Monthly Archives: March 2015

Respecting a Maligned Pipe, with Two Yankee Doodler Dandies as Examples

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

Oh I went down South for to see my Sal
Play polly wolly doodle all the day
My Sally is a spunky gal
Play polly wolly doodle all the day
Oh my Sal she is a maiden fair
Play polly wolly doodle all the day
With laughing eyes and curly hair
Play polly wolly doodle all the day
Fare thee well
Fare thee well
Fare thee well my fairy fey
For I’m going to Louisiana
For to see my Susyanna
Play polly wolly doodle all the day
― Beginning of “Polly Wolly Doodle,” author unknown

INTRODUCTION
The entire ditty, made famous by Shirley Temple’s iconic, vivacious wholesomeness in the super-duper 1935 movie “The Little Rebel,” goes on about a grasshopper that picks its teeth with a carpet tack and develops such a serious case of pertussis (the whooping-cough) that the unfortunate creature “sneezes” its head off in a well-turned euphemism. This is a U.S. contribution to songs taught to small children around the world, for some perverse reason, and ranks right up there with “Frère Jacques,” who is not asleep but dead from influenza, and “La Cucaracha,” the most common version of which touches on a cockroach unable to walk for lack of marijuana to fix it.

Still, the usage of the word doodle, which is not as common these days, illustrates the reason for the name of “The Doodler,” a pipe of some fame invented by Tracy Mincer, founder of Custom-Bilt, apparently sometime in the late 1950s or early ’60s. The line was perpetuated by the National Briar Pipe Co. after Mincer’s death in 1964 and was last made in 1980. The Oxford English Dictionary defines doodler as “one who draws or scrawls aimlessly,” hence the verb doodle for engaging in this activity (or lack thereof). That must have been how the innovator had his brainstorm. It seems Mincer had a sense of humor.

With something approaching their love of very few All-American wonders, including Mickey Mouse and Jerry Lewis, Frenchmen seem to have an affinity for The Doodler. (See http://www.pipephil.com/article-3285357.html, which should be translatable by your browser.) The author of the site calls this a “radiator” style. He also notes what he calls the brand’s unique look that he claims requires no special nomenclature or stem mark to identify one with certainty. But it just isn’t so. Take, for example, the following samples.

The Doodlers in this blog are of the type familiar to most of those pipe enthusiasts who have even heard of them. While I find beauty in many different forms, including those I restored and describe here, many of my friends, upon seeing The Doodlers for the first time, resort to evasions such as “Weird” and “I’ve never seen anything like this,” or more direct grimaces and even shudders in place of their true probable thoughts along the lines of “Ugly, ugly, ugly!” But as Margaret Wolfe Hungerford first paraphrased the ideas that many before her had suggested, in “Molly Bawn” in 1878: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” And all of The Doodlers do include a stamp, with a star on some stems.

Here are two of “The Doodlers” I could not resist buying online, for a good price, as they arrived in the mail. I had come across the peculiar pipe in scrolling through the listings on pipephil.eu under T for “The Everyman,” which referred me tersely to Everyman. But above it was “The Doodler.” Note the well-known ridges and patterns of holes drilled through the outer ridges of the bowls, which were intended to cool the pipes with air circulation, whether or not they in fact succeed in that purpose. An interesting sideline to this serendipitous discovery and mental note to acquire one was that the very next day, on my eBay homepage, I found a “suggestion” for The Doodler. I’m not sure I buy into one friend’s claim that it was the result of Google keeping track of my search history and offering up products to buy…but then again, the same thing does seem to be happening more often.

THE RESTORATIONS

The Saddle Stem Two-Ring Doodler

Neither of these stems was in bad shape other than one with some discoloration, but having determined to begin assuring even more thorough cleaning than I already have practiced the hard way, and knowing I had quite a few real messes awaiting restoration, I bought a tub of powdered OxiClean at the closest Walmart. My mentor, Chuck Richards, and others have recipes they prefer, but I have to start somewhere. I decided to begin this dual restoration with separate steps requiring two small Tupperware containers.

One, of course, was the OxiClean soak, for which I found instructions available on one website I located with clear directions. The other was for an Everclear strip of the old stains. And so – after filling one container with just enough warm water to cover the two stems and stirring in a little more than a tablespoon of OxiClean, and the other with a jar of used Everclear that was almost not enough to clear the tops of both bowls – I sat back and filled a pipe close at hand and relaxed for the next 20 minutes. And then while the briar dried and I finished the stem wash with cleaners and a scrubbing rag, I didn’t let those activities detract from my enjoyment of the fine tobacco. There seemed no good reason not to micromesh the saddle stem while I was at it. By the way, the foulness of the soapy water from the OxiClean soak gave me inner warmth only another restorer could understand.

