Blog by Steve Laug

My brother picked up this GBD New Standard 9447 billiard somewhere along the way in his pipe hunting or on Ebay. The finish was in rough shape. There was some sticky surface finish on the bowl and the stain was blotchy. The bowl had a thick cake that was hard. It overflowed over the top of the beveled rim. The stem was in decent shape with no tooth marks. My brother took the following five photos before he did the cleanup of the pipe.He took some close-up photos of the bowl, the stamping and the GBD roundel in the stem. The first photo shows the rim damage and the thick cake in the bowl. The cake was hard and gritty. The overflow onto the rim was also thick and hid the bevel. The stamping on the left side of the shank was faint but I could read it with a loop and it said GBD in an oval with New Standard stamped below that. The roundel on the stem was in excellent condition. My brother reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the bowl back to bare briar. He scrubbed the externals with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap and was able to remove the finish. The cake on the rim came off well. The finished stripped off to bare briar. He scrubbed the internals as well. The stem cleaned up nicely. The next photos show what the pipe looked like when it arrived in Vancouver. The stem had some oxidation but there were no tooth marks or tooth chatter on the surface of the stem.In the photo below you can see that some of the finish on the rim did not come off with his scrubbing.I scrubbed off the surface of the bowl with acetone on cotton pads. I worked on the rim top to remove more of the hard cake that remained. I sanded the rim with 220 grit sandpaper and scrubbed it some more with the acetone and I was able to remove all of the buildup and the stain from the rim.I ran a pipe cleaner through the stem and it came out clean. I ran it through the airway to the bowl and rand some cotton swabs in the mortise. There were some ridges in the shank so I used a dental spatula to scrape out the inside of the mortise walls. I then scrubbed it again with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners until the internals were clean.I wiped down the surface of the bowl with alcohol and then gave it several coats of Cherry stain in Danish Oil. I set the bowl aside to dry. The photos below show the new stain and the colour of the bowl once I was finished.I hand buffed the bowl with a microfibre cloth and gave it multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. The photos below show the bowl. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each set of three pads. After the last pad I set the stem aside to dry. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel and then gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is a beautiful thick shanked pipe that is great in the hand. It should be a great smoking machine. The pipe will make a great addition for someone’s pipe rack. It is available if any of you wish to pick it up. Send me an email at slaug@uniserve.com or a message on Facebook and we can work out a deal.