briar and remove the oils and marks that had settled on top of the wood. The acetone pads came away dirty with the grime more than with any previous colour or stain. Cleaning the surface revealed even more clearly the marvelous grain that was on this pipe. The top of the bowl and rim had some damage from tapping out the pipe. The outer edge of the rim particularly had taken a beating. The bowl was still in round so the inner edge was fine. To minimize the damage to the top and the outer edge I set up a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper and worked on the bowl top. (The whole time I was working on this pipe I gave a running commentary to John as he wanted to know the process so that he could clean up some of the other pipes once he had finished the rack). After topping the bowl I sanded the outer edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to remove some of the darkening around the bowl top. I resanded it with medium and fine grit sandpaper to remove scratches and did the same to the rim top. I sanded the entirety of the rim and edges with 2400 grit micromesh to smooth it out. After wiping down the briar with alcohol to remove the dust from the surface of the bowl John and I decided not to stain the pipe but to keep it natural. I rubbed it down with a bit of olive oil to give some life to the wood and then buffed it with White Diamond. I was careful to not buff the areas around the stamping so as not to damage them. I chose rather to buff these areas by hand with a shoe brush. I gave the bowl several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff to shine it. There were two small crevices that showed up on the inside of the bowl on the right side about ¼ inch below the rim. I mixed a batch of pipe mud and filled the small crevices and smoothed the mud over the surrounding area of the bowl. I set it aside to dry while I worked on the stem.

The stem had a lot of tooth chatter and a few shallow tooth marks on the top and the bottom next to the button. It also had a deep oxidation that required a lot of elbow grease to remove. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the surface oxidation and the calcification near the button. I “painted” the stem with my Bic lighter to raise more of the oxidation to the surface and also to raise the small tooth marks on the stem. I sanded it some more with the 220 grit sandpaper followed by a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. That work brought it to the condition shown in the next two photos below. I sanded it with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down between each set of three pads with Obsidian Oil. After finishing with the 12,000 grit pad I buffed it lightly with White Diamond on the wheel and then rubbed it down one more time with the oil. When it had dried I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it to a shine. I hand buffed the completed pipe with a bit more wax and a shoe brush to finish the polish. The finished pipe is shown below in all of its beauty. I am really glad we decided to leave the wood natural and only give it a light oil finish before waxing. The grain stands out well and the feel of the pipe in hand is very nice. John loved the finished pipe. I am looking forward to hearing from him once he has smoked it a few times.

The Peterson Kaffir (Horn) and Bent Albert (Zulu).

A Perfect Pipe Hunting Day

8 Replies

On Friday John, a friend of mine from Calgary, Alberta came for the weekend for a visit. We planned to go to the US for a day so that I could take him to a couple of pipe shops in Bellingham, Washington – the Senate Smoke Shop and the Fairhaven Smoke Shop (I have written reviews of both shops here on rebornpipes). When John arrived and we were planning our day he said that he also wanted to visit some of the places where I went hunting for estate pipes when I am down there. It was going to be a great day and I was hoping that we would find some good pipes to make his first hunt a success. We decided to leave early on Saturday morning and spend the whole day hunting. We crossed the border, headed to a local restaurant for breakfast while we waited for the shops to open. We each downed an order of biscuits and gravy, bacon and eggs and orange juice. We took our time to enjoy our breakfast and once had finished we headed to the first hunting spot – an antique mall.