Running a finger around the chamber before stripping the old stain, I knew the reaming and sanding would not be easy, but I hoped the pure grain alcohol soak would ease the job more than it in fact did. Although the inside of the bowl was somewhat smoother, and bits and even a chunk or two of cake came free with my second finger inspection, I realized the carbon buildup was not the true problem. The previous owner of this pipe had enjoyed it so often and with such complete faith in the professed cooling qualities of its unique radiator design that he overheated the chamber and created an even pattern of rather deep pocks.

Therefore I took my 21mm fixed reamer (the second largest) from its box and found that it embraced the chamber just short of close enough to serve as a measurement of its horizontal and vertical dimensions. Only the small square at the end to which the handle attached extended above the rim. I reamed the chamber a few times at different angles to cover all of it, emptying out the scant amount of carbon resulting as I progressed, and cleaned the inner briar with a small cotton cloth swab soaked in alcohol. Finding, as I expected, that the pocks were still prominent, I turned to a piece of 220-grit paper that removed more cake but had little impact on the smoothness. Turning to 150-grit, as I tend to do, I began to get somewhere, and after much tenacity and aurally irritating screeching achieved a level of regularity with which I could live, after a quick finish with 300.

I dipped a pipe cleaner in the Everclear and then ran in down through each vent hole to clear out more hidden dirtiness and scrubbed until they were clean.

The oddest part of this restore, to my thinking, was the difficulty of retorting after the thorough Everclear dip. The first round dredged up so much gunk that half of the shank leading to the draught hole was clogged to the point where the soft cleaner bunched up and would not pass. Each successive beaker brought out more dark nastiness, and the cleaners I passed through the shank as well as the small cotton cloths with which I scrubbed the chamber were filthy – until the last. I boiled the alcohol through the shank and into the bowl several times to be sure. When all was done, I had used seven beakers of Everclear, five soft cleaners, three cotton balls and as many cloth squares.

For the next step I wanted to clean up the bowl and shank to see what I had to work with. I used only a light rubbing with super fine steel wool. Happy with the ongoing progress, I took both pipes to Chuck at the shop.

He had no comment about the tapered three-ridge version, which on this rare occasion I understood meant it was looking okay. But I will never cease to be astonished by his ability to glance at a pipe for no more than two seconds and see all that is wrong with it. In this case he spotted a major horizontal crack within the upper ring of the saddle bit bowl, not to mention a minor crack. Without my magnifier glasses in the fluorescent light, I still could not see them until he held it beneath a certain ray of light. Then they were as clear as day, which it was. I suggested a mix of Super Glue and briar shavings, and Chuck concurred.

I was disappointed, not because of Chuck’s keen eyes and helpfulness in pointing out the serious flaw, but due to the fact that I had intended to keep the other and to my taste nicer Doodler for my own collection and offer the saddle bit for sale. Knowing then I could not in good conscience do this, I told him so.

“Sometimes that’s just the kind of trade-off you have to make,” Master Po pronounced with his big grin, chuckling that his Grasshopper was learning.

Returning later to my abode in Albuquerque’s War Zone, I sat on the couch that is my customary main work area and scrutinized the pipe.

I sanded the bottom of the tapered three-ridge bowl and collected the fine briar dust. Filling the cracks required two layers of the mixture, the second of which I applied more liberally. Getting into the groove with 300-grit paper to sand away the excess glue mix was a little tricky, and I thought I was done. However, after I sanded the yellowed areas and micro-meshed the whole thing using a full barrage of 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 3600 and 4000, I saw the grooves needed harsher measures.

I broke out the 220-grit and paid as close attention as possible to the white areas of remaining glue, then repeated the previous micromesh procedure to the one groove. Success at last! I stained the wood with marine cordovan (burgundy) leather dressing, flamed it and used a very light touch of micromesh 3200. I then removed myself and the prepped briar to my official workroom, where I buffed the wood with white and red Tripoli, White Diamond and several coats of carnauba.

