Category Archives: Pipe Related Essays

Short and not so short essays on pipes and tobacciana

Refurbishing pipes became therapy for me through some dark days

Briar Bowls

Blog by Steve Laug

This summer I am celebrating 24 years of working on pipes and I thought it would be helpful for me to reflect a bit on why I started refurbishing pipes and what happened to make it what it is today in my life. I also thought that I would post it here as a blog for those of you who might be interested in knowing a bit more about this old codger! There was a time when pipe refurbishing moved from being a side hobby that I did solely out of interest in getting some quality pipes in my own rack to being a lifeline for me that brought back lost abilities due to a personal physical crisis. I thought it would be interesting to at least some of you to read about my journey with pipe refurbishing and how it has been more than just a hobby in my life. It has become a passion because of what it has done for me. So here is the story.

I started refurbishing pipes shortly after I moved from Surrey to Agassiz, British Columbia, about 2 hours from Vancouver, in 1992. By that time, I wanted to add some more pipes to my pipe rotation but did not have the coin to buy the pipes that I really wanted. I spent time flipping through pages on eBay to find the pipes that I liked. I found that there were many of the ones I wanted there for an “affordable to me price”. It did not take long before the bug bit and I was picking up pipes that I liked. The problem soon arose, that I am sure many of you found with eBay, I was hooked on the thrill of the hunt and the adrenalin of the “auction”. I purchased more pipes than I needed and I purchased ones that looked great online but turned out to be real junk once they arrived. Some of them may have been fixable but I could not fix them. So there was nothing to be done but either throw them away or start to stockpile them in a box. I chose the latter hoping that one day I would be able to work on. But I knew I needed to learn how if that was going to happen.

The day soon came that the box of “junk” became my training ground for learning how to clean up and restore estate pipes. There were enough of them that I could practice for a long time and I could not help but learn. I figured I could make the mistakes on the truly junk pipes and then use what I learned from working on them with those I wanted to keep. That is what I did and that is when things started. It was slow and tedious work and I wondered if I would ever learn what I needed to know but I kept working on them. I did not go overboard in purchasing more pipes to work on, at least to my mind. Those that came out well I either sold or gave away to friends and other pipe smokers. Slowly but surely I reduced the stockpile of pipes and learned much in the process.

This education in pipe refurbishing went on for 8-9 years (though to be honest it is still ongoing). I learned a lot of methods and tricks about working on pipes through the progress of those years. When I got stuck I would call other restorers or post on the online forums for help and it never failed that one of the father’s in the hobby would give me help. I never saw myself as a pipe restorer, I was just a pipe smoker who wanted to learn to work on his own pipes. My method was simple, I would choose an area to work on and then buy pipes that needed that kind of work. Because of my chosen learning methodology, I bought a lot of what appeared to be junk pipes. I would work on their common issue until I was satisfied with the end product. If it was bowl topping I bought bowls that needed that. If it was rustication then I bought bowls that needed that. If it was stripping, refinishing and staining that I wanted to work on then I bought bowls that needed that… you get the drift. I worked on something until I felt I had a basic mastery of the process. In this way the box of old junk pipes became my school of pipe repair. In those days if you had seen what I worked on you and where I did the work you would have laughed. I sat at my desk in my study in our house in Agassiz and worked after office hours and often into the evening to learn how to do something. I never had a lot of tools to work with so it was pretty simple in those days. Things that I was not ready for, I avoided – things like learning how to fit a new stem or add a replacement tenon to a stem. Those would take more work and when I tried to do it the results were frustratingly poor.

When I moved to Vancouver, we rented a basement suite that was furnished and I had to put away and put off my pipe repairs. I was looking forward to having a little shop in the new house to dedicate to pipe work. In December of 2003 my world came to a sudden halt. I had a serious stroke and lost use of the right side of my body. It was a rough time for our family and for me personally. I could no longer walk without assistance and had to be bathed, dressed and cared for by my wife. She had to tie me into a seat to keep me from falling. We bought our Vancouver home after I had started physio-therapy to relearn using my hand, caring for myself, walking and balancing.

