Monthly Archives: June 2017

Restoring and Repairing a Walnut Lucerne Hunters Pipe

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

I received a call several days ago about repairing some pipes for a fellow here in Vancouver. He said there were family pipes that he had gotten from an uncle but did not know the details of their history. He brought four of them over to be cleaned up and repaired. In looking them over it was clear to me that two of them were in excellent condition and did not need any work on them. The other two had a few issues. The first of them is a Swiss Hunting pipe. The bowl is made out of walnut and the base of the pipe is made out of horn. There was a skirt of hair in the middle of the long shank and above that it was also made of horn with a flexible cord wrapped extension. The stem was made out of horn. The wind cap unit on the top of the bowl was made of what appeared to be brass but with work it could have been polished silver. There was a threaded tube that fit into the end of the walnut extension on the base of the bowl. Someone along the way had drilled out the end and it was done poorly – crooked. The brass threaded piece was turned into the end. The current owner had made a cork gasket and pressed it into the horn bass. He had twisted the threaded end of the insert in the shank into the cork. The alignment was not correct and it did not sit properly. I unscrewed the insert from the shank and used a knife to pry out the cork gasket. It looked to me like the shank end was made to sit in the horn base with no gaskets or help it was a pressure fit. The next two photos show the pipe taken apart.I took some close up photos of the base minus the cork gasket and threaded tube. The first shows the base looking into the portion that the shank end fit into. The inside of the base was dirty and needed to be cleaned out. The top edge looked like it had some cracks in it. Both ends of the base – the one the stem fit in and the one the bowl fit in – both appeared that they had originally had a band in place. I also took a photo of the base from the side.The shank end had been broken when it had been drilled out and threaded. The portion of the shank in that place was very thin. The second photo below shows the crooked drilling that had been done on the shank.I cleaned out the shank and began to build up the missing chunk with super glue and briar dust. It took quite a few layers to bring it up to the height of the rest of the shank end. I filled in the threaded portion of the shank with super glue. I repaired the edges of the horn base where the band had originally been using black super glue.Once the super glue and briar dust repair had dried I sanded the inside walls with a needle file and also a rolled piece of sandpaper.The stem was in rough shape. It had tooth chatter and marks on both sides of the stem and there were some damage to the underside of the bend. I unscrewed it from the end of the shank extension. The next four photos show the condition of the stem when I started. I sanded out the tooth marks and chatter with 220 grit sandpaper to remove them. I reshaped the button with sandpaper and filled in the damage at the bend with black super glue.I opened the wind cap and took a photo of the rim top and the bowl. The inner bowl lining was porcelain with a hole in the bottom of the bowl. There were some tars and oils built up on the upper portion of the bowl. The rim top had a buildup of lava that covered it. The inside of the cap was pitted and dirty with dust and debris from the smoking of the pipe. I noticed that the fit of the cap unit on top of the bowl was quite loose. I gingerly wiggled the top free of the bowl unit. The cap looked like brass but upon examination of the inside of the cap it appeared to be silver.I wiped down the inside of the cap and the top of the bowl with alcohol to remove the debris that was present. I scraped the inside of the bowl with a pen knife to remove the cake that was around the top edge. I used a folded pipe cleaner to dab white glue on the inside of the wind cap unit. I spread it around evenly around the inside and pressed the cap onto the top of the bowl I aligned the hinge and keeper with the point on the carving on the front of the bowl. You can see from the photo below that the front of the bowl is carved with the word LUZERN under the hunting scene on the bowl. LUZERN is the Germanic form of the word Lucerne, a city in Switzerland. The stepped carving around the top of the bowl under the wind cap and the same under the carved hunting scene and the shank end is stained darker than the carving itself. I scrubbed out the porcelain bowl and the inside of the shank and the base with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I was able to remove most of the cake leaving behind some that was in the wrinkles in the porcelain. You can see the cracks in the top of the base that need to be repaired.I had an end cap from a damaged WDC pipe that fit the top of the base where the shank screwed into it. I cleaned that end and the cap and glued it in place on the base. It fit perfectly in that place and allowed the proper alignment of the stem and shank extensions. It goes nicely with the colour of the horn at the top of the corded flex hose. I needed to cut down a nickel shank band to get a proper fit on the other part of the base. I used a Dremel and sanding drum to cut the band back to the proper size for the base. It took a little time and work to remove the excess. I used the topping board and 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the cut end and beveled the edges with a folded piece of sandpaper. I polished the band with micromesh sanding pads. I used a folded pipe cleaner to apply the white glue to the inside of the band and pressed it into place on the base. I filled in the open edges on the top with white glue applied with the folded pipe cleaner.I took a photo of the two bands on the base. I polished them with micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratches and give them a shine.I tapered the repaired shank end with 220 grit sandpaper to match the taper of the inside of the base. It took some doing to get the alignment correct. I sanded the inside of the base to match the taper and to clean up the repair I had made. I stained the shank end with a medium and a dark brown stain pen to match it to the rest of the bowl and the base. I waxed the smooth parts of the bowl with carnauba and hand buffed them with a shoe brush and a microfibre cloth.I buffed the base with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I lightly buffed the bowl on the wheel as well. I did not want wax to build up in the grooves of the carving but I wanted the smooth high spots to shine. I buffed the horn portions of the stem and shank to raise a shine. I hand polished the wind cap to remove the tarnish on the cap, the rim top and cap unit on the sides of the bowl using a jeweler’s cloth. The tarnish came off to reveal the silver of the wind cap unit. I put the pipe back together and took the following photos of the finished pipe. I also took some photos of the parts of the pipe. It is a beautiful piece of history. I hope that the owner can speak to his uncle and get a bit more history on this pipe. Either way he will enjoy smoking it now. The draw on it is perfect and it feels good in the hand. I think he is going to enjoy this beauty. I can’t wait to see what he thinks when he picks it up. I need to finish the second hunting pipe so that he can pick them both up.