The Tapered Stem Three-Ring Doodler

This tapered, three-ring classic style model appeared, at least to my eyes that are still in training, to be in better shape than the saddle stem version, not counting the stem that was discolored, the rim that was more darkened and the chamber that seemed to have more severe damage. In general, those are all superficial defects easy to remedy. Still, I chose to start with the saddle stem pipe because of my perception that it would be more difficult – and in part due to its nomenclature being faint almost to invisibility, I was going to offer it for sale on my site at the lowest price I offer. But oh, did I learn how appearances can be deceiving, and this three-ring pipe turned into a three-ring circus!

First, I will start with the good news. The OxiClean soak cleared away the discoloration and most of the other crud inside and out of the stem, and the rest came clean and ready to buff with some firm rubbing of a soft cloth, minor spot sanding and regular micro-meshing.

The initial problem I encountered was stripping the old stain. I have seen this happen before, of course, but not with almost identical pipes soaked for the same time with such radical results. Even after soaking the tapered pipe another two hours, it came out not down to the briar with nothing but a few yellow spots like the other pipe but almost unfazed.

At least it was cleaner, in particular the rim and rings, and the chamber showed signs of improvement. Also, removing the remaining cake and evening the chamber walls was no problem. As with the saddle stem Doodler, I ran a couple of alcohol soaked cleaners downward through the vent holes and removed some leftover grime. Even the retort this time was more typical, needing only a couple of beakers of Everclear to be boiled through the stem and shank and into the chamber.

The pipe as shown above was almost ready for the buffing wheels. I hand-buffed it starting with super fine steel wool, particularly on the still somewhat blackened rim and a few areas that needed a little work on the remaining roughness from the Everclear soak. I then progressed with micromesh pads using 1500, 2400, 3200, 3600 and 4000, with the results below shown only front and back. Of course I picked out the little piece of fluff visible in the front bottom ring.

The second Doodler was, indeed, ready to be stained. For the task I chose my Liebing’s brown leather stain, which is in fact a lighter shade than the Lincoln medium brown I have. Considering the large amount of residual original stain, but wanting to darken the briar a bit, I had a plan, if not yet the knowledge to carry it out to full effect. At any rate, I stained the bowl and shank as well as I could, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not work the applicator into the dratted grooves of the middle tier of smooth briar, although I was able to coat all three rings. Consulting my pictorial folder of the project that showed the original estate pipe, I noticed un-stained rings and grooves, and concluded I was ahead in the game, so to speak.

This was where I was mistaken. Have you ever had that feeling? The one that nags at you, whispering that despite all evidence to the contrary, there are the right way and the wrong, and this is definitely wrong? Yet still you didn’t follow your instincts?

Nevertheless, to make my act of self-destruction almost complete (there’s the modifier again – almost), I flamed the stain and eased off the char with 3200 micromesh before taking the pipe to the wheels. There I applied ever more beautiful coats of white Tripoli and red (to enhance the darkness of the grain) before White Diamond and a final coat of carnauba.

And so what, you might ask, was the major [expletive voluntarily deleted] malfunction with this tapered variant of The Doodler compared to the saddle stem? In short, the pipe that, to my eyes-in-training I mentioned before, appeared to be well used but more or less as its previous owner received it, had in fact been modified in a manner I did not detect. I very much suspect this pipe had only one prior owner, other than the conduit to me, after getting a close look at the crafty way he covered a ding that must have been, in tobacco pipe scale, comparable to a large patch of skin ripped from a person’s body.
And Chuck, when I showed him both pipes in progress before, pointed out the horizontal crack in the saddle stem pipe but appears to have assumed I was aware that the middle tier of smooth briar below the top ring was not made with the evenly spaced slots. I use the term “appears to have assumed” because of my utter inability to wrap my mind around the possibility that Chuck missed the alteration before he set it aside, especially considering his first words to me when I showed him the pipe I then hoped was finished. Again, I choose the word hoped because I was, at least, aware of the unstained grooves, and was hearing that shrewish voice again.

“Did you make this nick here?” Chuck asked, holding the pipe out to me and pointing, and puffing on his own pipe.

“No, it was there already,” I replied, not knowing where he was going. Surely he didn’t expect me to fashion and Super Glue a fragment of briar onto the tiny spot I beheld. Even he wouldn’t touch a blemish that small, I knew.

Chuck began to explain the situation to me, in his own way, which took me longer than usual to grasp. I felt like an idiot, although that was not Chuck’s intent. When at last I understood, a light went on in my mind.

