Monthly Archives: September 2024

Restemming and Restoring an Astley’s Sandblast Cherrywood

by Steve Laug

Not too long ago I received and email from Nick, a fellow up the coast of British Columbia. He was not too far away and had gotten my information from City Cigar, a pipe and cigar shop that I do a lot of repairs for. He wrote the following email about two pipes he want me to restem for him.

Dear Steve,

I have a couple of pipes in need of new stems. City cigar suggested you might be able to help.

One is a diplomat, the other a cherrywood. Are you able to make new ones if I get the bowls to you?

I asked him to send me some photos of the pipe so I could see what he had and what I would be working with. I have a pretty good idea of the stems that I have and could tell him quite quickly once I saw the pipe if it was something I could work on.

He wrote back and sent me another brief email and included two photos of his pipes. This email made me think twice about the pipe because of what he wrote.

In trying to pull the tenon in the silver collared pipe, the diplomat I broke off a brass screw. It will need drilling I think. Best NickThe pipes arrived this week and I was surprised to find that they were both Astley’s pipes. I chose to work on the Cherrywood first. It had a lovely sandblast finish what was dirty and was stamped on a smooth panel on the underside of the shank. It read Astley’s [over] 109 Jermyn St. [over] London. The stamping was clear and readable. The bowl of the pipe had a moderate cake with some dust and debris in the sandblast of the rim top. The inner and outer edges of the bowl looked good. The pipe was missing the stem but Nick had sent along the snapped tenon in the bag with the pipes. I took photos of the stem to get a sense of what it looked like before I started my clean up. I took a photo of the rim top to capture the condition of the bowl and rim top. I like to capture that condition before I started my work on the pipe. You can see the dust in the sandblast on the rim top and the cake in the bowl. It is a nice looking pipe.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank and it is much clearer than the photo shows. It reads as noted above. Interestingly there was no shape number on the shank so it was a bit of a mystery pipe.Before I started my work on the pipe I did a bit of reading. I knew that I had work on an Astley’s Cherrywood previously and done a blog on it. A quick search on the blog took me to it. Here is a link (https://rebornpipes.com/2014/09/27/breathing-new-life-into-an-astleys-48-cherrywood/). I quote a portion of the blog below on the pipe. I found that it was a pipe that had a similar shape and had a shape number. I am also including some photos of the pipe when I had finished the restoration. The finish was not a sandblast but a rustication pattern that was very tight. The shape was the same as the one I was working on. This pipe was stamped on the heel of the bowl rather than the shank but it was the same. What was good about it was that it showed me the kind of stem that was originally on the pipe. That would guide me in fitting a new stem.This bowl had been stamped on the smooth bottom and read Astleys over 109 Jermyn St. Under that was stamped London over 48. I looked up the shape in an old Astleys catalogue (page pictured below) and found the 48 was a Round Cherrywood Briar. The description stated that it was a copy of an old English Cherrywood with a flat base. The bend on the stem can also be seen in the photo below from the catalogue.I started my work on the pipe by reaming it with a PipNet reamer using the second cutting head to take the cake back to bare briar. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I sanded the walls of the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel to smooth out the walls. There was no checking or burn marks on the bowl walls it looked very good. I used a brass bristle wire brush to clean out the debris in the sandblast finish on the rim top. It looked much better at this point.I cleaned out the inside of the pipe – airway into the shank, the mortise and shank walls with pipe cleaners, alcohol and cotton swabs. I worked on it until it was very clean.I scrubbed the exterior of the pipe with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed it off with warm running water and dried it off with a soft towel. The bowl looked good. The rim top had some fading that I would need to restain. I restained the faded rim top with a Mahogany stain pen to match the rest of the bowl and shank. The match to the rest of the bowl is quite perfect and it really makes the grain pop in the sandblast.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips and a shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I am very happy with the results. With the bowl completed it was time to pick out a stem to fit the shank of the pipe. I wanted it to be the same diameter as the shank and fit snug in the shank. I went through my stems and found one that looked a lot like the Astley’s stem on the Cherrywood in the photos above. It is a saddle stem with a thin blade. It is used but it should clean up very well.
I cleaned out the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol. The internals cleaned up very well. I also cleaned up the externals at the same time.I created a slight step down on the end of the tenon to secure a snug fit in the shank. I started the process with files and finished the shape with a Dremel and a sanding drum. Once it was finished it looked very good. It was similar in shape to the tenon on the Heritage pipe. It was going to work very well.I filled in the tooth marks along the edge of the button with some rubberized black super glue. By this time the repairs on the stem had cured so I flattened them out with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I worked over the button edge. It was beginning to shape up well.I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads and wiped the stem down after each pad to remove the sanding debris. It began to take on a deep shine.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I wiped it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside. The sandblast Astley’s 109 Jermyn St. London Cherrywood is a real beauty and the finish and shape are well done and have a classic English look. The newly fit vulcanite saddle stem polished up on the buffing wheel with Blue Diamond and had a rich glow. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Astley’s Cherry with a saddle stem fits nicely in the hand and feels great. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.48 ounces/42 grams. I have one more pipe of Nick’s to restem and then I will be sending them back to him. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. There are many more to come!