We cruised slowly through the store looking at all the cupboards and tins, ferreting out old pipes. I found quite a few old timers that did not grab my interest. John found a pigskin covered opera pipe stamped Longchamp and bearing a horse on the stem. It was in good shape and lightly smoked. The rim was tarred and the leather dirty. It had a ¼ bent stem that was very clean, though oxidized. He found an old 10 pipe rack made of oak and a brown glass humidor in the middle that had a worn finish but beautifully grained wood. It came with four old pipes – a Falcon, a nylon Falcon style pipe, a Yello-Bole Bulldog and a no name Imported Briar Apple full of fills. We paid for our finds and headed to the next stop to see what we would find. I had a bit more luck and found an old Canadian stamped Paul’s and Italy. It was a large Canadian made from a nice piece of briar but was filthy and the rim was beat up. I purchased my Canadian and then we moved on to the next shop. We visited with the shop keeper who had just returned from a trip to California and he showed us a dozen or more pipes that he had purchased from an estate. None of them caught our attention but we had a great visit with him before heading to our next stop. At that shop we enjoyed looking through the pipes that were for sale. John picked out two of them that caught his eye. The first pipe was a Danish Sovereign Peewit shaped sandblast. It was a dark brown/black stained blast with a typical Stanwell style stem. The shank bore the stamping Danish Sovereign, shape #30. The stem was dirty but easily fixable. The tenon had an interesting Delrin sleeve over the end that made the diameter large enough to fit the shank as it had been drilled out to make it larger. I am not sure why they had enlarged the shank but it had been well done. The second pipe was a Peterson Dumore shape 72 that had some beautiful grain – birdseye on the sides and cross grain on the front and back of the bowl. The stem was in great shape though badly oxidized. All totalled John had added seven “new” pipes to his “new” round 10 pipe rack. I picked out four that caught my eye. The first one was a Savinelli Punto Oro 804 Canadian black sandblast that was in decent shape. The finish was very good while the stem was oxidized but had no tooth marks. The bowl was smoked but clean. It would be an easy one to clean up. The second was a Peterson Tankard with a rounded rim and a military bit. The finish was very worn, the stamping was weak in spots but it said Peterson Tankard over Made in the Republic of Ireland. The stem was oxidized and had a few tooth dents on the top and bottom sides near the P-lip button but should clean up nicely. The third one was a Dunhill Shell Billiard with a saddle stem. It was stamped Dunhill Shell over Made in England. Next to the Shell stamping it had a 23 stamped. On the other side of the Dunhill stamping it read 42121. After the D in England it was stamped 20 which if I read it correctly makes it a 1980 pipe. It had a nice blast and the finish was not terribly worn. The rim was dirty and the bowl was thickly caked. The stem had the inner tube insert in the tenon and it extended to the airway in the bowl. The stem was badly oxidized and had tooth dents in both the top and bottom sides near the button. The fourth pipe was an Astley ¼ bent cherry wood. It had a black rusticated finish and the stamping on the smooth bowl bottom read Astleys over 109 Jermyn St over London. The shape number 48 was under that. The bowl had a thick cake and heavy buildup on the rim. The finish though was in very good shape. The stem had a thick calcification on the top and bottom, tooth marks and chatter as well. It was oxidized but bore a very clean capital A stamp on the top of the saddle. The stem was over bent. We stopped by the Senate Smoke Shop and spent the better part of an hour visiting with the owner/proprietor, Mike. John bought two pouches of tobacco from him before we left the shop to drive south to Fairhaven to visit his other shop. I had visited the Fairhaven Smoke Shop many times over the years and it has the air of an old time pipe and tobacco shop. I always enjoy going there and wanted to introduce John to the charms of the place. We visited with Jesse, the sales clerk and I picked up a pouch of McClellands Oriental and a few flakes of 2035 that had some age on it. We each bought some bundles of pipe cleaners so that we could clean up the pipes we had added to our collections.

We finished the hunt having had a successful day each of had found some good pipes, some tobaccos to try and John had picked up a nice oak pipe rack for his pipes. We decided to celebrate a great day and headed to a favourite Mexican restaurant of mine for lunch while we looked over our finds. We laughed and ooohed and ahhhed at the various pipes we picked up. We had a great visit over lunch and after lunch found a spot outside to enjoy a bowl of our new tobacco and visit before we headed back to Canada. We relaxed and smoked our pipes and commented on what a great day it had been. We were pleased with our finds and looked forward to working on them later. When our pipes had gone out we tipped out the dottle and headed home.