We purchased our new home and moved into it with the help of many and soon I had a desk in the basement area. I was able to do stairs carefully and slowly with the help of my cane so that would be workable. I went through my boxes slowly and found my pipe repair supplies and pipes still needing work. I sat and looked at them morosely because the doctors had said that I would not get my fine motor control back. They said that I would never be able to use my right hand like I had before. I refused to believe that and soon began to fiddle with pipe repair. I had the therapist teach me repetitive exercises to learn fine motor control. Things like picking up things translated to picking of sandpaper and pipes. Holding things translated to holding a piece of sandpaper, gripping a cup of coffee easily transferred to hold a pipe bowl between my fingers. When I learned to brush my teeth the back and forth work of that exercise carried over to the work of sanding, and so on. Each thing that had once come naturally had to be broken down and relearned and practiced. It was a lot of repetitive work but with God’s help and grace and a more than stubborn spirit I went to work because I wanted to have those fine muscle controls back. I wanted to be what I had come to call a new normal.

Personally those were some dark days. Progress was very slow and there was not a day that went by that was not frustrating for me. Strokes leave your emotions very ragged and disjointed and responses are often unpredictable. I worked hard with the encouragement of my wife Irene and truly without her patience and faithful love I don’t know if I could have done the work. It took over a year and a half of therapy, 3-5 days a week to relearn what had once been everyday things – walking, balance, feeding and caring for myself and dressing myself. At this point I think I was the only one who held out hope that I would one day return to my hobby – pipe repair. My Romanian stroke therapist, Adrienne was a gift to me; she designed daily exercises for the many different hand and wrist motions that I wanted to regain. She did the same for foot and ankle motions and head and neck motions. She had equipment to teach me balance and how to regain the rhythm of walking. She used massage to untangle my knotted muscles from the spasms that went through my right side post stroke. I was blessed to have found her and she was my lifeline back to self sufficiency. Through her careful training and pushing I was once again able to bathe and toilet myself and even feed myself. I went from dragging my foot and leg to walking with a cane. Eventually I left the cane behind.

Along with her therapy I would sit in the afternoons and evenings resting at my desk or in my recliner working at working on pipes. I worked on sanding bowls and shanks, cleaning up stems and topping bowls. I learned to hold pipe cleaners and push them through stems and airways. Sometimes my old ways did not work and I was left to figure out how to work around something that I could not do. I would also go back to physio-therapy each day with new movements that I knew I needed. I continued to buy more pipes on eBay to keep my schooling and pipe therapy going. Slowly but surely with almost imperceptible daily growth, I was able to gain more control of my fine motor skills and life became more manageable. The side benefit was that the pipes I worked on began to look better. I have told you really the short version of that long year and one half of therapy. There were many struggles and many failures along the way but there was still day by day progress.

Now twelve years later, unless you knew me before, you would not know that I had suffered a stroke and experienced the loss of fine motor control. All the restoration work I do on pipes is still part of my ongoing physio-therapy as well as a means of de-stressing my life. The memories have come back as I have gone back over many of the pipes restored in those early years. I had to laugh at what some of them looked like but then I remember where I was in my recovery when I worked on each of them. They were far from beautiful but to me they were steps back to full function. Since then I have added a lot more skills to my collection. I do not avoid restemming pipes and I replace tenons without fear. I have learned to carve my own pipes with a Dremel. I have learned a steadiness of hand that allows me to work on very finicky spots on bowls and stems with the Dremel and sanding drum. I know that it is not just a matter of hard work and stubbornness. It is also a gift from God to me and I do not take that for granted. The daily work on pipes is an ongoing retraining of my fine motor skills. Today if you spent time with me you might not see the remaining impact of the stroke on my movements but I can still feel them. I am working at about 85-90% of what once was there. I have learned tricks and new habits that have compensated for what is lacking but I continue to push to regain yet more control.

