Daily Archives: June 9, 2018

An Amazing Craggy Briar Freehand Stamped Wathen Reflection

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Blog by Steve Laug

Jeff picked up this beautiful craggy rustic briar freehand pipe guy in Maryland. It was very rusticated and craggy. There were rustications on the rim, around the rim, around various parts of the bowl and on the shank top. There was a rusticated bridge from the rim on the back of the bowl all the way to the end of the rusticated and craggy looking shank. The rustication on the exterior was filthy with lots of dust and debris deep in the crevices. There was a thick cake in the bowl and the airway in the twisted saddle, amber coloured stem was filthy with tars and oils. The inside of the shank must have been very dirty as well. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he cleaned it. I have included them here to give an idea of the rough condition of this pipe when it arrived in Idaho and Jeff started his magic. It is really quite unique with a rustic carving around the rim top and down the bowl part way. It is also rustic around the bottom edge of the bowl. There is a rustic bridge from the bowl to the end of the shank. The back of the bowl and the top of the shank is also rustic. The end of the shank slightly flared and rustic with the mortise drilled in the center. The underside of the shank is stamped Wathen over Reflection over the numbers 80 over #002. I am sure these numbers will help me date the pipe once I figure out who the carver is and where he lived and worked. It is a uniquely carved pipe that has smooth portions on the bowl front, sides and shank. The stem was an amber acrylic saddle with a twist in the saddle. The overall look of the pipe reminds me of a Micoli. Jeff had outdone himself in the cleanup of this worn and weary old pipe. It looked really good when you see where it was when he started. I took some photos to show the condition of the pipe when I brought to the worktable today. Jeff scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to clean up the rustication around the bowl and rim. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Knife. He cleaned the interior of the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. The pipe came to me clean and ready to do some light restoration on it. The briar appeared to be very dry. The stem had a twist in the saddle that spiraled around the top and underside the length of the saddle. The surface was clean but had tooth chatter on the top and underside near the button and on the surface of the button itself. I took close up photos of the rim top and the bridge to the shank end to show the condition of the rustication. There was some darkening on the rim top that would need to be addressed but it was clean. I also took photos of the stem to give a clear picture of what I had when I started.I took a photo of the underside of the shank to show the stamping there. It read Wathen in script over Reflection also in script. Under that was stamped the number 80 over #002. It was etched in script into the briar and had been darkened with a black stain to make it legible. Not sure what the numbering means and the brand is unfamiliar to me. I decided to do some research on the brand. It appears that today is my day for digging up information on the freehand pipes that I am restoring. I searched for the brand, Wathen to see if I could figure out any connections. The first link I found took me to Pipedia and the following link, https://pipedia.org/wiki/Wathen. I found a sample of the stamping on the shank similar to the one I am working on and some of the history of the brand. I quote it in full.

Kerry S. Wathen was a pipemaker who worked for a small pipe shop in south Kansas City called “The Briar Patch” in the 1970’s. Tending to larger sized pipes his centerpiece was a huge briar calabash shape. When the Briar Patch closed he probably moved to Iowa where his pipes were available at David’s Briar Shop in Des Moines (ca. 1977 – 1980/81).

Wathen was having some problems with his hands at that time and was finally forced to give up his talented carving. He usually inscribed his pipes with his name and two digits for the year of production like “Wathen ’75”. The best pieces were named “Reflection”. Kerry S. Wathen, Sr. passed away on April 1, 1985 in his hometown of Topeka, Kansas.

The article on Pipedia gave me some interesting information on the pipe and the maker. The maker appears to have been Kerry S. Wathen. He carved pipes for a shop called The Briar Patch in Kansas City in the 1970s. It also said that he move to Iowa and sold his pipes through David’s Briar Shop from 1977-1981. It also helped me understand the stamping. The number 80 was the year in which the pipe was made. The #002 evidently was the second pipe made in that year. The stamping Reflection was how he marked his best pieces. According to the article he died in 1985.

I found another link for the sale of three Wathen Reflections through Cigar and Tabac shop. Here is the link, https://www.cigarandtabacltd.com/kerry-wathen-reflections-pipes-on-sale/. I quote the information from there that confirms the other information and adds some more. The first part of the quote said that the pipe were on sale for $250 each. Then it pretty much quoted the information from Pipedia. The second part of the article gave the following new information.

Wathen was having some problems with his hands at that time and was finally forced to give up his talented carving. He usually inscribed his pipes with his name and two digits for the year of production like “Wathen ’75”. The best pieces were named “Reflection”.