The plan was to spend the evening cleaning up John’s purchases – both pipes and the pipe rack so that he could take home some clean pipes and a refinished rack. He wanted to learn about the craft of refurbishing so these pipes would be a great place for him to begin. Over the evening we refinished the pipe rack – stripped it and restained it with a light Cherry stain. We washed the humidor and reattached the clay disk to the lid. We also refurbished the Peterson Dunmore, the Danish Sovereign Peewit, the Falcon (the bowl was shot, so I gave him an extra bowl that I had here), the Yello-Bole Bulldog and the Longchamp Opera pipe. John loaded his car and left this morning with his cleaned and restored finds for a short road trip back to Calgary. It was great to spend time with him chatting, hunting, refurbishing and enjoying our pipes. I always enjoy my visits with John and on top of our normal good visits this time we had added great day pipe hunting. Now the time has come to begin cleaning up my pipe hunt finds. I am looking forward to seeing these five pipes cleaned and refurbished and then filled with tobacco to smoke for many years ahead.

Holy Grail Upgrade – GBD 9438 Virgin

17 Replies

Blog by Al Jones

The GBD 9438 in Virgin grade was near the top of my “Holy Grail” list. two years ago, I found and restored one with a Perspex stem (that article is in the archives here). I prefer a Vulcanite stem and finally won an Ebay auction for a suitable example. My collecting strategy is that once a pipe from my list is acquired, to keep an eye out for a pipe in better condition. The pipe arrived in very good condition, with a few bumps in the briar and an oxidized stem. This restoration required two repairs I had not yet completed.

The pipe as received, show a lot of potential.

The tenon had a “bullet” shaped head, which is similar to another GBD in my collection, a Virgin 28D with a “Hand Cut” stamp on the stem. Unfortunately the stem on the 9438 does not have this stamp. The draft hole in the tenon was curiously very small, not like any GBD I had ever encountered. The opening was so small, a pipe cleaner could barely pass through. Testing the draft, there was no way that this would smoke well. It appeared as if something was in the standard hole. I explored carefully with a drill bit and discovered that the material was made of wood. It appeared that someone had inserted a wooden plug into the tenon and then drilled it. Fortunately, the wood piece came out easily and the pipe now passes a stem straight into the bowl. Here you can see the plug. I have no idea why someone would think that this was a good idea and I can’t imagine the pipe smoked well.

And the tenon with the plug removed.

There were two creases in the otherwise unmarked briar. I thought they would come out with some steam. Using a heated kitchen knife and a piece of wet cloth, folded over four times, the creases came out nicely. Here you can see the before and after pictures. The steam lightens the briar somewhat, but buffed and waxed it comes right back.

The bowl had only a very light cake, I’m guessing the pipe was put aside before much use. I soaked the bowl in some sea salt and alcohol. The stem was also soaked in a mild solution of Oxyclean with a dab of grease on the brass rondell. I buffed the bowl lightly with White Diamond and then several coats of Carnuba wax, carefully working away from the stamped nomenclature, which was in very good condition.

The stem had a very heavy coat of oxidation. I started with 800 grit wet paper, than worked up to 1000, 1500 and 2000. I then used the 8000 and 12000 grades of Micromesh. The stem was then buffed lightly with White Diamond rouge. Here is the pipe after using the 800 grit paper.

The few teeth scratches came out but the stem had an odd kink and not the standard graceful curve. I inserted a cleaner into the stem and warmed the vulcanite with heat from the flame of a propane torch. There is probably a less risky way to heat the vulcanite, but that is what I had in my shop. The stem was slowly moved back into it’s original position. I was tempted to let well enough alone, but I think the pipe looks much better with the correct stem bend.

Below is the finished pipe. I’m very pleased with this Virgin 9438. The wood is flawless and or a GBD, it has decent grain.