Not long ago I was interviewed by Brian Levine from Pipes Magazine Podcast about rebornpipes and I mentioned that I did pipe refurbishing for therapy more than any other reason. I talked of the work that I do in my real job and the need to finish things and unwind from the weight of what I do. The thing I did not mention was the other side, the therapeutic reason that rebornpipes exists. Pipe refurbishing and restoration will be something I do until the day that I am unable to move any longer because it continues to be my school room for ongoing stroke recovery and it is something of a thanksgiving offering to the Lord who made this renewed ability possible for me. I have written often of the meditative and sacramental nature of pipesmoking but to that I now want to add this concept. In the restorative process of bringing a worn and tired estate pipe back from the brink there is the equally remarkable restorative process of bringing this physically broken person back from a place of frustration and anger to a place of usefulness.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Briar Bowls

It can only happen when you are afflicted with PAD

3 Replies

Blog by Jeff and Steve Laug

A few weeks ago my brother Jeff and I had a great interchange on Facebook Messenger. He has become a great source of pipes for me from antique shops and malls. On top of that he has added a new source for him – eBay. He haunts it and is perpetually finding unusual and interesting pipes for me. We often talk in the evenings on Messenger and my kids continue to laugh at us. His sons and my daughters are quite convinced their old dads have really slipped a cog. They are going by the sheer volume of estate pipes that are traveling between his home in Idaho and mine in Vancouver. When I read them our conversation about a current lot of purchases he had made, they encouraged me to get him to write up this conversation for the blog. I sent him the piece in hopes that he would write it, but he said I should go ahead. I ignored it for weeks but I am finally giving in because as I read it over again this evening I could not stop laughing. I wrote the first draft of the blog and then sent it to him to edit and add to. He sent it back later this evening. The combined efforts of us both have finally gone into this piece.

The first half of the conversation revolved around the topic of PAD (Pipe Acquisition Disorder). I am sure that many of you who read this blog can commiserate with us in our affliction with this disorder. It is both a blessing and a curse. It sits in the back of your head and whispers in a siren voice that not even Odysseus could withstand. In the story of Jason and the Argonauts, Jason takes along Orpheus to play his lyre to drown out the voices of the sirens. But even then one of his crew heard the song and leapt into the sea. He is rescued by the goddess Aphrodite or he would have perished. The sirens song unexplainably causes men to plunge to their death. While PAD does not kill us its call is irresistible – it simply sings that there is one more beautiful pipe that needs to be found… no, one more… no, more…and it never ends!My brother started the conversation that he had at least 2 or 3 more boxes of pipes to send to me. He said that a lot of them were going to be temptations for me. He said that he had some really good luck lately in his purchases. (Then as an aside he said that his wife probably wouldn’t agree!)

I responded that she probably wouldn’t agree. I went on to tell him of the sheer number of pipes that I already had to clean up. You see he had already sent me several boxes of pipes that he had found. There were some real beauties in the boxes and I was sorting and picking what would come next. My daughters think I am absolutely nuts.

He replied, “My whole family thinks that I’m nuts! Only Dad seems to be interested in them.”

When he spoke of our Dad being interested I laughed. It is true. During some of the FaceTime conversations that we have, Dad is right there showing me the pipes and talking about them. I think that he enjoys the huge variety of styles, shapes and designs that Jeff is bringing home.

I replied to Jeff that his oldest son seems to have had some fun looking at the pipes with him when he was visiting.

Jeff said, “Until this week…. now he thinks I’ve gone overboard.”

I have to say, at this point I missed where the conversation was heading. I thought he was talking about how the sirens voices of PAD suck you in and you are never the same. I said to him that it is hard to quit buying pipes – there are so many good looking pieces of briar out there… that was my trouble. Now it is yours

Jeff did not explain what he had meant by the going overboard… he skipped that for the time being. (Somehow I missed how he was like the sailor who traveled with Jason and upon hearing the song threw himself into the sea.) Rather he said that he totally agreed with me. He said, “It’s like a fine combination of art and history… a perfect match for us since these are two things that we both love. Yeah that is the trouble… but then throw in the enticement of competition and I’m hooked! That is the combo. It is hard to walk away from. I look at the Gentlemen’s Pipesmoking Group (Facebook Group) and I think that it’s an epidemic!”

That was when I introduced him to PAD, the acronym for Pipe Acquisition Disorder.

He said it was the perfect description for his ailment… He would have to tell his wife that she needs to be kind and patient with him since he had PAD! I told him that there is no known cure for the illness and lots of folks laugh about it.