The last piece I found was from pipes.org and confirmed the Des Moines, Iowa connection that is noted in both of the above articles. Here is the link to the pertinent part of the discussion on the forums, http://pipes.org/forums/messages/23/5570.html?1099700064.

I have ten Wathen pipes that were purchased between 1977 and 1980 from a shop in Des Moines, Iowa. The shop name was David’s Briar Shop and the Wathens were pretty popular there.

Armed with that information I was pretty certain that the pipe I was working on was made by Kerry Wathen and with the 1980 date stamp it pretty well placed as one of the Des Moines, Iowa pipes made just five years before Kerry Wathen died. I turned my attention to restoring the pipe. I started with cleaning up the remnants of cake on the inside of the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife. I sanded out the inside of the bowl with a rolled piece of 220 grit sandpaper until the inside of the bowl was smooth and clean. I scrubbed the rim top rustication with a brass bristle tire brush to remove the carbon and debris in the rustication. I scrubbed it until the surface was clean. The photos below show the progress.I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the smooth briar bowl and worked it into the rusticated portions around the bowl, rim and shank including the bridge. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers, working it into the exterior of the rustication with a horsehair shoe brush. I wiped it off and buffed it with a soft cloth to polish it. The pipe really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded the surface to remove the tooth chatter and filled in the deeper tooth marks on both sides of the stem near the button with clear super glue.When the repairs had dried I sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth and blend it into the rest of the acrylic stem. Once it was sanded smooth the stem looked really good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust on the acrylic. I polished the stem and the smooth parts of the bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and buffed it with a shoe brush. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the bowl and the stem with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The rustication around the bowl, the rim, the bridge to the shank end, the shank and shank end and the smooth brown finish all work very well with the amber coloured acrylic stem. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I have never worked on a Wathen pipe before and the unique shape and rustication pattern made it a challenge that was fun to tackle. The shape, finish and flow of the pipe and stem are very well done. The dimensions are Length: 6 1/2 inches, Height: 2 1/2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 inches wide and 2 inches long, Chamber diameter: 3/4 inches. This one will be added to the rebornpipes store soon. If you are interested in adding it to your collection send me an email to slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this unique, interesting and challenging Wathen freehand. I still have other freehands that I will be working on in a variety of shapes and sizes in upcoming blogs. 

Another Large and Unique Freehand pipe – a Granhill Signature 1 100

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Blog by Steve Laug

My brother Jeff picked up some amazing freehand pipes lately. When I was in Idaho for my mom’s funeral I packed them to come back to Canada with me. There was a Soren Hand Carved, a Granhill Signature 1 100, a Ben Wade Golden Walnut Hand Made, a Veeja 900 C6 and a Viggo Nielsen Hand Finished Freehand. All of them were hand crafted and had interesting shapes and finishes. Some had full plateau rim tops, some partial plateau rim. I put them in my restoration box and tonight brought them to the work table. The pipe I chose to work on next was the Granhill Signature Freehand. My brother had done all of the cleanup work – reaming, scrubbing the exterior and cleaning the mortise and the airway in the bowl and shank. That left me the finishing work on it. The bowl has a smooth finish and plateau on the rim top and shank end. The shank flares toward the stem which is a swirled freehand style acrylic stem. The bowl is quite small in diameter and is very clean. The finish on the pipe was in excellent condition. The acrylic stem had tooth marks and chatter on both the top and bottom of the stem at the button. Jeff had cleaned the rim top and removed the debris in the plateau. He had scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil soap and removed the dust and grime that had accumulated there. He lightly reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and cleaned it up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He cleaned the interior of the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. The pipe came to me clean and ready to do some light touch ups and polishing. The stem was cleaned but had tooth chatter on the top and underside near the button and on the surface of the button itself. I took close up photos of the rim top and the shank end to show the condition of the plateau. I also took photos of the stem to give a clear picture of what I had when I started. I took a photo of the underside of the shank to show the stamping there. It read GRANHILL in an oval shape over Signature. Under that was stamped the number 1 over 100. Not sure what that means and the brand is unfamiliar to me.The Granhill brand was unfamiliar to me. I had never heard of it before so I did some searching on Pipedia to see if I could find any information at all. I found two potential makers of the brand though they separated the name into two parts Gran Hill. The first possible maker was Michael V. Kabik with some of them stamped Made in Denmark. The spelling of the name was noted to come in other versions: Granhill, Gran-Hill. The second possibility comes from Lopes book where he states that the brand also was used by a Fargo Tobacconist, Lonnie Fay, who made freehands bearing this stamp in the 1970s. To me the similarity of the pipe to other Kabik pipes that I have worked on made me go with him as the maker of this particular pipe. I went back to Pipedia and spent time reading about Michael Kabik (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Kabik). Here is a summary of what I found.