Tenon Troubles- Why I Stretch Rather Than Squash

6 Replies

Blog by Greg Wolford

Not long ago I was asked why I go through the trouble of using a drill bit (the blunt end) to stretch out a tenon instead of simply pressing it down to enlarge it when I’m fixing a loose stem. (The original article is posted HERE) I answered with because it is less likely to bend or mushroom the tenon doing it this way but there’s another reason to use this method: “headspace”.

Ideally the tenon should fit snugly against the mortise with little or no “headspace” or gap. When a stem is loose enlarging its diameter is the best long term fix but the method for the fix has an impact on the pipe’s smoking characteristics on my opinion.

Pressing it down while it’s warm will increase the diameter but also shorten the tenon, thus increasing the gap or headspace, too, which is undesirable. By stretching the tenon to the right fit, you get a nice, snug stem and no increase in the headspace. If you are a listener to the PipesMagazine Radio show you already know the reason why this is important; and if you’re not a listener you should be! Anyway, the increased gap allows more gunk to build up in the shank and can cause a pipe to smoke wetter, neither are desirable things. So, again, in my opinion, the extra time and effort the stretch-method requires is well worth the investment.

Got Today’s Apple! Restoring an Imported Briar Apple

2 Replies

Yet another gift pipe bowl that I had in my box was a no name Imported Briar Apple. It had a threaded tenon and I just “happened” to have a stem that fit it perfectly in my can of stems. (One day I need to get the stems sorted and organized more. Currently I have a can of round stems and a can of everything else stems. This necessitates emptying the entire can on the work table each time I need them and sorting through to find what I need.) The stem was a used Grabow stem that was missing the stinger but the tenon was intact. It was oxidized and dirty but very functional. There were no tooth marks or bite marks on the surface. When twisted onto the pipe it was slightly overturned. The bowl had an interesting finish in that the briar was smooth around the rounded rim and down the bowl. Then there were grooves or what I call worm trails cut vertically down the sides of the bowl and horizontally on the shank. The all culminated in rusticated pattern on the bottom of the bowl. The finish was shot and the worm trails had all nature of detritus packed into them. The grooves were full in some places. The stain was present but worn. If there had ever been a varnish coat it too was gone. The aluminum mortise insert was well oxidized. The bowl had a thick buildup of cake and loose pieces of tobacco handing on the sides. The rim was dirty but did not have any damage. I heated the tenon with a Bic lighter and straightened the overclocked stem. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and then scrubbed the bowl down with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed it with lukewarm water and dried it off. I scrubbed the buildup on the rim with a cotton pad and saliva and then used isopropyl alcohol on a cotton pad until I had broken through the tough outer coat. I used a medium grit sanding sponge to sand off the rest of the buildup and then wiped it down again with alcohol. I wiped down the exterior of the bowl and shank with acetone on cotton pads to remove the remaining finish. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation and the calcification buildup at the button. I worked in the creases with a sanding stick. Once I had cut through the oxidation I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. Once I had removed the finish and did the initial sanding on the stem I cleaned out the shank and stem with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol until they were clean. I sanded the aluminum mortise insert with medium and fine grit sanding pads. I stained the bowl with a Danish Oil Walnut stain. After I had stained the pipe I put a cork in the bowl and set it aside in an old candle stick holder to dry while I worked on the stem. I sanded the stem with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three sanding pads and gave it a final coat of the oil after sanding with the 12,000 grit pad. I took it to the buffer and buffed it with White Diamond. When the stain on the bowl had dried I put the stem on the pipe and then gave the entire pipe another buff with the White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I finished by buffing it with a soft flannel buff to raise the shine on the bowl and stem. The finished pipe is shown below. The stem actually looks like it is the original stem and the pipe looks as good as new. It is ready for a long life in the hands of the next pipeman who takes it home to join his/her rack.