 

 

Refurbishing an Iwan Ries Savinelli Made Black Knight 207

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe from the estate sale that I chose to work on is a sandblast apple with a contrast black and brown stain. It is stamped on the underside of the shank in a smooth portion starting at the bottom of the bowl. It reads Iwan Ries over Black Knight. Next to that is the shape number 207 over Italy. Lastly there is a capital C. It is a Savinelli shape number. The finish was very dirty with dust and grime in the grooves and it seemed to be sticky. The cake in the bowl was quite thick and the lava had flowed over the rim top. The stem had a light IRC stamped on the left side of the taper and was lightly oxidized. The now characteristic tooth marks and chatter were on the top and underside of the stem near the button and the button surface itself had chatter and wear. The next four photos show the condition of the pipe when my brother Jeff brought it home from the sale and before he started to work on cleaning it up.He took a photo of the bowl from the top to show the cake in the bowl and the tarry build up on the rim top. The second photo below shows the sandblast on the left side of the bowl which is birdseye. The right side shows more of the ring grain but it will show up in later photos. The next photos show the clear and sharp stamping on the bottom of the bowl and the IRC stamp on the left side of the stem. It looks more deeply stamped than it appeared once it arrived in Vancouver.The stem shows the now characteristic tooth marks and chatter on both sides and the wear on the button surface as well, just as the rest of the pipes in the lot did.My brother scrubbed the bowl exterior with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the sticky buildup and the grime in the grooves. He rinsed it with warm water to remove the soap and the dust. He reamed the bowl and scrubbed the rim top with the soap and tooth brush. He cleaned out the mortise and the airway in the shank and stem. He cleaned the stem with a short soak in Oxyclean. The soak brought the oxidation to the surface. I took the next four photos of the pipe when it arrived in Vancouver. The grain shows through the blast – birdseye on the left side and ring grain on the right side. I took a photo of the rim top and the inside of the bowl to show the condition. Like several other pipes in the estate lot this one still had raw briar at the bottom third of the bowl.The next two photos show the condition of the stem. The tooth marks and chatter are visible in the photo. The ones on the underside of the stem were deeper than the ones on the top side.I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the tooth marks and chatter. I worked over the entire stem to break up the oxidation.I rubbed the bowl down with a light coat of olive oil on a soft towel. I took the following photos of the pipe after I had wiped it down. The shine on the sandblast revealed the contrast stains that had been used on the bowl – both a dark brown and black. I touched up the rim top with a dark brown stain pen to blend the rim into the rest of the bowl colour. The dark brown stain worked well on the high area and the black filled in the grooves of the blast.I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and gave it a rub down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I let the oil dry and then buffed the stem with red Tripoli and Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I brought it back to the work table and finished polishing it with 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the bowl lightly with Blue Diamond and more intently on the stem. The Blue Diamond polishes out the minute scratches in the vulcanite and gives the material more shine. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and hand waxed the bowl with Conservator’s Wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¾ inches, Height: 1 1/8 inches, Outer diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ inches. The pipe is the kind of shape that feels great in the hand, it is light weight and comfortable. The look of the finished pipe is quite attractive and the contrast between the brown of the high spots on the briar and black in the crevices contrast well with the polished vulcanite stem. This one will soon be on the rebornpipes store. If you are interested in adding it to your rack email me at slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook. Thanks for looking.

