Yearly Archives: 2017

Cleaning up the last of the five Gourd Calabashes

Blog by Steve Laug

Well, I have come to the end of restoring the five gourd calabashes that my brother and I picked up on my recent trip to Idaho. This final one is very similar to the previous one that I cleaned up. I think it may also be a Pioneer Gourd Calabash but I have no way of proving it one way or another. The gourd on this one is a bit longer and has a slightly different bend than the previous one. The shank cap and extension is identical. The stem is different and it may well be a replacement. The pipe had been lightly smoked as is evidenced by the internals of the bowl and shank. However, it has been roughly handled. The bowl was darkened and scratched and there were chips missing on the outside edge. Fortunately they were not too deep and could be addressed but they were present nonetheless. This calabash was externally in the worst shape of the five but as I looked it over I could see that there was a lot of promise left in it and the bowl could be polished and smoothed out. The next four photos show the condition of the pipe when I brought it to the work table. I took the pipe apart to get a look at the parts. The inside of the gourd was surprisingly clean. In fact it looked barely smoked. This made me wonder if the bowl was not a used replacement bowl from another pipe. The cork gasket was also new and had been replaced. It was dry and hardened but still had not cracked or broken. The top of the bowl was in rough shape. There were some scratches and the burn marks were all around the inner edge of the bowl. I took a close up photo of the bowl top and edges to show more clearly the kind of damage that would need to be addressed in cleaning this one up. You can see the nicks on the inner edge of the bowl and on the top. The burn marks went all the way around and out into the surface of the bowl. The scratches on the top are visible and many. The second and third photo below show the nicks in the out edge of the bowl. It looked to me that the bowl had been dropped some time in its life. There were two missing pieces and there were also a lot of scratches all the way around the outer edge of the bowl. I sanded out the as many of the scratches as possible with 220 grit sandpaper. I smooth out the missing chips on the edge of the bowl and reshaped the rounded edge of the bowl so that the chips were no long visible. I polished the meerschaum with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond to polish it to a shine. By the time I was finished most of the scratches and damage had been repaired and the bowl looked far better. I greased the cork with Vaseline to revitalize it and soften it. I rubbed it down and let it absorb before giving it another coat. Once it had been absorbed the cork was softer and more flexible. The bowl seated very well when pressed into place.I waxed the gourd with Conservator’s Wax and buffed it by hand with a soft cloth. I repeated the process and after buffing it with the cloth hand buffed it a final time with a microfibre cloth.I pressed the bowl into the gourd and it fit really well. The next two photos show the polished bowl and gourd. The pipe is already looking far better than it did when I started the refurbish on it. There is a shine to it now.I cleaned out the shank, the mortise and the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. It was remarkably clean which made me more certain that the pipe itself was unsmoked and a used replacement bowl had been added later.I polished the unused stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads. I buffed the stem with red Tripoli to remove the light oxidation and then finished dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I gave the stem repeated coats of Obsidian Oil after the first set of pads and the buffing and after each set of three pads after that. I gave it a final coat after the sanding with the 12000 grit pad and then set it aside to dry. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I removed the bowl and carefully buffed the gourd with a clean buffing pad to raise the wax shine on it as well. I put the pipe back together and hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe looks really good now that it is finished. You would be hard pressed to find the damaged areas on the bowl sides and the scratches on the rim top look really quite good. The bowl has a light patina that remained after I waxed it with beeswax. It is a beauty and will serve someone well. It will be available on the rebornpipes store shortly. If you have been looking for a gourd calabash this one may well fit the bill. Thanks for looking.