Goodfellas Cigar Shop – Visiting a Victoria Pipe & Cigar Shop

1 Reply

This past weekend my wife, eldest daughter and I visited Victoria, British Columbia. On such visits in the past I had always stopped by the Old Morris Tobacconist Shop to pay homage to this long standing icon to old time tobacco shops. The last few times I had been there though I was very disappointed at how the shop had become a mere shell of its past and had turned into a high end gift shop. It was quite sad. This time I had no intention of visiting the shop and feeding that disappointment some more. Something new had to be found to replace that stop.

I did a bit of research on the web and through friends and decided to visit Goodfellas Cigar Shop which was quite literally not far from the Old Morris Shop. I had heard good things about the shop and had been told that they carried pipe tobacco and a few pipes. I found out that they had two shops in Victoria and since I was downtown I decided to visit the downtown shop on Store Street. I had no idea what to expect when I got to the place in spite of spending some time on the website looking at photos. My past experience with cigar shops has always been that pipes were a mere after thought and not a big part of the store. The website did show that at least Goodfellas carried a wide range of tobacco blends – both tinned and house bulk blends.I was excited to see if they aslo had a similar range of pipes for sale. My wife and daughter went to do a bit of shopping and I headed to Goodfellas. When I opened the door the bell sounded to let the proprietor know I was there. I looked around the shop and got a quick look at what was available. There was a wall of tinned tobacco behind the counter that had blends by McClellands, and those bearing the Petersons, Solani, Dunhill, Erinmore, Reiner, Davidoff labels. The tinned blends were mainly Virgina, Virginia-Perique, Balkan and English. There were also several shelves of jarred tobacco that housed bulk blends by Lane and McClelland and had a wide range of aromatics and a few English and straight Virginias. There were humidors of cigars on several walls that had a wide selection. There were personal humidors and humidor supplies for the individual humidor. There were also several display cases of pipes including Petersons, Stanwells, Dunhill and Chacom. The selection appeared to be quite wide. There was one staff member, James, on site at that time and he was helping several people who were buying cigars and cigarettes. He seemed knowledgeable of the cigars that the shop carried and genuinely interested in serving the customers. I did a quick walk through the small corner shop taking in the sights. I asked some pipe questions when the opportunity arose. My questions were all designed to assess whether I was talking to a cigar man or a pipe man. To my delight he was a pipe man. Not only was he knowledgable about pipes and tobaccos but he smoked a pipe and an occasional cigar not the other way around.

To say that I was impressed is to put it mildly. This was truly a tobacconist and not a gift shop. They had all of the necessary pipe and cigar paraphernalia and a few glass pipes. I walked through looking at the pipes that were offered and found some nice ones. I asked about the Dunhill’s that they had advertized and was told that they had had problems with the display case being broken into and Dunhill items being stolen so they had put them away for the time being. The Petersons, Stanwells, Chacom pipes that they carried were in glass topped display cases that were well lit and nicely arranged. Pipe tampers, lighters, pipe cases etc. were all on display and accessible for the shopper. The same was true of the cigar cutters, punches and travel cases and humidors. There was a wide range of both pipe and cigar items available for purchase.

The next two photos show the Royal Oaks Store. They have a large walk in humidor and did have a smoking area at that location until health authorities ordered its closure. I have that one on the list to visit next time I am over in Victoria. When I googled the shop on line, I enjoyed reading through the descriptions of the house blends of tobacco that they sold in bulk. I thought it would be good to put a list of their bulk blends in this article. I picked up some of the House Tobacco Sunday Morning – it was billed as a crossover blend between English and Aromatic tobaccos. It contains Cyprian Latakia balanced with a light aromatic tobacco. The blend smelled good and when I smoked it my wife commented on the room note. I also smoked a bowl on my front porch and a fellow commented as he walked by about how good it smelled. It is a bit too aromatic for my usual smoke but it is a good smoke to fire up with non-smoking company. The smell of the burning tobacco brings good comments from those passing by and seems to bring back memories of fathers, grandfathers and good friends who smoked pipes. Here is the contact information and addresses for both of the Goodfellas Cigar Shop locations. If you are ever in Victoria, BC I would encourage you to stop by for a visit and enjoy the conversation and the atmosphere of a great shop. Thank you Goodfellas for keeping the tobacconist tradition alive.