Things got quiet for a few moments and then Jeff came back saying, “I read our last few lines to my wife and she can’t stop laughing!!! But I think that it is an unrecoverable ailment. I vow that I won’t look at eBay, but no matter how hard I try to resist it beckons me with its siren call for just a peek at what’s new.” At this point we were both laughing. Slowly but surely the conversation came around to the point that I had missed earlier – his going overboard. I had no idea what was coming but I could not stop laughing once he started to tell the story. At this point rather than narrate the story further, I invite you into our conversation.

Jeff: I’ll have to fill you in on my latest pipe misstep… it’s a doozy!

Steve: oh oh

Jeff: It took some “splaining” to my wife!

Steve: did she buy the splaining

Jeff: It wrecked my Saturday! I spent all morning trying to fix it!

Steve: oh boy… what did I get you into?

Jeff: Have you ever had several shipments go to the wrong address?? It’s not fun!

Steve: no.

Jeff: Somehow, back in 2008 my wife used our eBay account to send something to our son at Whitworth University in Spokane. Guess where I sent a couple hundred dollars’ worth of pipes? Good thing they’re Presbyterians!

Steve: ouch… these were the eBay wins? What happened?

Jeff: I noticed that two of the orders were marked delivered on eBay. I thought that our mail lady screwed up again and really hadn’t delivered them. So just to make sure, I checked the address that they were sent to… sure enough they went to Spokane. I checked the tracking numbers and two of the packages had been delivered to Whitworth. Two were still in transit (one from Greece!).

Steve: Oh no. What is going to happen? That is my biggest nightmare

Jeff: I talked with the Spokane post office that services Whitworth and they showed that 3 packages had been delivered to the school. As far as they were concerned, their job was done and they couldn’t help me! The school post office was open for 2 hours on Saturday and I was able to locate 1 of the 3 packages by talking with a student working there. The other two had been taken by the supervisor to be sent to the last address that they had for my son. She wouldn’t be at work today but would call me with details early the following week.

Steve: Oh no

Jeff: She called me at work a couple of days later, and mentioned that she had the other two packages and had not sent them to my son. (This was after I got him riled up the night before about how out-of-control I was!). She told me today that since my son has not been a student at Whitworth for at least 2 years, they couldn’t be forwarded to him. Also, since I wasn’t the addressee, they couldn’t by law send them to me either. Instead, they would be returned to the sender. Therefore, I contacted each of the 3 sellers to give them heads-up and to confess my stupidity. Most were cooperative and I believe will work with me on this. I’m hoping that Whitworth will work with me on the package from Greece and will send it to me directly. That seller from Greece was obnoxious. I’m really hoping that the package won’t have to go back to Greece… I might just write that pipe off as a loss!

Jeff: When and if you get these 4 pipes, you had better enjoy them and smoke the living daylights out of them!! Hopefully this has made you evening enjoyable… I can laugh now!

Steve: Lol. It is hilarious.

There is a happy ending to this mess… one of the writers here on rebornpipes, Aaron Henson, was willing to go to Whitworth and deal with making sure that three of the packages got sent on to my brother Jeff. The fourth one had been returned to the seller and after paying postage for a second time (totaling more than the original price of the pipe!), the pipe arrived in Idaho Falls. The humorous thing is that this particular pipe turned out to be a nicely carved pipe with beautiful ornamental leaves on the bowl… 7-lobed leaves popular in Colorado, but not in conservative Idaho! Oh well, the plight of PAD! I picked them up (except for this one pipe!) on a recent trip to Idaho and have them in the box of pipes to be refurbished. All in all, a nice haul! Better yet… a great story!

One of those unforgettable days Pipe Hunting

9 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

Last week I was in Idaho to spend time with my 87-year-old father who needed to have the aorta valve on his heart replaced. His surgery was on Tuesday and went exceptionally well. On Thursday morning my brother Jeff and I visited him in the hospital and then drove to a neighbouring city to do some pipe hunting. There is something about the thrill of a pipe hunt that is hard to beat in terms of the adventure of the hunt and the thrill of the finds. It is something that we both enjoy doing and it is great to be able to do it together. In preparation for our hunt that day we had done a bit of research on our destination city. We had visited a few shops in the town where my brother lived and picked up a magazine of antique shops. He had hunted pipes in the neighbouring community so we knew there were a few shops.