Breathing New Life into a No Name Gourd Calabash

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Blog by Steve Laug

Having finished the first three gourd calabashes that my brother and I picked up on my recent trip to Idaho I move on to the fourth one. I purposely left the fourth and fifth pipes for last because they came to me in used condition. The bowls and gourds are original. I am not convinced that the stems for either one is original but I will probably never know. The gourd on this one is in great shape. It is significantly lighter in colour and weight than the previous three. The calabash does not have the patina that age and time adds to it. The shank end is made of plastic and includes a cap that covers the end of the gourd and an extension that forms the mortise for a push tenon. It appears that the shank extension is inserted with a plug and glued into the calabash end. I took the pipe apart and took the photo below. The stem was oxidized and there were tooth marks and chatter on the surface of the stem at the button on both sides. The meerschaum cup/bowl had been used. There was darkening on the underside of the bowl and the inside of the bowl had some darkening from smoking. The top of the cup was scratched and nicked from being knocked against hard objects. There was some tar and smoke damage on the inner edge of the rim and the top.The inside of the gourd had been cleaned and showed little wear and tear. There was a new cork gasket on the top inner edge of the gourd. It was dry and hard but undamaged. The shank extension had been well drilled as a mortise for the push tenon stem. It was plastic and was in excellent condition. I took a close up photo of the meerschaum bowl. You can see the darkening from the lighting of the pipe and the scratches in the surface of the bowl top. The inside of the bowl is darkened. The second photo shows the underside of the bowl. It is also slightly darkened. Overall the bowl looks to be in decent shape. The stem on this one was well used. It was oxidized and the tooth marks and chatter were on both sides near the button. Of the four calabashes I have worked on to this point this one has the most used stem. None of the marks are too deep so it should not take too much work to smooth things out.I started by working on the meerschaum bowl. I sanded out the scratches and marks with a well-worn piece of 220 grit sandpaper and then polished it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the bowl top and edges with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads. I dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I buffed it with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to polish out the remaining scratches. When I finished polishing the bowl I gave it several coats of beeswax polish and buffed it with a soft cloth and a shoe brush.I rubbed the cork gasket down with Vaseline to soften and enliven it. I let it absorb into the cork and repeated the process until the cork was soft.I waxed the gourd with Conservator’s Wax and when it dried I buffed it and gave it repeated coats of wax. I buffed it with a shoe brush and then with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. I cleaned out the mortise and the inside of the shank and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. It did not take too many swabs or cleaners to remove the debris in the gourd and the stem. Inside was in far better condition that the outside of the shank and bowl. I sanded out the tooth chatter and the tooth marks with 220 grit sandpaper until the surface was smooth. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each set of three pads and gave the stem a final coat of oil after the last pad. I set it aside to dry. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the last of the oxidation in the grooves of the stem and also to polish out the remaining scratches. I buffed the gourd and the stem with carnauba wax and a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I avoided buffing the plastic shank extension and merely buffed it by hand with a microfiber cloth. I buffed the entire pipe by hand with the microfiber cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is a smaller pipe than the others I have posted and is comfortable in the mouth and the hand. It will soon join the previous three calabashes on the rebornpipes store. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in adding this one to your collection. Thanks for looking.

A No Name Cumberland Shank Gourd Calabash

Cleaning up an Austrian Aonian Gourd Calabash

Cleaning up a Bit of a Frankenstein English Gourd Calabash

Refreshing a Family Heirloom – a Brunswick Imported Briar Saddle Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

I had an email conversation with a pipe smoker over in Eastern Canada about a pipe that had been in his family for quite a while. He had inherited it and though he loved it, the pipe smoked wet. We talked about how to clean the mortise and the airway in the stem and shank. He did the cleanup but the pipe still smoked wet. He wrote back and asked if I would have a look at it for him and see what I could do with it. When it arrived I could see why he liked it. The pipe is extremely light weight and the saddle stem and flow of the bowl is perfect. The brand is one that I had not heard of before. The pipe is stamped Brunswick over Import Briar on the left side. There is a nice rusticated wedge on each side of the bowl otherwise the finish is smooth. The photos below show what the pipe looked like when it arrived in Vancouver.The pipe was in decent shape. The finish was a little dirty and there were burn marks on the front outer edge and the left and rear inner edge of the rim top. The rim top also had some dents and nicks in it and some general darkening from being lit with a lighter in the same place each time.I took a close up photo of the rim and bowl to show the uneven cake and the rim top damage. The rim was slightly beveled and the inner edge was undamaged.I took some photos of the stem to try to capture the damage on the underside. It was hard to capture but there were four divots out of the vulcanite on the underside. I have circled their location in red in the photo below. The quality of the vulcanite was very good and the stem was not oxidized. There were a lot of small pits and scratches in the stem surface but it would polish up nicely and have a deep shine. The aluminum spacer was set on the tenon and acted as a thin ring around the shank and stem junction. It was lightly oxidized but also would polish up well.Before I started the clean up of the pipe I decided to do a bit of digging to see if I could learn anything about the brand. I looked on Pipedia and Pipephil’s Stampings and Logos site and neither one listed the brand. I also did a pretty thorough Google search of the brand using different combinations of words around the brand name. That turned up a pipe starter kit that included a new pipe, tobacco and tamper combination. The pipe bore the Brunswick name but it just did not look anything like the pipe or the stamping on the one I had in hand. It was available through the Pipeguys back in 2013 but the link no longer works. Looking at the pipe I do not think that the brand is related.