Michael Victor Kabik or Michael J. Kabik, now retired artisan and pipe repairman, was born in Annapolis, Maryland in 1950. As a student he was fascinated by science, but finally turned to the arts. In the early 1970s he started working as an artisan and designer for Hollyday Pipes Ltd., and when the company closed he set up in his own right.

Kabik writes as follows:

…In the 1960s, I had helped Jay build Jay’s Smoke Shop and was his first employee. Since that time, he had set up one of the very first freehand pipe-making operations in the U.S. along with his partner, Chuck Holiday, called CHP-X Pipes. The staff consisted of four full-timers actually making the pipes and perhaps another four in sales and office work. Chuck, who did the actual design and carving, had long since had serious disagreements with Jay and split. Chuck’s replacement from the staff was quitting, and Jay was in a bind. Jay offered me the job, and I gladly accepted. The fellow quitting was supposed to train me for two months but left after two weeks, leaving me with an awesome responsibility. I felt as though the future employment of all these people depended on me as the designer and cutter…and it did.

…Sadly, CHP-X closed its doors two years after my arrival, due primarily to distribution, sales force problems, and other issues to which I was not privy…In love with a medium that satisfied my creative impulses while, pretty much, paying the bills, I bought up the essential equipment and produced pipes on my own. I did this from a farm house my wife and I rented in Phoenix, Maryland. I produced pipes under the name KANE, Gran Hill and others I can’t remember as well as a private label line for a store in, I believe, South Dakota.

…In 1973, I was approached by Mel Baker, the owner of a chain in Virginia Beach called Tobak Ltd. Mel was interested in producing a freehand pipe line and was alerted to my product by Al Saxon, one of his managers and a former CHP-X employee. Mel wanted to relocate me to Virginia Beach, give me carte blanche, and recreate the CHP-X studio with, of course, a new name for the product. I’m sure my answer came very quickly.

…We decided on the name Sven-Lar. Why? Well, when I bought out CHP-X, I also got a small drawer full of metal stamps that were created for private-label work. The Sven-Lar name was conceived but never realized. Aside from having the stamp already made, there were other reasons we chose Sven-Lar. First, we were making a line of pipes in the Danish freehand tradition and also, sadly, we knew the difficulty American pipe makers had breaking the foreign market mystique barrier. The latter certainly played a big part in the demise of CHP-X.

Armed with that information I was pretty certain that the pipe I was working on was made by Kabik. I turned my attention to restoring the pipe. I started with the clean bowl, I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the briar bowl and the rim top as well as the briar shank with the exotic insert. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers, working it into the exterior of the pipe. I wiped it off  and buffed it with a soft cloth to polish it. The pipe really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded out the tooth marks out of both sides of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. I worked over the surface with sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter, marks and to smooth out the surface.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust on the acrylic. I polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The plateau on the rim top and shank end and the smooth brown finish work very well with the swirled brown acrylic stem.The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. While I have worked on other Michael Kabik pipes (a CHIP-X) this is the first Granhill pipe of his that I have restored. It is well crafted and is very similar to the CHIP-X that I worked on in the past. The shape, finish and flow of the pipe and stem are very well done. The dimensions are Length: 8 inches, Height: 3 1/2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 ¼ inches wide and 3 1/2 inches long, Chamber diameter: 3/4 inches. This one will be added to the rebornpipes store soon. If you are interested in adding it to your collection send me an email to slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this Granhill freehand. I have other freehands that I will be working on in a variety of shapes and sizes in upcoming blogs.