“You mean someone, sometime slipped up and made a single gash in that area of the pipe and then, to fix his mistake, went around the bowl and made it uniform?” I said more than asked with a big smile of my own.

“Exactly!” Chuck said.

“Just like the way I had to rusticate the entire rim of the Italian No-Name Full Bent Billiard because of the one missing chunk,” I added by way of comparison.

“Yes!” Chuck exclaimed again, laughing and re-lighting his pipe. Then he brought up the missing stain and told me a small paint brush would do the trick.

And so to home I returned the first chance I had and, after lighting a bowl of tobacco, began the only other activity that has come to give me any real pleasure: restoring a pipe. Chuck’s advice to use a small brush did the trick, and I only had to stain, flame and fully buff the small circle of the truly prepped pipe. Still, I decided to add a couple more coats of carnauba to bring out an extra shine.

CONCLUSION
I forgot to mention the extra sanding of the rim and the top tier, making it lighter than the rest of the bowl and shank, and giving me the idea for a gentle two-tone effect. At this point in a rather long blog, I just don’t feel like going back to find and edit that part. These were not the easy restorations I thought they would be, and I’m tired…but very satisfied.

To Chuck, my friend and mentor, and Steve Laug, our host and my friend and frequent guide through the endless learning process, I owe much for these restores. Thank you, gentlemen.

One of my John Calich Pipes – A Calich EE Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

I have liked John Calich’s pipes for a long time now. I have hunted for them and am lucky enough to have found three of them. I have done quite a bit of reading on the web and even had conversations with John before he died. From my research and conversations I learned that John’s pipes were graded 3E – 8E. The retail prices for them ranged from $145.00 to $500.00. Each pipe was stamped “CALICH” and given an E grade. His earlier pipes were graded from 3-14 and had a single, tiny silver dot applied to the top of the stem. More information can be found at the Pipedia website by clicking on this link. http://pipedia.org/wiki/Calich

I found this particular Calich pipe on Ebay. I bought it in the fall of 2005. It was still a time when you could pick up good deals on relatively unknown pipe makers on Ebay. This pipe was a nice billiard that obviously had seen some use and had a replacement stem. The fit of the stem was poor and the gap and space between stem and shank was large. The scratches in the vulcanite made the stem a real mess. I wanted the pipe but also wanted to be rid of the stem. The pipe had beautiful grain under the grime and was stamped CALICH EE over Hand Made. I bid on it and won. The EE stamping did not fit the grading information that I had found on the internet.

I wondered if John would be willing to restem the bowl for me. I figured the easiest way to work this was to have the Ebay seller send the pipe directly to John for a new stem. This added a bit of hurry into the equation if it was to happen. I hunted down John’s phone number so I could call him and ask if he would be willing to make a replacement stem for this pipe. I called and we had a great conversation on the phone. We talked about all things pipe and pipe making. It was delightful to talk together and we did so for quite a while before I got around to asking him if he would make a stem for the old billiard. He was willing and would let me know when the pipe arrived and what he would charge for it. He said to go ahead and have the pipe sent to him and he would make a new stem for it. I emailed the Ebay seller and asked him to send it directly to John Calich in Mississauga, Ontario. He gladly did so and the pipe was on its way to John.

I figured I might get a phone call letting me know. But no call came instead I received the letter that I have attached below. The letter was quite straight forward and let me know tha the had already fitted the pipe with a new stem with “better lines and slightly longer”. He states that he believes that it “might be the same as the original stem, because it is the longest stem I have in this diameter”. He goes on to say he hopes that I am pleased with his work. For a hand made stem, custom fitted to the old bowl and shipped to me across Canada John charged me only $25. I immediately sent him a cheque for the cost. I kept this letter and found it the other day as I was going through my files. I thought I would post it here with a picture of the pipe. I still remember the conversation. He asked about the stamping on the pipe and within a short few moments he told me when he had carved the pipe. For the life of me I wish I had written it down because today I cannot remember what he said. It was not too long before John called me and told me the pipe was finished. He packed it up and sent it to me. I was excited because I had not even seen the pipe in person yet. I had no idea about the real size of the pipe or the actual condition though it looked a bit rough in the photos. I couldn’t wait to see it. When it arrived in the mail I opened the package and unwrapped the pipe. John had not only restemmed the billiard but he had cleaned it up and polished it so that it shone like new. It did not even look like the same pipe. It was a cross cut piece of briar with stunning birdseye on the sides of the bowl and shank with cross grain on the front and the back of the bowl. I did a bit more digging on the internet to find out some information on the dating of Calich pipes as the information on Pipedia was not complete. What I found was very helpful. His early pipes were graded with numbers from 3 – 14. By the late 1980’s Calich introduced 15, 16, and even one 17. In the mid-90’s the grade system changed employing a number of E’s. The more EE’s the higher the grade. This helped me understand the stamping on the billiard. Thus the pipe was a double EE grade and was made in the mid-90’s.