I turned to a copy of Who Made that Pipe that resides on my desk next to the computer. I looked through the listings and found two different possible makers of the brand – one in France and one in the USA. I have attached a screen capture of the listing from the book.

The American Company is listed as Adrien Brunschwig 1942. I think this is the maker of this particular pipe. The Imported Briar stamp under the Brunswick name leads me that conclusion as it was used in the US after WW2 when briar was once again available for import. I did some more searching for that brand and maker. The only thing I could find was an American wholesaler and manufacturer of household items called Brunschwig & Fils. I suspect that it is possible that like many other post war manufacturers the company had pipes made by an American Manufacturer (or maybe a European one) to sell or distribute to clients. Quite a few companies did that during this era.

The other company, Ruchon & Verguet 1933 is French and is a predecessor to the company that later was became GBD. I looked on Pipedia and found a link to the history of the company that later became Marechal Ruchon & Cie: https://pipedia.org/wiki/Marechal_Ruchon_%26_Cie. The link gave me the following info and certified the link to GBD. Marechal Ruchon & Cie. was a company owned by Auguste Marechal and Ferdinand Ruchon (“& Cie” is the french equivalent of “& Co”) which owned the GBD brand from the end of the 19th century until 1902 when they sold Marechal, Ruchon & Cie. to Oppenheimer Pipe, which in turn changed the name of the company to Marechal, Ruchon & Co., Ltd.. Upon the creation of Cadogan, however, the brand was no more, remembered only in the name of the GBD Marcee pipes made until just after the Second World War.

To me the connection to the French company is unlikely because of the Imported Briar stamp. The rustication on the pipe also would place it in the post WW2 years as that style was pretty prevalent in US made pipes. I had a passing thought that can in no way be confirmed, perhaps the Brunschwig name has been bastardised into Brunswick. It has happened to a lot of Germanic names over time so I would not be surprised. That tie also makes the connection to the American maker very probably.

I think I can say with a good measure of confidence that the pipe is American made in the late 1940s by Brunschwig (Brunswick). I wrote to the owner and asked him if he could give me any information on where his father in law may have picked up the pipe. He wrote back as follows:

Hi Steve,

…As far as I know it was my wife’s father’s pipe, she grew up in Toronto and so as far as I can gather I believe it was made around that area. I am pretty certain that he bought it in Canada though he was in the army and may even picked it up somewhere along wherever he was stationed, but I do think he bought it here. She remembers him as a child smoking it (before he stopped smoking a pipe and switched to cigarettes) so the age is roughly 50+ years old, perhaps a bit older…I couldn’t find any information on it either on any sites I visited, so I don’t think that the Brunswick company is still in operation. I would love to know more about it myself so at the next family get-together I’ll ask around with the few of the old-timers that are still around and see if they can recall anything about it and I’ll pass on any info I come across. I haven’t heard of the brand either, they seem to be very obscure.

She did tell me when I inherited the pipe that she found it in his drawer after he had passed so I don’t think he even smoked it all that often.

He also included a photo of his father in law with this pipe in his mouth. It looks to me like he is wearing a Canadian Army uniform.Now I had the back story on the pipe and a good lead on the name and the maker of the pipe. Those details are things I love to have in hand when working on a pipe. It adds another dimension to the restoration and repair process. The pipe will soon go back to the family and the next generation will carry on the tradition of pipe smoking. It is a reminder to me that we truly do hold our pipes as a trust that can be passed on when we depart. They certainly are made to outlast the sturdiest of us.