Restemming an UNSMOKED NOS WDC Military Bit Billiard

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by Steve Laug

About a year ago I visited an older pipe repair man (when I say older I mean older than me). He gave me a lot of pipe parts – stems, bases, bowl, tenons and bands On Monday, August 25 after a visit with my brother Kenneth and I went to visit my contact again. This time he had more stuff that he wanted to get rid of from his parts. Once again, we received more stems and tenons. But he also put in a box of pipes that were in various states of repair or disrepair. There were quite a few that needed to be restemmed. One of those pipes was an interesting Billiard with a nickel ferrule stamped WDC in the triangle on the left side of the shank and the same on the left side of the nickel ferrule. It was in great shape for having been knocked around for a long time in a box of bowls and pipes. The finish was dirty but the bowl was unsmoked and very clean. There was a very shiny coat of varnish on the outside of the bowl and at least one fill on the back side of the bowl. The nickel was also clean and unoxidized. I would need to come up with a stem for it. I took a photo of the stamping on the left side of the shank. It is clear and reads as noted above. The stamp is also gold and very readable. I also tried to capture the stamping on the nickel ferrule. The shine tends to blur that stamp.I started my work on the pipe by wiping it down with acetone to remove the shiny varnish coat. It worked very well. The acetone loosened the glue on the ferrule and it came off when I was wiping it down. I cleaned up the glue on the shank end with the acetone cloth so that the briar was free of it. I used a dental spatula to spread some all purpose glue on the shank end. I pressed the nickel ferrule in place on the shank end and wiped off the excess glue with a damp cloth. I set it aside to allow the glue to cure. I sanded the briar with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I dry sanded it and then wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. The varnish finish was gone and the fills in the bowl sides were very visible. I polished the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping down the bowl after each pad with a damp cloth. The briar took on a more natural shine than what was present when the bowl was varnished. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I am very happy with the results. I set the bowl aside and went through my stems. I found an unused vulcanite stem that had an orific button and a gentle that fits the style of the age of the pipe. It is also unsmoked and still bears a price tag on the underside. There is some oxidation around the tag and on both sides. I removed the sticky label with acetone on a cotton pad. I sanded the stem surface with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the nicks in the surface and the oxidation. It began to look much better as the work went on.I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads and wiped the stem down after each pad to remove the sanding debris. It began to take on a deep shine.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I wiped it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside. The smooth WDC Billiard with a nickel ferrule and military vulcanite bit is a real beauty and the finish and shape are well done and have a classic English Billiard look even though this is an American Made pipe. The vulcanite military bit polished up on the buffing wheel with Blue Diamond and had a rich glue. I polished the nickel ferrule with a jeweller’s cloth. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished WDC Billiard fits nicely in the hand and feels great. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.20 ounces/33 grams. I will soon be adding it to the rebornpipes store in the American Pipe Maker section. If you are interested in adding this pipe to your collection send me a message or an email. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. There are many more to come!

Restoring A Beautiful Heritage Embassy 44 Octagonal Pot

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By Steve Laug

Heritage pipes were Kaywoodie’s answer to Dunhill. According to one of their brochures, Heritage pipes were made from “briar burls seasoned and cured for up to 8 months,” with only “one briar bowl in over 300 selected to bear the Heritage name.” “Heritage stems are custom fitted with the finest hand finished Para Rubber stems. Mouthpieces are wafer thin and concave.”

The Heritage line began in the early 1960’s, with the trademark issued in 1964. The line was started at the request of Stephen Ogden, (who worked for Kaywoodie in 1962). Mr. Ogdon had previous experience working for Dunhill, either running the New York store or working for Dunhill North America. Mr. Ogden was made President of Heritage Pipes, Inc., Kaywoodie Tobacco Co.,Inc. and Kaywoodie Products Inc. as well as a Vice President of S.M. Frank & Co. Heritage Pipes were produced from 1964 until 1970 (Source kaywoodie.myfreeforum.org).

Andrew also included a copy of the Heritage brochure that I am also including below (Courtesy kaywoodiemyfreeforum). In going through the models displayed on the page there is not one for the 44.

As I read through the brochure I found a copy of the Embassy line on the third page. I drew a red box around it to easily identify it below. It reads:

Heritage… a name to remember in the world of smoking… made by the world’s largest manufacturer of fine pipes. Here are pipes, perfect in beauty and balance and so cool and mellow to smoke. Available in smooth Diplomat finish or rough, rugged Antique or Embassy finishes…

The box also encloses a photo of an Embassy finished Bulldog. It has the sandblast finish with twin smooth bands around the bowl and a smooth band around the end of the shank. The overall finish is the same as the one I am working on.The brochure has a great write up on the Heritage Antique Line. It reads Rustic Grain Stands out in Rugged Relief. It describes the line as follows:

This pipe is so bold looking, yet so light and smooth smoking. A special sandblasting process exposes a greater surface area on the bowl, giving a cooler, more satisfying smoke. Centuries-old Heritage Antique is strikingly masculine in appearance.

Added to this description is the specific finish that characterizes an Embassy line pipe as described above. Now it was time to restore the pipe itself.

The pipe seemed to be covered with a thick coat of varnish that filled in the sandblast portion and was peeling slightly on the smooth bands and smooth shank end. I wiped it down with a cotton pad soaked with acetone. I was able to remove the shiny coat in full. It looked much better now that the finish was flat. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect it. I worked it into the four lines on either side of the two smooth bands the line around the shank end ahead of the smooth band. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I am very happy with the results. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded the light tooth marks, chatter and oxidation on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them in. I followed that up with Soft Scrub worked into the stem surface with cotton pads and removed a lot of oxidation. The stem looked much better after this process. I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads and wiped the stem down after each pad to remove the sanding debris. It began to take on a deep shine.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I wiped it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside. The sandblast Heritage Embassy 44 Octagonal Pot is a real beauty and the finish and shape are well done and have a classic English look even though this is an American Made pipe. The thin taper vulcanite stem polished up on the buffing wheel with Blue Diamond and had a rich glow. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Heritage Embassy 44 Octagonal Pot fits nicely in the hand and feels great. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¾ inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.16 ounces/33 grams. I will soon be adding it to the rebornpipes store in the American Pipe Maker Section. If you are interested in adding this pipe to your collection send me a message or an email. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. There are many more to come!

