Blog by Al Jones

I found this “Drinkless” grade Shape 7716 at a Pennsylvania flea market a few weeks ago.  I believe this four-digit shape code pipe was made between 1936 and 1938.   I’ve learned that the Drinkless grade was introduced in 1935.  Kaywoodie didn’t begin using the “Imported Briar” stamp until 1936.  The four digit shape codes were not used after 1938.    This pipe has an intact, large-ball, 4-hole “Drinkless” stinger.

I also learned that the 77 indicates “Screw in Drinkless, dark finish, black vulcanite stem”
The 16 indicates “Curved (Full Bend) Medium Billiard”.

The pipe was in decent shape, with some tars on the bowl top and an oxidized stem.  The screw in stem was slightly out of alignment and would need to be “re-clocked”.  The nomenclature was in perfect condition.

 

I reamed the bowl and soaked it with some alcohol and sea salt.  The stem was immersed in a mild Oxy-Clean solution.

I used some of the Oxy-clean solution on a cloth to rub off the bowl top tars.  There was a little rim scorching and I used a worn 8000 grade sheet of micromesh to remove those marks.  The bowl was then buffed lightly with White Diamond rouge and several coats of Carnuba wax.

Les Young passed on to me a tip from Bill Feuerbach on re-clocking a stem, which worked well.  On our glass-top stove, I turned a burner to high.  I put the metal end of the shank square down on the burner for about 20 seconds.  This loosened the glue of the screw-in stem insert. I then quickly screwed the stem onto the pipe and gently moved it into the correct orientation.  From this shot, you can see that the stem has been moved into the correct position.

Next up was to clean the step, which had already been soaked (with a dab of grease on the stinger and stem Cloverleaf logo).  I started with 800 grit wet paper, than moved to 1000, 1500 and 2000 grades.  This revealed that under the oxidation, there were several tooth indentions that I could not lift with heat.  I applied a drop of black Super-Glue to each spot and spritzed on some of the Hobby-Lobby accelerator.

 

After the glue was dry, I sanded the bumps flush with some 600 then 800 grit paper.  I then worked back thru the 1000, 1500 and 2000 grade wet sandpaper.  The next step was to polish the stem with the 8000 and 12000 grades of micromesh paper.  The stem was then buffed lightly with White Diamond.  There is still a little dimple of a tooth indention on the bottom of the stem, but the others filled in nicely.

The briar has two nicks that could be either handling marks or spots where fills came out.  I decided the finish of the rest of the pipe looked too good to try to repair these spots.  So they were left as character marks.