What an interesting Freehand pipe – a Veeja 900 C6

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Blog by Steve Laug

Earlier this year I took some pipes in trade from a fellow in Alabama. He wanted some pipes that I would be adding to the rebornpipes store and wanted to trade me for some of his own. The first of these that I chose to work on today was one that is an interestingly shaped pipe with a wavy rim top, a long shank split by some exotic wood set off on each side with a thin band of dark wood and red wood. The bowl and shank are briar and the insert of exotic wood actually looks good. The shank flares toward the stem which is an amber acrylic saddle stem. The rim has some darkening and a little damage on the back side of the inner edge of the rim. The bowl had a light cake and smelled of aromatic tobacco. The finish on the pipe was in excellent condition. The acrylic stem had some tooth marks on both the top and bottom of the stem at the button. The slot in the button was missing and the button end appeared to be unfinished. It had the round hold drilled in the acrylic but the slot had not been shaped. Jeff had been able to clean up the rim top and remove much of the light lava on the surface. He had scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil soap and removed the dust and grime that had accumulated there. He lightly reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and cleaned it up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He cleaned the interior of the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. The pipe came to me clean and ready to do some light touch ups and polishing. The stem was cleaned but it had minor tooth chatter on the top and underside near the button and on the surface of the button itself. I took close up photos of the rim top and the shank end to show the condition of the plateau. I also took photos of the stem to give a clear picture of what I had when I started.I took a photo of the left side of the shank to show the junction of the exotic wood inserta nd the wood bands on either side of it. It splits the long briar shank and gives the pipe an exotic flair. The photo also shows the stamping on the left side of the shank. It reads Veeja over 900 C6 or Cb.The Veeja brand was unfamiliar to me. I had never heard of it before so I did some searching on Google to see if I could find any information at all. I found a photo of nine Veeja pipes on Worthpoint that were being sold. They have similarities to the one I am working on but were also very different. There was no information on the brand. So other than seeing other pipes by the maker I was no further ahead. Here is the photo and the link to the sale listing on Worthpoint. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/lot-veeja-original-tobacco-pipes-1796762187  

I did some further digging and found a listing on Pipedia for the brand. Here is the link to that information https://pipedia.org/wiki/Veeja. Once again it did not include much information. I include the article in full below.

Veeja Pipes were apparently made in New York, but we have been unable to establish any further details about them.

From that I could determine that the pipe was made in New York. No city is mentioned and no information is given about the pipemaker. I wanted to know more about the pipe so I kept looking. I found a discussion on the pipesmagazine forum and include the comment that started the discussion. http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/veeja-and-appia-stanwell-pipes-1. It was posted in 2014 and there was no response to his question. I quote:

I picked up two pipes… One of them is marked ‘Veeja original 1985’ which I bought in New York sometime around the early 2000s. The only online reference I can find is that this a one line reference to Veeja being a NY hand made pipe maker. Does anyone know anything about the person/company who made this?

I spent some more time digging to find more information but there was nothing else that I could find. Do any of you who are reading this have further information on the brand or the maker? Do you know where in New York it was made? Thanks for any help that you can give me on this.

I called it quits and moved on to start working on the pipe itself. I started with the damage to the rim. I sanded out the damage on the rim top as well as to the inner edge until I had minimized the damage and reshaped edge and the top of the rim.I polished the sanded rim top and edge with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I polished it until the scratches were removed from the briar. I cleaned out the remnants of the cake with the Savinelli Fitsall Knife. I wanted to remove all the reminders of the previous tobacco and give the pipe a new smell. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the inside of the bowl.I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the briar bowl and the rim top as well as the briar shank with the exotic insert. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers, working it into the exterior of the pipe. I wiped it off  and buffed it with a soft cloth to polish it. The pipe really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I wiped down the rim top so that it was clean. I used an oak coloured stain pen to match the rim top to the rest of the bowl. Once it dried I buffed the piep with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. (I picked a set of these stain pens up at Canadian Tire recently. The assortment of colours really makes them useful as I match them to the colours of the pipes I work on. I included this second photo to show what I am using to stain the pipes.)I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I cleaned up the area around the end of the tenon where it joined the stem. When the tenon had been turned this area had been left a bit rough. I scraped away the excess with a pen knife to leave it smooth. I sanded the tooth marks out of both sides of the stem to smooth out the surface.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust on the acrylic. I decided to finish up the end of the button and cut a slot into the acrylic. I took photos of the process from the original opening to the finished slot. I used needle files, sand paper and sanding sticks to open the slot and polish it.I the polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is the first Veeja pipe that I have worked on and judging by the craftsmanship on this one I will keep an eye for more of them in the future. The shape, finish and flow of the pipe and stem are very well done and the joints and fitting of the shank band mid stem were flawless. The dimensions are Length: 7 1/4 inches, Height: 2 1/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 inches. This one will be added to the rebornpipes store soon. If you are interested in adding it to your collection send me an email to slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this great freehand. I have other free hands that I will be working on in a variety of shapes and sizes in upcoming blogs.