This large pipe came to me for refurbishment in the latest lot from a fellow piper living in Iqaluit, Nunavut. I’ve worked on quite a few pipes for him over the last year, and this particular Blatter proved to be quite a challenge.

To begin with, as you can see in the pics below, the pipe was in dire need of a good cleaning when it arrived on my worktable. The plateau rim was completely filled in with hard, crusty lava, and it looked like the bowl had never been reamed. The cake in the chamber was so thick I couldn’t identify the inner edge of the rim or the depth of the chamber.

In addition, there was something funky going on at the stem/shank junction. The stem was obviously out on alignment with the shank, hanging over the briar on one side and stopping short on the other. The…