Fourth of Five Peterson’s in for restoration that are in rough condition

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by Steve Laug

Yesterday afternoon I was visited by a pipe man here in Vancouver named Sergey who had five Peterson’s pipes that he wanted me to work on. They are shown in the photo below. In the left column from top to bottom: Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL17, Peterson’s of Dublin Filter 68, Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 Rusticated Pipe. In the right column from top to bottom Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 and the bottom pipe is a Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14. All five pipes were all thickly caked and had thick lava on the rim top. The cake is so thick that I could not put my little finger in the bowl it was so heavily caked. My guess was that the bottom of the bowl was lower than the entrance of the airway into the bowl. The Rusticated Kinsale XL17 also had a burn out in the front bottom of the bowl that would take a lot more time than just a simple clean up. I would know more about the condition of each of the bowls once I had reamed and cleaned them. Sergey was travelling in two weeks and he chose at least two of them that he wanted to take with him on his trip so those would be first. My hope is to try to finish four of the five. The fourth of these that he wanted is the next one I chose to work on. It was the Peterson’s of Dublin Filter 68. I took photos of the Peterson’s of Dublin Filter 68 before I started working on it. This was Sergey’s first pipe and his concern was that it smoked hot. The finish is very dirty with oils and dirt ground into the briar. There is some spotty varnish on the finish that may well have contributed to the pipe smoking hot to the touch. The briar actually looks very good with great grain. The rim top is thickly covered with tarry lava overflowing from the heavy cake in the bowl. The cake was thick and heavy all the way to the bottom of the bowl. The vulcanite stem is also very dirty. There was oxidation, calcification and tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem ahead of the button and lip edge. The P stamp on the left side of the stem is a gold P that is faint and faded. I took closeup photos of the rim top and bowl to give a sense of the dirty condition of the pipe and the thickness of the cake and lava on the bowl top. The rim top and edges look to be ok under the lava coat as seen in the photos as well. I also took photos of the stem to show the top and underside ahead of the button.I took photos of the stamping on the shank sides. It was faint but readable through the grime and debris. It read as noted in the above paragraphs. I also took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the look and proportion of the pipe. I started my work on the pipe by reaming the thick cake in the bowl. I used a PipNet pipe reamer with the first cutting head to take back the cake. I followed that with the second and the third cutting head. I was able to remove all of the cake. The cake in the bottom third of the bowl was incredibly hard and took a repeated reaming of that portion. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to scrape the remainder of the cake out of the bowl and clean up the bottom of the bowl. I sanded the bowl walls with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. With the bowl cleaned out I was able to determine that the bowl bottom was in better condition than the first or second pipe. I would need to build up the bottom of the bowl slightly to the entrance of the airway. It would be further protection for the bottom of the bowl and help it from burning out. The issues with the rim top and inner edge would also need to be addressed. I scrubbed out the internals with 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I worked them through the airway in the shank and stem, the mortise. It took a few cleaners and swabs to really clean it but it is looking and smelling much better.I scrubbed the externals of the bowl and shank with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed it with warm running water and repeated the scrubbing and rinsing process until the pipe was clean and looked better. I wiped down the bowl with acetone (fingernail polish remover) to remove the spotty varnish coat on the briar. The varnish may be contributing to the pipe smoking hot. At this point the briar began to look good. At this point I decided to address the rim top and edge damage. There burn damage to the inner edge and onto the rim top. I wanted the top to be smooth once again and also wanted to bring the bowl back to round. I started by topping the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board to smooth out the damage on the rim surface and clean up the outer edge damage. I was able to significantly clean up the damage. The other pipes I have worked on for Sergey have all had a slightly bevelled inner edge so I would need to do that with this pipe as well. I used 220 grit sandpaper and a wooden sphere to give the inner edge a bevel. I used a wooden sphere and a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to work on the edge and give it a slight bevel. Once finished it looked much better. I used a Cherry stain pen to touch up the rim top to match the rest of the bowl. I did this before sanding the bowl as I would also sand the top at the same time. I think the match was going to be perfect. We would see.I sanded the bowl with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove some of the darkening around the bowl. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. It really began to look very good. I touched up the rim top once more with a Walnut Stain Pen. The colour matched surrounding stain on the briar. Polishing it would blend it very well.I polished the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Each pad gave it more of a shine. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. By the end the bowl looked very good. I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips to work it into the finish. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar really comes alive with the balm. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Once again I wiped it down between each pad with Obsidian Oil. I further polished it with Before and After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. It looked very good. The P logo on the left side of the stem was so faint and damaged but I tried to touch it up with some Rub’n Buff Antique Gold. I worked it into the remaining stamp with a tooth pick. It worked better than I expected but it was not flawless. This Peterson’s of Dublin Filter 68 Bent Billiard with a Taper Stem has a beautiful smooth finish that was slightly worn. The medium brown finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. It has a classic look of a Peterson’s pipe. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Peterson’s of Dublin Filter 68 is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.08 ounces/59 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. I have one more pipe to finish but these four are ready to pick up and Sergey can take them on his travels. The last one I will give back when he returns. Thanks for your time.