But in our digging we found that there were 13 antique shops in that city and that many of them may well have pipes. So we drove the fifty miles to get there with expectation but we had no idea what we would run into when we arrived. The first shop we went to had several pipes that I picked through. I purchased a bent billiard Peterson K-Pipe with a fish tail stem that was in decent shape for $10 and the shop keeper gave me a GBD Lovat with a severely cracked bowl. He sent it along to see if I could do anything with it and only wanted photos of the process.

The second shop we went to had no pipes but did have a wealth of information for us on the antique shop scene in the city. She recommended two shops owned by a husband and wife team that was only a couple of blocks away. We walked to the shops and enjoyed a great visit with the wife and the staff of the two shops. They went through their stock in the back room and were able to find four pipes that I picked up – a Dr. Grabow bent bulldog for $8, an Ehrlich Canadian with a monogram on the shank $8, a Ben Wade Freehand $6 without a stem and a Peterson System pipe bowl without the stem for $3. I had happened to put a stem in my bag when I flew to Idaho for another pipe my brother had and it fit perfectly. So far I had spent a whopping $35 and had six pipes to show for it. I was pretty pumped and we had only covered four shops at this point.

We put our bounty in the back seat of the car and drove to the next shop. The owner had sold out everything in her pipe section but a couple of beat up corn cobs. I asked if she had any other pipes in the back. She thought for a moment and then opened a bag under the counter and took out a nice flat bottom rusticated Jobey Stromboli Bent sitter. I don’t remember the shape number as it is still packed away. That one was $10. She recommended another shop to us so we drove to the next shop. It was a small hole in the wall shop – an old single story house that had been converted into and antique shop.

When we got there the owner was outside painting the building. She said that her 84-year-old mom was running the shop and she would show us the pipes that they had. We looked around for a while and she pointed out their stock. I picked up a Peterson Dublin Castle that was barely smoked for $42 and a Scandia Bent acorn with a twin bore stem for $6. I also picked up a nice leather pipe pouch for $10. My brother picked up a beautiful Servi Basket Weave carved block meerschaum for $49. It was barely smoked. By far this was the shop where we spent the most – a total of $107. We had 10 pipes and a new pipe pouch for a total of $152 at this point in the process.

In the course of our conversation with the mother of the shop owner it turned out that her husband had owned a pipe shop and that these pipes were some of his stock. I asked if he had more and if he would be willing to have a couple of visitors. She called him and let me talk with him about what I was looking for. It turned out he was willing to meet us at his house if we were serious about buying estate pipes. He had many that he was motivated to sell. We left the shop and drove to his house. He met us at the door smoking some Lanes 1Q in a Stanwell. He took us into the kitchen to show us what he had for sale. He had a rack of 36 pipes and a small rack of about 6 and at least 6 unsmoked and four smoked Gourd Calabash pipes. There was also an assortment of other loose pipes on the counter to look at. On the floor was a large ice chest filled with bulk tobacco that he was also selling.

As I looked over the pipes I felt like we had hit the jackpot with this lot. I spent a lot of time talking with him as I went through the pipes he had displayed for sale. I mentally catalogued the ones on the rack. There were 7 Savinellis, 6 Petersons (2 shape 999 one of my favourites), 2 Bjarne pipes, 2 Nordings, 1 Dunhill Shell, 4 Italian Corsena pipes, a Castleford, two older horn stemmed pipes, a Tracy Mincer author, a Jobey Asti,a Dutch made ceramic double walled Dublin, a Stanwell 63 and a Lane billiard. I looked through the others and as I picked them up he would get a sentimental look on his face and remove those from sale. There were a lot of pipes for sale in that lot. He kept repeating that he was a motivated seller. While I was fiddling at choosing a bunch to take with me, Jeff asked him what he wanted for the lot. He stalled a bit but finely gave us a price for the rack and the pipes that were on it. We dickered a bit and he threw in a Gourd Calabash for my brother. We made a deal and added 35 more pipes to the days finds along with a solid oak three tiered 36 pipe rack. I also picked up a tin of GLP’s Blackpoint and a sealed package of Esoterics’ Peacehaven (a pleasant mix of 6 Virginia tobaccos).