A Bevy of Brighams IV – Repairing Heat Fissures in a 1980’s Brigham 418 Pear

Leave a reply

Charles illustrates one method for handling fissures in the interior walls of the bowl. He does it very well.

Charles Lemon's avatar

The Brigham Shape 18 Pear is quickly becoming one of my favourites; my very first pipe purchase back in university was a 2 Dot Pear, and it’s still in my rack and regular rotation. I’ve since added a 118, the restoration of which I’ve written about here, and now this 4-Dot version.

The pipe arrived in good estate condition, like the rest of this estate lot. It showed rather well at first glance. There was a light crust of lava covering the right rear half of the smooth rim, which I hoped was not hiding any scorched briar underneath. There was a light cake in the bowl, but the stem was nearly pristine, showing only a light bit of tooth chatter. The exterior of the stummel was in great condition.

20170317_16310820170317_163114
20170317_16312020170317_163128
20170317_16314620170317_163257
20170317_16330120170317_163321

This pipe is a bit different than the other Brigham Pears I’ve worked on. Not only is it a…

View original post 899 more words

Wow, what birdseye – a Savinelli Pantera 614 OomPaul

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

I am getting very close to finishing up the lot from the estate sale that my brother Jeff sent me for restoration. Because he had done a great job on the clean up the restoration of the lot has been a pretty easy process. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to work on clean pipes. Once I finish up this one I have only three left to complete. It is a good feeling when I get toward the end of a package of pipes. It feels like I actually am making some progress in the box of pipes to be restored sitting in my shop. This particular pipe is a beautiful Oom Paul with stunning grain all around the bowl. It is stamped Iwan Ries over Pantera on the left side of the shank with a faint IRC stamped on the left side of the saddle stem. It is stamped with the traditional Savinelli “S” shield with the shape number 614 over Italy on the right side of the shank. The underside has an upper case “C” next to the shank/stem junction.My brother took quite a few photos of the pipe from a variety of angles to show both the condition of the pipe and the beautiful grain around the bowl sides, top and bottom. The photos show the pipe before he started his clean up. The bowl was lightly cake and there was a light coat of lava overflowing on to the top of the rim. It appeared to be in excellent condition under the lava and both the inner and outer edges of the bowl were undamaged.The next three photos show the stamping that I noted above. It is readable and very clean and sharp. The IRC stamp on the stem was deep on the lower half and fainter as it moves toward the top. The next photos of the grain around the bowl show the cross grain and birdseye around the bowl sides, top and bottom. It really shows some spectacular grain. The stem was in very good condition in comparison to the other pipes in the estate. Even so, there were still some light tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem near the button and flowing onto the top and bottom of the button as well.My brother did his usual stellar job of cleaning up the pipe. The inside and outside were spotless when the pipe arrives. The stem was lightly oxidized as the Oxyclean treatment he gave it brought that to the surface. The next photos show the condition of the pipe when I brought it to my work table. The briar is beautiful with great grain. The stamping on the side of the saddle stem is faint and worn. The top of the rim and the bowl were very clean. Jeff had been able to remove the lava on the rim and had reamed the bowl back to bare briar. The bottom 1/3 of the bowl was undarkened and revealed that the bowl had not been smoked to the bottom.The oxidized stem shows the light tooth marks and chatter on both sides next to and on top of the button. They were the same characteristic marks that were on every other pipe in this estate lot.I sanded the stem surface and the top and underside of the button with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation and the tooth marks and chatter. It did not take too much work to remove the tooth chatter and marks as they were not deep in the vulcanite stem surface. The oxidation had come to the surface of the stem so it came off quite easily.With the tooth marks and chatter removed, I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I worked over the stem with each of the grits of micromesh and between each one I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil to enliven the rubber. I buffed the stem with red Tripoli on the buffing wheel after I had finished sanding it with the 4000 grit pad. I brought it back to the work table and finished polishing it with the 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I worked it over until the minute scratches that were visible on the stem in the photos above were gone. The briar also began to shine with the buffing. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This one has some remarkable grain and look. I will be putting it on the rebornpipes store shortly. It is available to add to your pipe collection if you want it. Just email me at slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook.