The last gradings that were used on the pipes were a number and an E. For example the stamping went 3E – 7E (10E was the top level but levels exceeding 7E or 8E seemed never to have been used). This information came from http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-c1.html and has been edited for my use.

An Instruction Sheet for using a Pipe Retort

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Blog post by Steve Laug

When I purchased my Pipe Retort from SUNA they included this document with the product. I found the document when I was sorting through papers in my filing cabinet. It is a helpful set of directions that I thought I would post here.

Restoring a Wally Frank Natural Sun Cured Algerian Made Pot

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

This older Wally Frank Pot shaped pipe came in the same gift box as the little no named prince that I restored recently. In fact it was the second pipe in the photos included with the prince. It was a fairly decent piece of briar with one large fill on the top of the shank in the middle. The putty used was brown rather than pink coloured putty so it would blend fairly well. The briar was darkened from use with oils and dirt. There was a thick build up of tar and oil on the rim that was rock hard. The cake in the bowl was thick and hard. The stem was good quality vulcanite and did not have much oxidation. There were deep scratches around the stem near the stem shank junction. There were also flecks of metal in the vulcanite that makes me think that the pipe is a war years pipe as often the rubber stems were made from recycled tires. There was a slight buildup of calcium on the stem just ahead of the button. The tenon had an aluminum inner tube that sat ran the length of the shank and ended with a diagonal cut end in the bottom of the bowl.

The next three photos show the stamping on the pipe. The pipe was stamped on the left side of the shank Natural over Sun Cured and on the right side Wally Frank Ltd. On the underside of the shank it was stamped Second and Made in Algeria. I have seen plenty of pipes that were stamped Algerian Briar but this is the first stamped Made in Algeria that I have seen.

The next photo is a close-up of the rim and bowl. It shows the cake and the build-up on the rim as well as the inner tube sitting in the bottom of the bowl. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer starting with the smallest cutting head and working up to the head that was the same diameter as the bowl. I reamed the bowl back to bare wood and wiped down the inside of the bowl with cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the dust that remained in the bowl. I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl and rim with acetone on cotton pads. I scrubbed until the oils and dirt were gone from the bowl and the rim was clean. There was some nice grain showing on the bowl – cross cut on the side and birdseye on the front and back.

I sanded the stem and shank with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches around the stem at the junction. I sanded both the shank and stem with medium and fine grit sanding sponges. I sanded the bowl and rim with a fine grit sanding sponge. I cleaned out the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol until they came out clean. The shank was remarkably clean considering how caked the bowl was. I wonder if the inner tube was not responsible for that. The next two photos show the pipe along with the no name prince that I recently restored. Both had a natural finish that probably was oiled originally.

I decided to rub this pipe down with olive oil as I did the prince. I rubbed on the oil with a paper towel and let the wood absorb it. I wiped off the excess and hand rubbed it until the wood had a rich glow.

I buffed the bowl with White Diamond to give it a shine and then gave it a coat of carnauba wax. I then worked on the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads.

I buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond and worked it over the stem and bowl until the feel was smooth. I also buffed it with Blue Diamond. I gave it several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.

A Fresh Start for a no name Imported Briar Prince

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table is a little prince with no stampings other than Imported Briar on the left side of the shank. It has the characteristic worm trail carvings that were used in days gone by to cover imperfections in the briar. I have never been a fan of these carvings and would much rather have had the original sand pits or rough areas exposed. This pipe had a natural finish – unstained. It looked like it had originally sported and oil finish. The rim was damaged and had a small crack that went into the surface across the top right front edge. The transition between the stem and the shank was not smooth. The vulcanite stem was higher than the briar on the underside and the sides of the shank. The stem itself was made of good quality vulcanite and was not oxidized and did not have tooth marks or chatter.