I started the cleanup on this one by addressing the issues on the rim top. I decided not to top the bowl but rather just lightly sand out the scratches and nicks. Sanding the top would also minimize the darkening and burn marks on the rim top and edges. There were also some burn marks on the front of the bowl that extended from the rim top down about ¼ inch. I sanded those at the same time and was able to remove much of the damage. I lightly sanded out the tooth chatter on the stem surface and wiped the stem down with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the dust. I filled in the three remaining divots with black super glue. Once the glue cured I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to blend the repairs into the surface of the stem.I reamed out the uneven cake with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up the remains with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I took the cake back to bare briar.I rolled a cotton pad and inserted it in the shank to plug the mortise and wick the alcohol back into the shank. I pushed a cotton ball into the bowl and used an ear syringe to fill the bowl with alcohol. I used an old ice-cube tray to hold the pipe upright and left it overnight to draw out the oils and tars in the briar.In the morning I woke to find the cotton ball darkened with tars. It was not the worst I have seen but it drew out a lot.I left the bowl sitting a little while longer and countersunk the end of the tenon to funnel it. I find that the funneled tenon draws the air into the stem and can work to reduce moisture by facilitating air movement. The photo below shows the tenon end after I had cut the funnel. I still needed to sand it but it was ready. I remove the cotton ball from the bowl and ran a pipe cleaner and cotton swabs through the shank.I let the bowl dry and turned my attention to sanding out the patches and repairs on the stem. I wanted to do a bit more blending and smoothing work. I was not ready for the micromesh pads yet as I wanted to use the retort on the pipe before polishing the stem.I finished the stem and put the pipe back together. I set up the retort. I pulled the rubber tube over the end of the mouth piece. I put a cotton ball in the bowl. I filled the test tube 1/3 full with alcohol and lit a candle to heat the alcohol. Once the alcohol gets hot it boils through the stem and the shank cleaning and loosening any remaining oils and tars.I boiled the alcohol through the pipe for quite a while and then stood the pipe up and let the alcohol cool and run back into the test tube. I was amazed at how little grime came out of the shank. I boiled it through a second time and repeated the cooling. This pipe was very clean now.I cleaned up the retort and put it away. I ran a pipe cleaner through the stem and also through the shank to dry out any remaining alcohol. It came out very clean.I touched up the rim and the front of the bowl with a medium brown stain pen to match the colour of the rest of the bowl and hand waxed it with Conservator’s Wax. The rim is looking really good and the burn mark on the front edge is minimized though still showing. I look at those kind of marks as battle scars that tell a story.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 final polishing with the 12000 grit pad I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I put the stem back on the shank and took the pipe to the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond to remove any remaining scratches in the bowl, rim and stem. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax focusing on the smooth portions. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I took the pipe back to the work table and waxed the rusticated areas with Conservator’s Wax. I buffed those areas with a shoe brush. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe is finished and ready to go back to its owner to carry on the family connection. I am looking forward to hear how it smokes for him now. Thanks for looking.

Comoy’s “Royal Guard” 1453 Restoration

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By Al Jones

This Comoy’s “Royal Guard” caught my eye but I was not familiar with this line or shape number (1453). The pipe looked like an easy restoration, with the typical heavy cake and very minor stem issues.

Below is the pipe as received. The stem was in great condition and fit snugly. The stem adornment was a bit of a puzzler to me. I assumed it was made of metal, like “The Guidall” pipes. However the during the restoration, and looking at the few few Royal Guards on the internet, I believe it is a thin sliver of wood, perhaps briar?

The pipe was reamed and I used a cloth dipped in water to remove the heavy deposit on the bowl top. After the heavy layer was removed by cloth, an 8000 micromesh sheet was used to diminish the rim darkening. I use a piece of 320 grit sandpaper wrapped around a Pipenet reamer bit to finish the inside of the bowl. The bowl was then filled with sea salt and soaked with alcohol.

I was afraid to soak the stem in Oxy-clean, as is my normal practice because I thought the adornment was made of metal and it appeared to be rusted. Instead, I used 800 grit paper which revealed what I believe is a a piece of wood. The Oxy-Clean solution would not have been kind to the wood, so I’m glad that I didn’t use that method. The rest of the stem only had very minor oxidation and it was easily removed with the 800 grit paper, followed by 1,000 and 2,000 grades. 8,000 and 12,000 grade micromesh was used to finish the hand steps. The stem was then mounted and buffed with White Diamond and Meguiars Plastic polish.

I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then several coats of Carnuba wax, being careful to stay away from the nomenclature, which is faded but legible.

I find very little about the “Royal Guard” pipes, if anyone has insights to offer, please comment. Below is the finished pipe.