We loaded our bounty in the car and bid the old pipeman farewell. He hinted at the fact that he had many more pipes that he would be selling in the near future so I am sure we will one day go back for another visit. We had a bit of lunch and made our way back to the hospital. All in all it was one of those amazing days. We came home with 35 pipes (several that were unsmoked), a pipe pouch and an oak pipe rack. My brother has been hunting pipes for a while now and we both knew that this was a rare find that we had stumbled upon – we got to cherry pick a pipeman’s estate and bring home some of his old pipes. It was a mixed lot but there were more than enough really nice pipes in it to make it a worthwhile purchase. Besides that we got to meet a nice older pipeman who was thrilled that his pipes were going to someone who obviously loved pipes as much as he did.

Oh, I almost forgot. When he had his shop I used to stop by there on the way to visit my mom and dad. I stopped and bought pipe tobacco and cleaning supplies from him over the years. When we walked in his front door he remembered me and I remembered him. That was the icing on the cake for me. He had closed his shop several years before and I had lost touch with him. It was a very good day pipe hunting.

When we got back to my brother’s house I set up the pipes and took the following photos of the haul. You can see the amazing pipes that we found. The first photo shows the rack and the finds in their entirety.The next photos I tried to get some closer pictures. The first one below shows rows 1 and 2 of the rack. The second one shows rows 2 and 3. The third photo shows the pipes on the table in front of the rack. I put the Peterson stem I had brought along in the Peterson bowl I found. See if you can identify the pipes in the rack and on the table. What do you think of the results of our hunt? I am still pretty pumped by the find and had to share it with folks who understand what it feels like to make this kind of find. Thanks for looking.

A Falcon Dual Pipe Reamer – A Great Addition to my Reamer Collection

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

For a long time now I have had an eye out for a Falcon Dual Pipe Reamer. I have bid on several and lost every time in the last seconds to a sniper. This time I avoided the auction and bought it on Facebook from pipesmoker in England. I paid for it and promptly forgot about – things have been so busy around here that I did not think about it again. This afternoon when I got home from work Bob’s package was waiting for me. I cut the tape on the envelope and a small cardboard shipping tube was inside. I turned the top of the tube off and took out the bubble wrapped piece that was inside. I removed the bubble wrap and the reamer was in my hands. The photo below shows the reamer as it was when I removed it from its packaging.I twisted the top or cap on the clear plastic case and looked at the end cap of the reamer. It was really clear and readable. There was the end of a spring poking through the top on the insert of the cap.The cutting blades of the reamer were spring-loaded and as I removed the tool from the plastic cover the blades expanded. The next two photos show the blades expanded to the shape of a Falcon bowl. This was a unique reamer that I had read about but I had never seen up close. Now I had one in hand. I wanted to understand how it worked and get some idea if there were originally instructions that came with the reamer. So I did a bit of hunting on the internet to see if I could find any packaging or leaflets. I was not surprised to find a lot of photos of reamers that came in a variety of colours from cream to black. There were no photos of the battle ship grey one that I had in hand. I did find a few photos of the box the reamer came in. The reamer in the photo differs from mine only in colour. But the box is what intrigued me. On the cover was a picture of the reamer with cutting blades on the lower nose of the tool that fit in the hole in the bottom of the Falcon or Alco bowl. The upper blades angle the same way that the inner walls of the bowl do. With both sets of blades the bowl and airway are reamed simultaneously. The left side reads Falcon Dual Pipe Reamer and under that it says Made Specially For Falcon & Alco Pipes. The lower line reads The Falcon Pipe Group LTD – Commerce Road – Brentford – Middlesex. The end of the box reads Falcon Dual Reamer Made in England. The end of the reamer in the photo below has the same insert as the one I received. It reads Falcon Dual Reamer arced over Patent & Regd. Design Pending Made in England. On another side of the box there are instructions for using the reamer. I know that you can probably read it for yourself but I could not help myself from wanting to include the text here. It reads:

Instructions
To remove surplus carbon from inside your Falcon or Alco pipe, remove the bowl from the stem and place the Dual Reamer in the bowl, turning gently until the base aperture is clear of carbon. The spring-loaded cutting edges of the Reamer will then be in contact with the carbon deposit inside the bowl. Turn gently but firmly until approximately one-sixteenth of an inch of carbon cake remains on the inside of the bowl.Now I not only have a Falcon Dual Pipe Reamer but I have photos of the box with instructions for proper used of the tool. Thanks Bob for this addition to my collection of reamers. It makes a great looking piece in the centre of all of my other reamers.