The next photo shows a close-up of the rim surface and gives a clear picture of the crack on the rim. It looks far worse than it actually was. The crack did not go too deeply in to the rim surface. It certainly was there and went into the bowl on the inside and into the worm trails on the outside of the bowl. I figured I could top the bowl and remove most of the cracked portion. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer starting with the cutting head that was closest in diameter to the bowl. I reamed it back to bare wood so that I could examine the crack on the inside edge of the rim. I topped the bowl on a topping board using 220 grit sandpaper. I wanted to remove as much of the damaged area as possible without altering the profile of the pipe.

I cleaned of the rim with isopropyl alcohol to remove the sanding dust. I dripped some clear superglue into the shallow surface of the remaining crack in the rim. I cleaned out the shank with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol. Once the glue dried I topped the rim a final time to remove the excess glue and smooth out the rim. I also wanted to remove a bit more of the damaged area.

Over the years when I have come on pipes with the worm trail carvings I have decided to highlight them since I cannot hide them. I have never liked them but figured why pretend that they are not present. I use a black permanent marked to trace the carving in the trails. I go over the carvings until the black has a good coverage on the surface of the carvings. At this point in the process it always looks quite stark against the lighter reddish brown of the briar but once I am finished it looks far better in my opinion.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on a cotton pad a final time to clean off the dust and to clean up the markings from the Sharpie.

Since this pipe originally had a natural finish – possibly oil finish I decided to return it to that state. I rubbed the bowl down with a light coat of olive oil.

I have read others talk about the oil going rancid on the briar but I have never had that happen. Rather, I have found that when I rub it on to the surface of the briar and rub it in by hand the heat of my hands rubbing it quickly cause the oil to be absorbed and the result is that the grain is highlighted and the briar has a rich reddish brown hue once it is buffed and polished.

I sanded the shank stem junction earlier in the process with 220 grit sandpaper and also with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge. I sanded the entire stem in the process of adjusting the fit with the shank. I now used the micromesh sanding pads to polish the stem. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads and also sanded the bowl and shank at the same time. I dry sanded the stem, shank and bowl with 3200 -12,000 grit sanding pads. The bowl and the stem began to take on sheen with each successive step up in grit of micromesh pad. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads and continued to sand until the stem was finished. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and gave the bowl a final wipe down with olive oil on the towel to remove any sanding dust from the polishing.

I buffed the stem and bowl with White Diamond on the wheel and then gave both multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe to a shine with a soft flannel buffing wheel. The finished pipe is shown below. You know, on this one after the refinish, the worm trails don’t look too bad!

I decided to take a lesson from Andrew Selking and his pipe photos for the final pictures of the pipe. His signature is the nice piece of drift wood in the photos. I don’t have one of those but I do have an old cast iron frog that my grand dad gave me years ago. I decided to use it as a prop in the photos to hold up the pipe.

Stem Reconstruction on an Ehrlich Billiard

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Blog by Andrew Selking

“He’s not dead, just mostly dead.” Miracle Max The Princes Bride

I like the way the pipe looked in the auction pictures, but when I first examined it I thought the stem was beyond help. This is not a little pipe, but the previous owner was obviously a clencher. The top and bottom of the stem had a hole, as you can see by these pictures.

Before getting into the stem repair, I soaked the bowl in alcohol. Although I have done simple repairs on tooth marks, I had never tackled anything this complicated. The holes were far enough down that it wouldn’t be practical to cut a new button. The stem is fat enough that finding a replacement was also out of the question. The one thing the stem had going for it was the edges were still in good shape. I decided to do a complete reconstruction of the stem.

I don’t claim to be an expert on these things, so I turned to one of the how-to articles on Pipe Smoker’s Unlimited. The one gentleman used activated charcoal with super glue, so I decided to try it. I found a large container of activated carbon, which is the same thing, in the pet department of my local Walmart. It came in small pellets, which needed to be ground into a fine powder. This is what it looked like after grinding. I took some wax paper and folded it to fit inside the stem. Once I got the fit I wanted, I sprayed the wax paper with cooking spray and put it back inside the stem. I used a couple drops of clear super glue on the bottom of a plastic cup, mixed in some charcoal dust, and applied it to the hole. I added a couple of drops of glue accelerator and set it aside to cure. I did the same thing with the other side. I’ve found that even with accelerator, it’s a good idea to let the glue cure for at least 24 hours. You can work it sooner than that, but it has a tendency to come out when you’re sanding it. I used several applications of the glue and charcoal paste.