One Quiet Sunday Afternoon – Finding an older KBB Yello-Bole Imperial Panel

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Blog by Steve Laug

On a quiet Sunday afternoon the family and I drove to nearby Fort Langley for lunch. We visited a favourite pipe hunting site that in the past has yielded some good finds. I went through the shop and found a lot of assorted pipes that really did not interest me. In one booth there was a jar with a bouquet of pipe sticking out of the top. They looked interesting and the sales clerk who unlocked the case said they were from the owner, an older gentleman’s private collection. There were several that looked promising but the one that grabbed my attention was an older Panel shaped pipe with worm trail rustication. It has the classic Yello-Bole yellow circle on the top of the stem. The pipe was stamped on the left side of the shank with a KBB in a cloverleaf next to Yello-Bole over Cured with Real Honey ® over Imperial in script. Underneath it reads Imported Briar. The bowl had a thick cake inside and it had run over the top of the bowl. The finish was pretty well shot and it had deep grime in the rustication trails on the sides of the bowl. The stem was lightly oxidized and there was some calcification around the button on the top and underside. I took the stem off the shank to find a push tenon. I decided then and there to add this one to the lot. I took the following photos once I got the pipe home. The finish was worn and dirty with a lot of grit and dust in the worm trail grooves on the bowl. It would take some cleanup work to determine what needed to be done with that. I took a close up photo of the bowl and rim. There was a thick cake and an overflow unto the rim top. The overflow and cake made it hard to tell if there was any rim damage or outer edge damage on the bowl. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the condition – it was in great shape other than oxidation. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up the remnants of the cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Reaming knife. I took the cake back to bare briar so that I could inspect the internals and the rim edges. I used a brass bristle brush and alcohol to clean the rim top of the buildup and grime that was there. I was surprised to see that it was undamaged.I scrubbed the remaining finish and the dirt off the exterior of the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad. I was able to remove the majority of the grime. The bowl sides, bottom and rim came out really clean. The scrubbed bowl is shown in the photos below.As you can see from the photo below the rim top still needed a lot of work to get it clean and the rustication patterns clearly visible again.I scrubbed out the internals of the mortise and airway into the bowl with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I think it had been years since this old pipe had met a pipe cleaner. It took a lot of rigorous scrubbing to clear out the buildup and debris in those areas. I used a cotton swab, alcohol and a dental pick to work on the rim top some more as well.I scrubbed the bowl and rim with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed it under running water and dried it off with a towel. I sanded the smooth surfaces of the briar with micromesh sanding pads to polish it – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I used a black Sharpie Pen to stain the rustication patterns on the bowl and shank. I don’t worry too much about covering every small nook and cranny at this point because I am going to put a top coat of dark brown stain over the top. I just want the rusticated areas to be a bit darker than the rest of the bowl once I have finished. It provides an interesting contrast. I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain and flamed it. I repeated the process until I was happy with the coverage over the entire bowl. I set the bowl aside and left for work. When I get home this evening I will “unwrap” as Dal says.When I got home in the evening I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on a cotton pad to make it more transparent and highlight the rustication trails. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond to polish the briar and give it a shine. The photos below show the pipe at this stage in the process. I broke up the oxidation and calcification on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. There were some small tooth marks and chatter under the buildup that the sandpaper took care of as I worked on the stem.I cleaned out the airway in the stem with alcohol, bristle pipe cleaners and regular pipe cleaners. I picked out the debris in the slot with a dental pick. It did not take too long to get the stem clean.I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each set of three pads. I gave it a final coat of oil after the 12000 grit pad and set it aside to dry. I put the stem back in place on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining scratches in the briar and the stem. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it on the wheel with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine on the briar and vulcanite. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I am uncertain of the age of the pipe but I figure that when Troy reads this he may be able to give me a clear picture of the age of the pipe. Thanks for looking.