The Doctor Gets a New Coat- A Dr Grabow Omega Reborn

7 Replies

Blog by Greg Wolford

Of late I’ve been admiring system-type pipes. Having never had one I placed a bid on a lot of four old pipes – two I had little interest in – two of which were Dr Grabow Omegas, a smooth and a rusticated. Here are a few photos from the seller; I forgot (again) to take before and even some along-the-way shots.

I stared on them both with the normal scrubbing the outside with acetone on cotton balls to remove their finishes. Then I reamed them back to bare wood. The smooth pipe was heavily caked but the rusticated one wasn’t at all, barely smoked really. However, you can’t tell in the above picture, the rusticated one had some heavy damage to the inner rim. I began by topping the bowl to even it it some but it would take a lot of briar removal to attempt to get out the chunks missing from the inner rim. So I took the second largest head on my Castleford reamer, too big for the bowl, and started a “bevel” on the inner rim, which I then worked with needle files and sandpaper to smooth out. I couldn’t take out all the damage but made it much less noticeable and would be even better after I stained it and it was later smoked. Next I got out my hand drill and re-drilled both bowls with a 5/32″ bit to improve the draw. I did the same thing with the tenon ends of the stems and then funneled them out. At this point I dropped both bowls in an alcohol bath overnight.

I cleaned out the stems with alcohol and pipe cleaners until they came out white. These stems are not vulcanite but a nylon-type material, ABS plastic I believe, and are not my favorite to work on. The smooth bowled pipe had a good stem the rusticated one’s stem was chewed pretty badly. I decided to use some of the adhesive accelerator and black super glue to raise up some the bites marks; I left the “roughness” of the chew marks on, thinking the glue would adhere better. I alternated polishing the “good” stem and building up the patch on the chewed up P-lip style one. Once the “rough” stem was built up to my satisfaction I used a needle file and some 320 wet/dry paper to smooth off the roughness from the chewing the previous pipeman had done. Then I polished the stem with plastic polish and was happy with the “decent” look I ended up with; I felt it just wasn’t worth the time and effort to try to get this plastic stem any closer to “new” than it was now.

The next morning I took the bowls out of their soak and let them dry an hour or so. I wanted to make this “typical” rusticated Omega look less typical so I started sanding in it; the rustication was plenty deep enough to remove some briar on the smooth part without worry of loosing the rustication’s definition. I did tape off the stamping to retain that as much as possible before starting.

Taking off the old deep red top coat would give me a great opportunity to create a kind of unique contrast on this pipe I thought so after sanding the bowl and band with 220 and 320 grits I used a black sharpie to color in all the rustication and also the rim and new inner bevel. Then I used 400 grit to sand off the bowl again, to remove the over-marks of black, and the band. Then I applied a coat of a lighter red, which is actually a stain marker I got in a set at The Dollar Tree and is marked “medium brown”. I let the stain cure for a bit and then highlighted the nomenclature with white acrylic paint, for an extra “pop”.

While the paint cured I have the stem a final polish with plastic polish just to brighten and shine it a little more. I was tempted to try to make the bit nicer but the back of my mind kept telling me it wasn’t worth the headache so I finally decided to leave it.

I have the bowl one last coat of stain and let it dry for about 15 minutes; these bargain-markers dry real fast, even if the colors aren’t what I thought they’d be. Then I applied a good coat of Halcyon II wax to the pipe and stem and buffed it by hand.

The end product is, in my eye, a pretty neat and definitely different from most other Omega product, even with the “boogered” stem.