Once the hole was filled in I sanded it down.

As you can see the charcoal left a few pits. To fill them in I applied a thin layer of super glue over the pits and sprinkled charcoal dust directly on top of it.

This is what it looked like after sanding. The stem was still far from finished, but it was good enough to start cleaning the insides. I went ahead and retorted the bowl first. The brush came out fairly clean. I learned a hard lesson while cleaning this shank. In spite of the large diameter, the inner hole was smaller than the q-tip I tried to stick inside it. The end came off and it took a lot of effort to get it out. The moral of the story is, if it doesn’t fit don’t try to make it fit.

In spite of the minor set-back, the shank was pretty clean. Next I retorted the stem. It had a lot of tar inside it, so repeated the process an additional two times. It was easy to clean after that. With the inside cleaned, it was time to finish smoothing out the stem. I used 400 grit wet/dry with water, followed by 1500-2400 grit micro mesh pads with water. To prevent rounding the edges of the stem I held a rubber washer over the end of the tenon. While the stem dried I turned to repairing the rim damage. I used 150 grit sand paper on a piece of glass to remove the worst of the damage. Once I had the edge almost where I wanted it, I switched to 400 grit sand paper. This is what it looked like after sanding. I have become a big fan of natural finished pipes, especially when they have nice grain like this one does, so I used acetone and 0000 grit steel wool to clean the bowl. After cleaning the finish, I noticed a couple of dents on the front of the bowl. I used my wife’s iron and a wet cloth to steam out the dents. After allowing the wood to dry out overnight, I polished the bowl and stem with a progression of 3200-12,000 grit micro mesh pads. I know Steve uses Obsidian oil on his stems during this step and also uses olive oil to bring out the grain of the bowl. I’ve been experimenting with mineral oil for the same purpose. It doesn’t take much, just a little bit on the tip of your finger. I used one coat after the first three pads on both the bowl and the stem. After the final pad, I repeated the process. I really worked the bowl in my hand to bring out a beautiful reddish brown color. I used a soft cloth to buff the pipe and remove any excess oil before the final buffing stage. I buffed the bowl on my buffing wheel with white diamond and carnauba wax. I used my rotatory tool with white diamond and carnauba wax on the stem. I gave the whole pipe a final coat of Halcyon II wax and filled the E on the stem with a white out pen. This is the result.

KBB Yello Bole Restoration

6 Replies

Blog by Al Jones (aka upshallfan)

This Yello Bole belongs to a pipe forum friend, Walt, who lives in Florida. It is the first of that make to land on my work bench.

On examination of the pipe, it had some issues that took some thought and a little experimentation on how to resolve them. Somehow in the pipe’s journey, the bottom and side of the pipe had been scuffed and scratched. It was if someone had used some rough grade sandpaper or steel wool on the finish. The top of the bowl top had some scorching and the stem had only a slight layer of oxidation. Otherwise it was in excellent shape

At first, I thought the bowl would need to be stripped and restained. I was preparing to soak the bowl in alcohol but wondered what effect buffing the pipe with Tripoli compound would do to the light surface scratching. Tripoli is not a rouge that I use very often on pipes as it is too aggressive and sometimes can cause more damage than good. (it is an important step when buffing metal). At that point, I thought the Tripoli couldn’t make the issue any worse, as long as I stayed away from the nomenclature which was in great shape. To my surprise, the Tripoli completely removed the scratching, without damaging the rest of the finish.

I used some worn 8000 grit paper on the bowl top to remove the scorching. This method is also the least damaging to the finish. There were a few dents and dings on the briar. I used an iron and a wet cloth to minimize those marks but they would not raise completely.

There was a slight discoloration in the briar where it was buffed with the Tripoli and micromesh. I put on a coat of diluted “Medium Brown” Fieblings stain and let it dry. That was then buffed to a shine with White Diamond and then several coats of Carnuba wax. This gave the briar a nice luster without completely removing the patina (or exposing any fills as a restain might have done).

I removed the oxidation of the stem with some 800 grit paper, moving to 1500 and 2000 grades and finally 8000 and 12000 grade micromesh sheets. The stem was then buffed with White Diamond and Meguiars plastic polish. As I had not worked with a Yello Bole previously, I was pleased to find the inset stem logo to be quite durable, perhaps even more so than the Kaywoodie logo.

Here is the finished pipe. Walt has received it in Florida and was also pleased with the results.