A Simple Refresh – a GBD New Standard 9438 Rhodesian

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Blog by Steve Laug

I chose a second easy pipe to work on – another of my favourite shapes, a GBD Rhodesian. It is stamped on the left side of the shank with GBD in an oval over the words New Standard in script. On the right side of the shank it is stamped London, England over 9438. The stamping is quite readable. The finish was in decent shape. There was a light cake in the bowl and overflowing onto the topside of the rim. There was a slight burn mark on the outer edge of the rim from repeated lighting in that spot. The stem has the brass roundel on the left side of the saddle. The stem was lightly oxidized and there was tooth chatter on both the top and underside near the button. The next series of photos show the pipe when my brother received it in Idaho. He sent along a few close up photos to show the rim top and cake in the bowl. It shows the thickness of the cake and the light build up on the top. The photos that follow show the stamping on the shank sides and the roundel on the stem side. The next two photos show the tooth chatter on the top and the underside of the stem at the button. There were a lot of tiny tooth marks that covered the first inch of the stem on each side.My brother did his usual exceptional job of cleaning the pipe on the inside and out before he sent it to me in Vancouver. I ran a pipe cleaner through it when it came and it was spotless. He was able to remove much of the grime from the finish and the tars from the rim top.In the next photo you can see the burn marks around inner edge of the rim and on the front left outer edge. These would take a bit of work to minimize.I took a close up photo of the rim top to focus in on the burn marks around the edges of the bowl and rim top. I also took some photos of the stem to show the oxidation and the tooth chatter. I worked on the rim top with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to remove the burned areas. I was glad to see that they were only surface and did not go too deep. I was able to remove them for the most part. There is a small remnant of the mark on the front edge of the rim. I polished the entire bowl with the 1500-2400 grit micromesh while I worked on the rim to begin to bring a shine to the briar. I continued to polish the rim and the bowl with 3200-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads to deepen the shine and polish the briar. I buffed the bowl lightly with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel and set it aside. I worked on the stem. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter on both sides. They were not too deep so it did not take too much work to remove the marks in the vulcanite. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and then buffed it with Red Tripoli on the buffing wheel to breakdown the oxidation further. I then dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each set of three pads to bring life to the rubber and to also give the micromesh something to bit in during the polishing. Once I finished with the 12000 grit pad I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I put the stem on the pipe and buffed the entire pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to polish out the remaining scratches. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect it and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I took it back to the work table and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The grain is unique and a mix of grains – flame grain, cross grain and some straight grain. There is even birdseye on the bottom and on the rim. The stain that was on the bowl is a reddish-brown and it allows the grain to shine through. It is a beautiful example of the GBD 9438 shape Rhodesian and one that will grace the pipe rack. Thanks for walking through this simple refresher with me.

Whew, finally a simple restore of an older Imported Briar Rhodesian

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Blog by Steve Laug

After all the tough restoration jobs I have been doing lately I wanted to take a breather and do an easy restore. In the box of pipes, that my brother sent there was one that fit the need perfectly. It was one of my favorite shapes, had some interesting grain and needed minimal work. Thanks to my brother Jeff, it was astonishingly clean, and smelled the same! I have missed his help on the last batch I have been working on. When he does the cleanup, it cuts my work by 2/3’s and I have the pleasure of working on a clean pipe. This Rhodesian was very clean. The first set of photos is what the pipe looked like before he did his magic. When the pipe arrived in Vancouver I was really happy with what I found. The bowl was hardly darkened inside. The finish was gone, and though there were fills, they were not the ugly pink ones that I usually find in pipes of this era. There was some slight rim darkening on the rear left side of the rim. The stem was lightly oxidized and there were light tooth marks and chatter on both the top and underside of the stem near the button. The next photos show what the pipe looked like before I started my restoration. I took close up photos of the bowl and the rim top to show how clean it was. You can also see the fills on the front of the bowl. I actually started working on it this morning before I left for work. There was no dread attached to working on this one. There were no surprises under the grime or finish. There were no cracks of major issues with the bowl. It is a sweet pipe.The close up photos of the stem show the light oxidation and the tooth marks and chatter. They are not deep so they will not be hard to work on.I sanded the oxidation, tooth marks and chatter with 220 grit sandpaper until they were removed. It did not take too much sanding to smooth out the surface of the stem. There was a small nick on the top inner edge of the button that may need to be repaired. I will look at that after I have polished the stem more.The nick in the button disappeared as I cleaned and reshaped the button. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. After each set of three pads I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. After the 12000 grit pad I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I polished the briar with micromesh pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. The briar responded really well to the polishing and the fills began to disappear into the grain of the briar. They are still visible but they no longer stand out as they did when I started. At this point I think I will leave the finish natural and waxed instead of staining it. Just because it is a habit for me I did a cursory cleaning of the inside of the pipe and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners and it was as clean as I expected. There was nothing left to clean out. It was spotless.

Because the grain looked so good and I did not find the fills to be too distracting I decided to leave the pipe unstained. I liked the look of the briar and new it would colour with time and smoking. To give the bowl a little life I wiped it down with a light coat of olive oil and put the stem back on the shank. I buffed the entire pipe with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel to remove the last remnants of scratching. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I finished by hand buffing it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe is shown in the photos below. I really like the way it looks. For a factory made pipe the way the shape follows the grain is pretty amazing. Thanks for looking.