Third of Five Peterson’s in for restoration that are in rough condition

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by Steve Laug

Yesterday afternoon I was visited by a pipe man here in Vancouver named Sergey who had five Peterson’s pipes that he wanted me to work on. They are shown in the photo below. In the left column from top to bottom: Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL17, Peterson’s of Dublin Filter 68, Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 Rusticated Pipe. In the right column from top to bottom Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 and the bottom pipe is a Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14. All five pipes were all thickly caked and had thick lava on the rim top. The cake is so thick that I could not put my little finger in the bowl it was so heavily caked. My guess was that the bottom of the bowl was lower than the entrance of the airway into the bowl. The Rusticated Kinsale XL17 also had a burn out in the front bottom of the bowl that would take a lot more time than just a simple clean up. I would know more about the condition of each of the bowls once I had reamed and cleaned them. Sergey was travelling in two weeks and he chose at least two of them that he wanted to take with him on his trip so those would be first. My hope is to try to finish four of the five. The third of these that he wanted is the next one I chose to work on. It was the Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14.I took photos of the Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14 before I started working on it. The finish is very dirty with oils and dirt ground into the briar. There are some nicks and flaws around the bowl sides and at least one fill. The rim top is thickly covered with tarry lava overflowing from the heavy cake in the bowl. It had some burn damage on the front outer edge of the bowl and the bowl was very out of round on the inner edge. The cake was thick and heavy all the way to the bottom of the bowl. The vulcanite stem is also very dirty. There was oxidation, calcification and tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem ahead of the button and lip edge. The P stamp on the left side of the stem is a gold P that is faint and faded. It also has some damage on the surface around the P. I took closeup photos of the rim top and bowl to give a sense of the dirty condition of the pipe and the thickness of the cake and lava on the bowl top. The damage to the rim top and edges is very clear in the photos as well. I also took photos of the stem to show the top and underside ahead of the button.I took photos of the stamping on the shank sides. It was faint but readable through the grime and debris. It read as noted in the above paragraphs. I also took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the look and proportion of the pipe. I started my work on the pipe by reaming the thick cake in the bowl. I used a PipNet pipe reamer with the first cutting head to take back the cake. I followed that with the second and the third cutting head. I was able to remove all of the cake. The cake in the bottom third of the bowl was incredibly hard and took a repeated reaming of that portion. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to scrape the remainder of the cake out of the bowl and clean up the bottom of the bowl. I sanded the bowl walls with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. With the bowl cleaned out I was able to determine that the bowl bottom was in better condition than the first or second pipe. I would need to build up the bottom of the bowl slightly to the entrance of the airway. It would be further protection for the bottom of the bowl and help it from burning out. The issues with the rim top and inner edge would also need to be addressed. At this point I decided to address the rim top and edge damage. There was serious damage to the inner edge. The front of the rim top had been burned and had a slight dip in it. The outer edge in front of the burned rim top was also damaged. I wanted the top to be smooth once again and also wanted to bring the bowl back to round. I started by topping the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board to smooth out the damage on the rim surface and clean up the outer edge damage. I was able to significantly clean up the damage. The Kinsales that I have worked on for Sergey have all had a slightly bevelled inner edge so I would need to do that with this pipe as well. It would also clean up the out of round bowl a bit more.I used a wooden sphere and a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to work on the edge and give it a slight bevel. Once finished it looked much better.I scrubbed out the internals with 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I worked them through the airway in the shank and stem, the mortise. It took a few cleaners and swabs to really clean it but it is looking and smelling much better.I scrubbed the externals of the bowl and shank with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed it with warm running water and repeated the scrubbing and rinsing process until the pipe was clean and looked better. I used a Cherry stain pen to touch up the rim top to match the rest of the bowl. I did this before sanding the bowl as I would also sand the top at the same time. I think the match was going to be perfect. We would see.I sanded the bowl with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove some of the darkening around the bowl. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. It really began to look very good. I polished the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Each pad gave it more of a shine. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. By the end the bowl looked very good. Once I had I polished the bowl I addressed overly deep bowl bottom. I filled in the bottom with a mix of cigar ash and water to make a pipe mud. I pressed it into place with a tamper to flatten it. I put a pipe cleaner in the airway so that I would only fill it to the bottom of the pipe cleaner. I set it aside to dry and harden. It looks much better. It will take awhile to harden but it should deal with the damage. If it shrinks when it cures I will need to fill it in a bit more. At this point I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips to work it into the finish. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar really comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the tooth marks on both sides with the flame of a Bic lighter. I filled in the two deeper marks on the underside of the stem that remained with black rubberized CA glue and set it aside to cure. Once it had hardened I sanded the with 220 grit sandpaper and smoothed them out. The P logo on the left side of the stem was so faint and damaged but I tried to touch it up with some Rub’n Buff Antique Gold. I worked it into the remaining stamp with a tooth pick. It worked better than I expected but it was not flawless. I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to take out the scratching and remaining oxidation. I wiped it down after each pad with some Obsidian Oil. It is looking much better now.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Once again I wiped it down between each pad with Obsidian Oil. I further polished it with Before and After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. It looked very good. This Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale X14 Rhodesian with a Taper Stem has a beautiful smooth finish that was slightly worn. The reddish brown finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. It has a classic look of a Peterson’s pipe. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14 is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inch, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.36 ounces/67 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. I have two more pipes to finish but these three are ready to pick up and Sergey can take them on his travels. The last two I will give back when he returns. Thanks for your time.

Second of Five Peterson’s in for restoration that are in rough condition

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By Steve Laug

Yesterday afternoon I was visited by a pipe man here in Vancouver named Sergey who had five Peterson’s pipes that he wanted me to work on. They are shown in the photo below. In the left column from top to bottom: Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL17, Peterson’s of Dublin Filter 68, Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 Rusticated Pipe. In the right column from top to bottom Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 and the bottom pipe is a Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14. All five pipes were all thickly caked and had thick lava on the rim top. The cake is so thick that I could not put my little finger in the bowl it was so heavily caked. My guess was that the bottom of the bowl was lower than the entrance of the airway into the bowl. The Rusticated Kinsale XL17 also had a burn out in the front bottom of the bowl that would take a lot more time than just a simple clean up. I would know more about the condition of each of the bowls once I had reamed and cleaned them. Sergey was traveling in two weeks and he chose at least two of them that he wanted to take with him on his trip so those would be first. My hope is to try to finish four of the five. The second of these that he wanted is the next one I chose to work on. It was the Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL17.I took photos of the Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL17 before I started working on it. The finish is very dirty with oils and dirt ground into the briar. The rim top is thickly covered with tarry lava overflowing from the heavy cake in the bowl. The cake was thick and heavy all the way to the bottom of the bowl. The vulcanite stem is also very dirty. There was oxidation, calcification and tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem ahead of the button and lip edge. The P stamp on the left side of the stem is a gold P that is faint and faded. I took closeup photos of the rim top and bowl to give a sense of the dirty condition of the pipe and the thickness of the cake and lava on the bowl top. I also took photos of the stem to show the top and underside ahead of the button.I took photos of the stamping on the shank sides. It was faint but readable through the grime and debris. It read as noted in the above paragraphs. I also took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the look and proportion of the pipe. There is also some glue around the band that makes me think it has been reglued. I started my work on the pipe by reaming the thick cake in the bowl. I used a PipNet pipe reamer with the first cutting head to take back the cake. I followed that with the second and the third cutting head. I was able to remove all of the cake. The cake in the bottom third of the bowl was hard. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to scrape the remainder of the cake out of the bowl and clean up the bottom of the bowl. I sanded the bowl walls with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. With the bowl cleaned out I was able to determine that the bowl bottom was in better condition than the first pipe. I would build up the bottom of the bowl slightly to the entrance of the airway. It would protect the bottom from burning out. I scrubbed out the internals with 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I worked them through the airway in the shank and stem, the mortise. It took a few cleaners and swabs to really clean it but it is looking and smelling much better.I scrubbed the externals of the bowl and shank with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed it with warm running water and repeated the scrubbing and rinsing process until the pipe was clean and looked better. I sanded the bowl with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove some of the darkening around the bowl. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. It really began to look very good. I polished the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Each pad gave it more of a shine. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. By the end the bowl looked very good. Once I had I polished the bowl I addressed overly deep bowl bottom. I filled in the bottom with a mix of cigar ash and water to make a pipe mud. I pressed it into place with a tamper to flatten it. I put a pipe cleaner in the airway so that I would only fill it to the bottom of the pipe cleaner. I set it aside to dry and harden. It looks much better. It will take awhile to harden but it should deal with the damage. If it shrinks when it cures I will need to fill it in a bit more.At this point I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips to work it into the finish. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar really comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the tooth marks on both sides with the flame of a Bic lighter. I filled in the two deeper marks with black rubberized CA glue and set it aside to cure. One it had hardened I sanded the with 220 grit sandpaper and smoothed them out. I touched up the P logo on the left side of the stem with Rub’n Buff Antique Gold. I worked it into the stamp on the stem with a tooth pick and worked it in. Once it had been sitting I rubbed it off with a cloth and polished the area with a 1500 grit micromesh sanding pad.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Once again I wiped it down between each pad with Obsidian Oil. I further polished it with Before and After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. It looked very good. This Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale X17 Bent Rhodesian with a Taper Stem has a beautiful smooth finish that was slightly worn. The reddish brown finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. It has a classic look of a Peterson’s pipe. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL17 is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inch, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.75 ounces/78 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. I have three more pipes to finish before I give them back to Sergey. Thanks for your time.