Rebornpipes is Five Years old! Thank You!

8 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

Rebornpipes turned 5 years old last month in May. I was on the road for work so I did not see the notification from WordPress.com wishing us Happy Anniversary. As such, I did not notice their notification until this morning when I was doing a bit of back end housekeeping. I can hardly believe that the time has flown by so quickly. It seemed like just a few months ago that I was sitting at my desk one morning early and made the decision to start a blog on WordPress.com.

I did a bit of research and really liked the platform they provided for the blog. I began with their free blog edition and quickly filled it up with material from refurbs I had done in the past. It did not take long before I had to add more space and I chose a new template that would give me the kind of access to information that I was looking for in the blog. I designed tags and categories for the blog that fit my own logic and built the posts around them. I had no idea if it would be effective for others but it worked for me. The last addition was to purchase the rebornpipes.com domain.

When I started the blog I had no idea whether it would grow or if I would simply be creating a repository of my own restorations online. I hoped that others would contribute and that the blog would fill a large gap I saw and experienced in my own journey into the pipe refurbishing community. I decided it did not matter to me which direction the blog took. I launched it with low expectations and those were met within the first few months.

Today at the five-year mark, I look back and the blog has taken on a life of its own. It has grown from just my own posts to those of over 20 contributors. Al Jones (upshallfan) has been with me from the beginning and I am thankful for his support and friendship. Throughout the years, other contributors have come and gone and new ones are added regularly. Each one brings their own flavor and flair to the work of refurbishing. Their style and innovations leave me excited to read the next posts that I will read. I thank each one of you who have contributed to the blog so far and remind the readers that the door is always open for you to make your own contributions to the hobby. Email me at slaug@uniserve.com for information on post formats and details.

I did some looking over things in the back end of the blog and thought I would share some of the details. It is fascinating to trace the growth of the blog from the perspective number of views over the five-year time period. Here is the number of views, visitors and posts by year from the beginning.I also found a breakdown of views by month and by year in the back end. It shows the growth of the views by month and by year. For example, you can see in the chart below that May of 2012 had 301 views, May of 2013 had 8.9K views, May of 2014 had 9.9K views, Mary of 2015 had 20.6K views, May of 2016 had 25.1K views and May of 2017 had 30.6K views. You can see the same growth over the other month as well.Another chart collects the average views per day and shows them below. Using May again as an example you can see that May 2012 there was an average daily view of 10, May of 2013 rose to 286, May of 2014 to 320, May of 2015 rose to 665, May of 2016 rose to 809 and May of 2017 rose to 986. The daily average grew the same way in the remaining average days per year on the chart below as well.The last stat that I found interesting and thought you might enjoy is the number of followers of the blog and the means by which they follow it. The first is those who follow via WordPress.com. The second is those who have chosen to follow by email and the final is those who follow on Social Media. I added Facebook and Twitter in 2015. I am not sure of the crossover of followers on multiple platforms. It is fun to see the growth and reach of the blog now.Another interesting stat is to see the global coverage of viewers of the blog. The first graphic below shows the coverage on a flat map of the world. Following that, I have copied a list of the various the countries that are represented in the views by number of views from highest to lowest (United States with 659,593 views to Micronesia with 1 view).