First of Five Peterson’s in for restoration that are in rough condition

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by Steve Laug

Yesterday afternoon I was visited by a pipe man here in Vancouver named Sergey who had five Peterson’s pipes that he wanted me to work on. They are shown in the photo below. In the left column from top to bottom: Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL17, Peterson’s of Dublin Filter 68, Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 Rusticated Pipe. In the right column from top to bottom Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 and the bottom pipe is a Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14. All five pipes were all thickly caked and had thick lava on the rim top. The cake is so thick that I could not put my little finger in the bowl it was so heavily caked. My guess was that the bottom of the bowl was lower than the entrance of the airway into the bowl. The Rusticated Kinsale XL17 also had a burn out in the front bottom of the bowl that would take a lot more time than just a simple clean up. I would know more about the condition of each of the bowls once I had reamed and cleaned them. Sergey was travelling in two weeks and he chose at least two of them that he wanted to take with him on his trip so those would be first. My hope is to try to finish four of the five. The first of these that he wanted is the one I chose to work first. It was the Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL15.I took photos of the Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL15 before I started working on it. The finish is very dirty with oils and dirt ground into the briar. The rim top is thickly covered with tarry lava overflowing from the heavy cake in the bowl. The cake was thick and heavy all the way to the bottom of the bowl. The vulcanite stem is also very dirty. There was oxidation, calcification and tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem ahead of the button and lip edge. The P stamp on the left side of the stem is a gold P that is faint and faded. I took closeup photos of the rim top and bowl to give a sense of the dirty condition of the pipe and the thickness of the cake and lava on the bowl top. I also took photos of the stem to show the top and underside ahead of the button. I took photos of the stamping on the shank sides. It was faint but readable through the grime and debris. It read as noted in the above paragraphs. I also took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the look and proportion of the pipe. I started my work on the pipe by reaming the thick cake in the bowl. I used a PipNet pipe reamer with the first cutting head to take back the cake. I followed that with the second and the third cutting head. I was able to remove all of the cake. The cake in the bottom third of the bowl was hard. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to scrape the remainder of the cake out of the bowl and clean up the bottom of the bowl. I sanded the bowl walls with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. With the bowl cleaned out I was able to determine that the bowl bottom was almost a full ¼ inch below the airway entrance to the bowl. I would need to build up the bottom of the bowl to the entrance of the airway. It would also protect the bottom from burning out. I scrubbed the externals of the bowl and shank with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed it with warm running water and repeated the scrubbing and rinsing process until the pipe was clean and looked better. I scrubbed out the internals with 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I worked them through the airway in the shank and stem, the mortise. It took a few cleaners and swabs to really clean it but it is looking and smelling much better. I sanded the bowl with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove some of the darkening around the bowl. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. It really began to look very good. I polished the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Each pad gave it more of a shine. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. By the end the bowl looked very good. Once I had I polished the bowl I addressed overly deep bowl bottom. I filled in the bottom with a mix of cigar ash and water to make a pipe mud. I pressed it into place with a tamper to flatten it. I put a pipe cleaner in the airway so that I would only fill it to the bottom of the pipe cleaner. I set it aside to dry and harden. It looks much better. It will take awhile to harden but it should deal with the damage. If it shrinks when it cures I will need to fill it in a bit more.At this point I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips to work it into the finish. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar really comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the tooth marks on both sides with the flame of a Bic lighter. I was able to lift them enough that a quick sanding with 220 grit sandpaper smoothed them out.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Once again I wiped it down between each pad with Obsidian Oil. I further polished it with Before and After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. It looked very good. This Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale X15 Bent with a Taper Stem has a beautiful smooth finish that was slightly worn. The reddish brown finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. It has a classic look of a Peterson’s pipe. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale xL15 is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inch, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.89 ounces/81 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. I have four more pipes to finish before I give them back to Sergey. Thanks for your time.

Fixing the Unfixable

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by Kenneth Lieblich

Strap yourself in – this is going to be a wild ride! My cousin-in-law likes to send me pipe projects that are a little off the beaten track. They also usually end up being quite tricky and this one is no exception. He sent me two meerschaum-lined pipes that have been badly damaged and require repair. One pipe is a Kiko, from Tanganyika in eastern Africa, and the other is from Ropp, the venerable pipe-maker of St Claude, France. Although the briar exteriors are fine, the meerschaum interiors of the bowls are a complete disaster. The Kiko looks as though it’s probably been dropped at some point. Meerschaum is quite fragile, so no wonder it cracked so badly. The Ropp is equally bad, but I think that’s because it was badly reamed rather than dropped. Who knows and, quite frankly, the answer is of academic interest. They both suffered from having a cake which is not a good idea for meerschaum. I subjected these pipes to my usual cleaning procedures – for both stem and stummel – but I’m going to gloss over those details today. To be clear, both stems were deoxidized, repaired, sanded, and polished. In addition, the briar parts of the stummels were thoroughly cleaned, sanded, and polished too. I also did a thorough, but exceptionally careful, cleaning of the insides. I needed to remove as much filth as possible, but liquids like water, alcohol, etc., don’t do well with meer. As an aside, the Ropp had a substantial crack in the briar and this only added to the complexity of the repairs.In this blog post, I’m skipping writing about the usual stuff in order to focus on the major issue with these pipes – the busted meerschaum lining and how to fix it. In consulting with Steve, he mentioned a post on a blog from a few years ago that talked about repairing this very thing. The blog is called ‘Baccy Pipes’ and the fellow’s name is Troy W. I want to give him full credit for starting me on my research for this job. Here’s the link to his repair: https://baccypipes.wordpress.com/2017/06/10/old-time-meer-lining-repair-method-on-a-1930s-kaywoodie-shellcraft-5651/. The curious thing about this repair was that Troy used a mixture of egg white and chalk to mend the broken meerschaum. As he writes:

I had read and heard from other pipe restores that a old late 19th-early 20th century druggist recipe for fixing broken meerschaum was egg whites and finely ground chalk, so that was what I was going to try and fix the meer lined rim with. It is said to have about the same porous properties of meerschaum and imparts no taste to the tobacco.I was immediately intrigued and my brain began to ruminate on this. In the past, Steve and I have both used plaster of Paris when repairing meer-lined bowls. What about egg and chalk? Putting together the ingredients would be no problem: chalk, that is to say, calcium carbonate is easy to acquire. And then a thought struck me – I wonder if I could do an experiment on the properties of both calcium carbonate and a product that’s much closer to meerschaum in composition. Meerschaum is a type of magnesium silicate – and so is talc. They are not identical substances, but surely closer than chalk. If I could buy some pure, unadulterated talc, that might prove to be a good option. Well, it turns out that getting pure talc with absolutely nothing else in it was not as easy as I thought. I did eventually find a small package for sale on Amazon and it ended up being shipped from Germany (no idea why) to my home on the west coast of Canada. Let’s have a quick look at the insides of the two bowls, because they have different problems and very different sized apertures. The Ropp had the much larger bowl, and its insides were more damaged at the bottom. There was a surprising amount of meerschaum missing at the bottom and it is difficult to convey this in photos. However, the photos do clearly show the large chuck missing from the rim. I suspected that, although the width of the bowl meant it would be easier to access, it would require the most work and be the most difficult to repair satisfactorily. The Kiko had its own set of problems. There were also missing chunks on the rim, but the cracks inside were devastating. The width of the bowl meant that I could get nothing larger than my pinky finger inside. A small piece of broken meerschaum fell out from one of the cracks while I was inspecting it. That didn’t bode well. Now let’s start cracking some egg! Obviously, I took two dishes and mixed up a batch of chalk and egg white in one and talc and egg white in the other. Both materials were powdered, so I had no concerns about overly large particles in either mixture. During mixing, the talc seemed grittier than the chalk, but it was difficult to assess this properly and difficult to know how much to mix into the egg white. I put the two blobs on a piece of cardboard for a couple of days and let them set. Once dry, I conducted my own absurdly unscientific compressive strength test on both materials as a way of determining straight away if one material was clearly superior to the other. There wasn’t any obvious difference – and any differences I may have detected could easily have been a figment of my imagination. Both materials seemed about equal. I opted to try the talc first – for no other reason than it was chemically closer to meerschaum.I took both stummels and wrapped all of the wood in painter’s tape. I had nightmarish visions of what could happen to these pipes if I got the eggy goo on them. Better safe than sorry. I started applying the egg/talc mixture to the Kiko first. I wanted to make sure than the cavernous cracks were completely filled with the stuff. I needed a good bond and I added more than I needed – assuming there would be some shrinkage in the drying process. Similarly, I smooshed the mix on the Ropp too, hoping for the best. There’s no way to sugarcoat this: the whole process was a mess. Really a mess. Once the pipes had dried overnight, I took a look and I wasn’t particularly impressed with my work. But a more detailed examination was needed, so I put on a sanding mask and set about removing the excess material. I used sandpapers of various grits on dowels, sandpapers on my fingers, and sandpapers on my topping board. Hmm. The results were ok, but no better than that – and ‘ok’ just isn’t good enough for me.I hadn’t put enough material inside the Ropp – there were still areas that needed to be built up. I also felt that the material on the rims of both pipes was just too brittle – especially on the Kiko. Perhaps I was wrong to try talc.Round two. This time I repeated the entire process with egg white and chalk. Old boys in days of yore used it, so why not me? I won’t bore you by rewriting the same slathering and sanding process as above, but, the chalk mixture yielded no better results than the talc. The extra layer of goo was good insofar as it added more protection to the walls – but the results may have been the same if I’d added more talc. Sadly, the chalk did not seem to improve the frangibility of the rim.Round three. More slathering and sanding. I added a bit more egg/chalk mixture to bulk up areas that needed it and I hoped that perhaps the rim would somehow magically be improved.Round four – yes round four. This time – a slight change. I opted to return to the material that Steve and I have both used successfully in the past – plaster of Paris. This was not a complete redo, as before, but merely touch ups (in some cases aided by a drop of glue). At this point, I was placated by the plaster and felt that the results were acceptable – not perfect, but acceptable. Once the sanding was done, I could remove the painter’s tape and finish the pipes off. The Kiko needed some colour added to the rim after all the topping. I used my furniture pens to match the colour and it came out very well.Both pipes went on the buffing wheel and they look great. This was a very timing-consuming and enormously frustrating process. In the end, I learned quite a few things about the repair of meerschaum. Just like everything else, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. I think egg/talc or egg/chalk is fine for small repairs, where the cracks are small and not structural. But larger repairs require something different: either grafting on a spare piece of meerschaum (which I have done successfully in the past) or using a more reliably solid goo like plaster of Paris.The Kiko and Ropp are much improved and I hope my cousin will like them. I hope you enjoyed reading the story of these pipes as much I as I did restoring them. If you are interested in more of my work, please follow me here on Steve’s website or email me directly at kenneth@knightsofthepipe.com. Thank you very much for reading and, as always, I welcome and encourage your comments.

Restoring a Selected Straight Grain Leonard Portland Liverpool

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by Steve Laug

About a year ago I visited an older pipe repair man (when I say older I mean older than me). He gave me a lot of pipe parts – stems, bases, bowl, tenons and bands. On Monday, August 25 after a visit with my brother Kenneth and I went to visit my contact again. This time he had more stuff that he wanted to get rid of from his parts. Once again, we received more stems and tenons. But he also put in a box of pipes that were in various states of repair or disrepair. One of those pipes was one that I have chosen to work on next. It is a pipe that brings back memories for me. The pipe is a Liverpool that has some amazing grain around the bowl and shank. It is stamped on the left side of the shank Selected [arched over] Straight [over] Grain. On the right side it is stamped Leonard [arched over] Portland. On the underside of the shank it is stamped Made in London [over] England. The arched stamp and the shape really remind me of a Barling and the Selected Straight Grain reminds me of a Comoy’s but I am not certain of the English Pipemaker. I was very familiar with Leonard Tobacco Shop in Portland Oregon because I had visited the shop when I was in university there. It was a great shop to visit. The bowl had a moderate cake with a light lava coat on the rim top and edges. There were also some nicks on the rim top but none were deep. The finish was dirty with grime and oils ground into the surface of the smooth briar. The taper stem was oxidized, calcified and had light tooth chatter and marks on the top and underside ahead of the button. It would clean up quite well I think. I took photos of the pipe before I started working on it. I took photos of the bowl and rim top to show their condition and of the stem to show the condition of both sides of the stem.The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. It looks very good and faint but readable. It reads as noted and explained above. I captured the detail in the photos below. I removed the stem and took a photo to give a sense of what the pipe looked like. I have worked on a few Leonard Pipes over the years. I turned to one I had written back in 2013 on a Leonard’s Pipe Shop Sea Rock Style rusticated pipe. In that blog I had explored the background of the brand (https://rebornpipes.com/2013/06/06/leonards-pipe-shop-portland-oregon/). I am including that information below as well as some additional information that was very helpful in the comments. I quote:

The pipe I purchased is a shop pipe that came from one of America’s great old pipe shops – LEONARD’S PIPE SHOP which was located in Portland, Oregon, USA. The shop and the brand never was as famous as Peretti’s, Ehrlich’s, The House of Robertson, Bertram’s, Garfinkel’s, Drucquers or some of the other great names from the past, possibly because of its’ location. But in terms of stature among the world’s greatest pipe makers, Leonard’s had no equal. While some pipe shops catered to the rich and famous, served politicians or visiting emissaries, or made pipes for actors, entertainers or stars in one field or another, Leonard’s catered to the other end of the pipe chain – the all-important source of supply! The shop was founded by Arthur Leonard in 1936 who worked hard to establish close relationships with the world’s biggest and best pipe maker’s — Charatan, Barling, Sasieni, Kaywoodie and others…

…On display the Leonard’s had the longest and largest Kaywoodies ever made, unsmoked Dunhill Magnums and a host of pre-1900 Barlings! Arthur Leonard had established a powerful relationship with the great pipe makers of the last century and his shop retained the bounty of those relationships…

…Like the other great American pipe shops, Leonard’s is gone. They closed their doors in 1989. Their inventory was slowly liquidated by the last family owners of the shop. It is sad that yet another piece of American pipe history is gone. It would be grand to have seen that back room filled with a huge inventory of beautiful old briars of renown. Ah well, we have to use our imaginations to enter that room now. As I go there in my mind, I load a bowl of good tobacco from Drucquer’s (another American Pipe Shop that is gone) in my Leonard’s Sea Rock and lift it in both of their memories.

A reader named Pete wrote on November 11, 2015 the following information in correction to the information that I wrote regarding the connection of Barling to Leonard’s. I am including his full comment as it is very helpful.

With respect, I must take issue with the paragraph about the purchase of all Barling pipe stock by Leonard’s when the Barling family ‘sold out’ and any impact on the Transition period. Similarly, about Sasieni as well.

Lou and Betty Leonard were customers of mine in the 1980s. When Lou learned that I collected Barlings he told me, “I bought all the Barlings that I could get my hands on” when he learned that Barling had been sold and that he’d bought close to 100 pipes.

Imperial Tobacco Group, through their subsidiary, Finlay, already owned a sizeable part of Barling when they took control in 1960 but Monte Barling and Williamson-Barling remained, at least, in some capacity for a couple more years. Finlay was Barling’s largest customer. Barling made thousands of pipes a week and they would have had a standing inventory of finished and in-process pipes of at least 5,000 if not (much) more. I know of no account of anyone buying up stock.

Most of the employees remained with Barling, at least initially, so that the quality of pipes made after Finlay took control remained close to, if not the same.

Lou was a wonderful man and I suspect that he heard of the sale and bought Barlings in case there was a change in quality. That change did occur but it wasn’t an immediate event. The Barlings that Lou bought had no effect on quality in the Transition Period. The drop in quality of Barling pipes gradually accelerated from 1960 until they stopped making their own pipes at all, instead purchasing pipes from Cadogan and Charatan to label as Barling.

Kennedy Barnes (Upshall) and I talked with Sasieni solicitors about buying all or part of the company in 1986 (we didn’t buy). Unlike Barling, Sasieni was going out of business and they did indeed sell off their pipes and I’d imagine that Lou bought many (he was a long-time customer) but they had thousands of pipes to sell.

You have a fine site but I think it would behoove you to edit this paragraph to reflect the truth, least the inaccuracies become embedded in Internet Folklore.

I wrote Pete to thank him and I quote as follows:

Pete thank you for your information. It is invaluable to the piece on Leonard’s. Thank you for taking the time to put this together and add it to the piece. I will add a reference to your added information as an addendum to the article. It will also remain with the article. Again, thank you.

Pete November 17, 2015 Thanks for your gracious reply. I found that there were two types of tobacconists, those that bought what was popular and those that knew quality like Lou Leonard. I never made it to his store (I was on the East Coast) but from my talks with him, his integrity and reputation in the industry it was clear that they were a premier shop.

Pete’s information was extremely helpful to me. I knew with some degree of certainty that this pipe was made for Leonard’s by Barling and was made before Leonard’s closed their doors in 1989. The grain the shape and the stamping all point to that maker. Now it was time to work on the pipe.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer using the second cutting head and took the cake back to bare briar. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I sanded the walls of the bowl smooth with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. The walls looked very good with no burn marks or checking. I cleaned the interior of the shank, mortise and airway in the shank and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I worked it over and surprisingly it was quite clean. The pipe smelled much better.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap. I worked over the finish and rinsed it with warm water and repeated the process until the surface was very clean. The grain really stood out clearly. It is a beautiful pipe. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad to remove the sanding debris. By the final three pads the bowl really shone. At this point I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips to work it into the nooks and crannies of the finish. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar really comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded out the tooth chatter and light marks on the surface of the stem ahead of the button on both sides. I also sanded the rest of the stem to remove the oxidation.I started the polishing process with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a cloth impregnated with Obsidian Oil. I let it soak in.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down between each pad with Obsidian Oil. I further polished it with Before and After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. It looked very good. This Leonard Portland Selected Straight Grain Liverpool with a Taper Stem has beautiful straight grain that stood out on the polished bowl. Is it made by Barling or Comoy’s? I am not sure as much about it point either direction. The reddish brown finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. The shape of the pipe really follows the grain and it is beautiful to look at. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Leonard Portland Selected Straight Grain is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.02 ounces/29 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. It is a classic that holds many memories for me so I intend to enjoy it. Thanks for your time.

New Life for an old Estate 1966 Dunhill Tanshell 35 FT Billiard

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by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is one that came to us from the group of pipes that Jeff and I purchased from a fellow selling an estate collection in Long Island, New York, USA on 04/16/2024. It is another Dunhill sandblast that is in good condition. It is stamped on a smooth panel on the underside of the shank with the shape number 35F/T followed by Dunhill [over] Tanshell. Next to that it is stamped Made in [over] England by the date number 6. After that it is stamped with a 3 in a circle [followed by] T for Tanshell. The stamping is clear and readable as noted above. The pipe has a mix of brown stains on a sandblast finish and some amazing grain that the shape follows well. The finish was dusty and oily around the nooks and crannies of the sandblast but otherwise fairly clean. There was some wear on the rim top and the front outer edge of the bowl where it had been knocked. The bowl had a thick cake and there was lava on the sandblasted rim top or edges. The taper stem was oxidized, calcified, dirty and had scratches, tooth marks and chatter ahead of the button. I took photos of the pipe to show what it looked like before I started working on it. I took photos of the bowl and rim top to show their condition and of the stem to show the condition of both sides of the stem.The stamping on the underside of the shank is shown in the photo below. It looks very good and faint but readable. It reads as noted and explained above. I captured the detail in the photos below. I removed the stem and took a photo to give a sense of what the pipe looked like.One of the first things I like to do is to unpack the stamping and understand each element in it. I turned to Pipephil helpful site (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/tanshell1.html). The stamping is interpreted as follows: The number 35 is the shape number for a Billiard. The F/T signifies a Fish Tail stem. The Tanshell stamp refers to the finish which is corroborated the T at the end of the stamping. The size of the pipe 3 in a circle is a Group 3. The 6 following the D of England gives the date the pipe. Pipephil also has some helpful dating keys on the site that are basically flow charts that you can walk through to date your pipe (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1.html). I turned to Part 1 of the Dating Key and followed the chart. This pipe has a 6 following the D in England. It is the same size as the D so that took me to the section on the chart below (column one) which instructed me that the pipe could be dated as being made posterior to 1954. I followed the link following the “Your pipe is posterior to 1954. Narrow down your dating”. That took me to Page 2 of the dating key (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html). The third column (suffix 5…9) led me to the section with a 6 after the D in England that is the same size as the D. There was a directive for dating the pipe spelled out as follows: 1960 + suffix which gives the pipe a date of 1966.I then turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Root Briar to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Tanshell

The first lot was distributed in 1952 (usually made using Sardinian briar). The prototype was called “Root Shell “, produced in 1951. The Tanshell is a light tan sandblast. Sardinian briar was used for this sandblast. There is a distinct contrast in the sandblasts using Sardinian as opposed to Algerian briar. The Sardinian is much denser and much harder. The resulting pattern, when blasted, is far more even and regular both in terms of the surface texture and the finish.

The TanShell was Dunhill’s fourth finish and its first major post-war line addition. Introduced in 1951/1952 the TanShell was a naturally stained sandblasted pipe made exclusively from Sardinian briar through the 1960s. The TanShell apparently was not simply a light stained Shell but rather was also the product of “certain processes [unrevealed] not previously employed.” Initially, it appears that the pipe was to be named the Root Shell and a stamp to that effect was ordered and received by Dunhill in May 1951. Ultimately, however, the name TanShell was settled upon but the stamp for the TanShell name was not received by Dunhill until the beginning of December. Thus while the Tanshell was in production in 1951 it appears that most if not all TanShells made in that year did not enter into retail distribution until 1952 and were given a 1952 date code. Loring, J. C., The Dunhill Briar Pipe, The Patent Years and After (self-published, Chicago, 1998).

See more examples here: Dunhill Tanshell
See more about the patents applied here: Shellbriar & Tanshell, Patents 1917-1954

I have also included a chart from the site from Dunhill spelling out the Standard Pipe Finishes and giving short information and a timeline. I turned to work on the pipe itself. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer using the second cutting head. I took the cake back to bare briar. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and then sanded the bowl walls with a piece of dowel wrapped with 220 grit sandpaper. The bowl looked very good at this point there were no burn marks and only light checking on the walls. I cleaned out the inside of the shank, mortise and airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners to remove the tars and oils in them both. I used a lot of both pipe cleaners and cotton swabs to clean them as they were both very dirty.Before I scrubbed the externals of the bowl I decided to smooth out some of the roughness on the front and the back side of the outer edge. I cleaned up the outer edge with a brass bristle wire brush. I put a few drops of clear CA glue in the roughest areas of the damaged edges on the front and the back and added some briar dust to the finish. My goal was not to rebuild the edges but to rather smooth out the damage and remove the torn and rough edges. I worked it over again with a wire brush to knock of the excess. I would do some more of that after I cleaned the exterior. I scrubbed the surface of the briar with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I worked over the rim top and the damaged areas on the front and back of the bowl. I rinsed off the bowl with warm running water to remove the grime. Once it was finished it looked much better. I worked over the surface of the bowl and the rim top with the brass bristle wire brush once again. That included the rim top and the sides of the bowl and shank. It looked much better at this point. At this point I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush to work it into the nooks and crannies of the sandblast finish. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar really comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I scrubbed the oxidation, calcification and debris off the surface of the vulcanite with Soft Scrub on cotton pads. It looked much better once it was finished. I sanded out the majority of the tooth marks with 220 grit sandpaper. I filled in the light tooth marks that remained with black CA glue. I set the stem aside to let the repairs cure. Once they cured I sanded them smooth with 220 grit sandpaper. I started the polishing process with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a cloth impregnated with Obsidian Oil. I let it soak in.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Once again I wiped it down between each pad with Obsidian Oil. I further polished it with Before and After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. It looked very good. This 1966 Dunhill Tanshell 35F/T Group 3 Billiard with a Taper Stem has a beautiful, unique Dunhill Sandblast finish that was deep and craggy but now slightly worn. The reddish brown finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. It has some great rugged sandblast that Dunhill specialized in making. The outer edges are a bit worn but I have chosen to leave them as part of the pipe’s story. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Tanshell 35F/T Billiard is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is .95 ounces/27 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. If you are interested in adding it to your collection I will be adding it to the British Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. Thanks for your time.