I have no idea where the blog will go or what its life expectancy will be but I am committed to continue to post and pay the bills to keep it going as long as I am able. It has become a major part of each day to read and do the housekeeping on the blog. It is a pleasure to sip my morning coffee and read through what other have posted and commented. Thank you all – those of you who contribute your own work, those of you who read and comment, those of you who read and email periodically to let me know how much you are enjoying the blog and all of you who are loyal readers and enjoy the blog on your own. It is because of the joy of refurbishing, bringing old pipes back to life that I continue to work and continue to post. Thank you all.

 

 

 

 

Cracked Shank Repair on a Dunhill CK12 Author

11 Replies

Blog by Henry Ramirez

Henry and I have been emailing back and forth on all things pipe repair and I have to say I enjoy each missive he sends me. He is a creative guy who is using his dentistry expertise to work on pipes. The kind of repairs he does and the equipment he has both built and gathered is unique and certainly adds some new ideas to the hopper for refurbishers like me. I don’t want to bore you with all kinds of introduction on Henry. I will let his restoration of this old Dunhill speak for itself. Welcome and thank you for your contribution Henry. – Steve Laug, rebornpipes

I’d seen this old pipe bought and sold several times on Ebay, each time gussied up a little more but still tap dancing around the issue of the split shank repair band. Being the sucker that I am for gnarly old patent Shell Dunhill’s, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to see what was under the band and possibly date this old codger.

Using 10x’s loupes with a parallel headlight source, I sectioned the band to find, to my lucky surprise, NO CEMENT! Just popped off, pretty as you please with no clean-up necessary. I used a fine carborundum wheel to initially trough the metal and then finished with a sharp new #2 carbide round but in an electric lab hand piece by Kavo. The Kavo or less expensive Medidenta hand pieces are ergonomic and very smooth running when compared with dremels. I would not try such a procedure for fear of scaring the briar without a hand piece I fully trusted.The newly exposed underside of the shank was faintly stamped with an incomplete patent number starting with 116(989/17) which would place this pipe from 1925-1934. No closure here since the date stamp was completely sanded off when the band was fitted.I was also pleased with the stem’s sizing to the shank. Still there was enough of a suggestion of the shell finish to complement the rest of the pipe.The 8mm stem orifice leads me to think this was a filtered pipe.The usual chamber cake removal (different pipe). I also use drill bits by hand to router out the mortise to bowl.When I want to conserve the original briar’s finish, I plug the bowl with a cork after stretching a latex or nitrile glove over the rest of the pipe. I then snip the tip of one of the fingers and poke the shank through the finger and out the hole. I tie off the glove and scrub the mortise and shank submerged in a Tupperware container filled with 91% isopropyl alcohol or vodka. Black muck floats out with every agitation of the shank brush.Drilling the micro-pin channel across the fissure. Once threaded into place, the pin shears off and the driver/carrier is removed. Of course I want the pin in the center of the thickest part of the shank through which the crack runs.The X-ray below shows not only the pin but also some of the composite plug. The composite plug was done at the end of the crack to prevent propagation.Pin hole back filled with black CA. Also spread some for aesthetic purposes on the composite plug. The stem was then buffed with four of pumice, Tim West’s green & red abrasive bars, White Diamond, Bendix plastic polish, Paragon wax and then a clean wheel and micro fiber towel. The bowl rim was gently micro-etched (Danville sand blaster) and polished with a Robinson bristle wheel brush. Luckily, the pipe was dark in general and the wax darkened the rim so that it blended. I flamed the wax to melt it into the rustications and buffed using a shoe polish brush supported by the bench pin. I ozonated the pipe for a night to remove any ghosting.Hope I don’t bore you with my Magnificent Obsession of resurrecting old pipes with the tools at hand. BTW, the light spot on the shank is an artifact of my flash. I’m going to deep six my crummy point and shoot and use my iPhone camera now that my MacBook can again see it as a drive. If you’re having the same problem, download Sierra operating sys from Apple for free.

Yours faithfully, Henry.