Bulgarian Leather Pipe and Tobacco Pouch from Sofia

5 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I wrote a blog about the restoration the Butz Choquin 1635 pipe that was inside of this pouch last week (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/04/08/unzipped-an-old-pouch-and-found-a-butz-choquin-oval-shank-capitan-1635/). I have no idea how old the pouch is or who the original owner was but it still had some charm. The pouch was worn but salvageable so I cleaned it up as well. I thought some of you might be interested in seeing how the old pouch turned out. Here are a few pictures of the pouch from the eBay seller. What was interesting to me is that the pipe, pouch and tool came to me from Sofia, Bulgaria via the US. Why is that interesting you might ask? Good question. You see, I have a friend who is a pipeman who lives there and is starting on the hobby of pipe restoration. It is great to have a pipe and pouch that came from there. He has one of my pipes that he lovingly calls Vancouver. I took the following photos before I started to clean up the pouch. The pouch exterior was made of suede leather. The brass zippers were dirty but in working order. The inside of the top zipped area held a waxed canvas liner that still had remnants of tobacco in it. The inside of the underside which held the pipe had a leather insert that was loose as it had come unglued. I began by spraying the zippers with WD40 to lubricate them and worked them back and forth to clean out the teeth. I glued the leather insert in the underside of the pouch with an all-purpose white glue and inserted a bottle to keep the insert in place while the glue dried. I brush out the inside of the canvas insert on the top of the pouch and wiped it down with a damp cloth to remove the dust.

When the glue had dried on the interior of the pouch I brushed the suede exterior with a leather brush and then gave it a coat of Obenauf’s Leather Treatment. It is a deodorized grease like substance that restores and preserves the leather. I rubbed the grease into the leather by hand until the entire pouch was covered and then set the pouch aside to dry. As it dries the Obenauf’s is absorbed into the leather darkening it slightly but also giving the leather a soft pliable feel. I laid the pouch aside on my desk top for a few days and let the product do its work. The photos below show the pouch as it looks after four days of sitting in a warm spot. While it is not beautiful it is greatly improved. I have taken photos of both sides and the inside of both compartments. There are still some worn spots in the leather and some nicks that give it character but it is clean and functional. The pouch is useable once again. Thanks for looking.

My Reluctant Journey into Pipe Repair

9 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I decided to take some time to reflect on my slide into pipe repair work. I figured it would be good to process the slide a bit and try to wrestle with my reticence. I have been reluctant to take on pipe repairs for other people because I really like doing the work as a hobby and I don’t really want to deal with all the potential people issues. I find it relaxing to move at my own pace and when I feel like doing the work. To add the desires and wishes of another person with their own expectations and times lines to the mix was something that I avoided for the longest time by just repairing pipes for close friends or pipe club members when I felt like it. I just did not want to ruin a perfectly good hobby and put myself at the mercy of others who exacted such a variety of forms of torture and suffering on briar and meerschaum. I wanted to be able to sit at my work table with some nice music playing, no pressure sip some coffee or a beer and just putter away. Working that way there were no deadlines or phone calls checking up on the status of a pipe. There was just the predictable ability of pipework to de-stress me. With my job I actually am never finished; each day marches on and the work is never done. With pipework I can often finish working on one or two pipes in an evening and even more on a weekend if I choose to do so. I have the immediate satisfaction of not only finishing something but bringing a worn and tired old pipe back to life – hence the name rebornpipes.Probably the beginning of the downward slide into pipe repair can be associated with the start of my blog. A little over three years ago I started the rebornpipe blog as an online storage site for the documentation I had done over the years of learning the art of pipe refurbishing. I have been on Smokers Forums for many years and about that time the server was hacked and all of the posts and archived material that I had written there on pipes and repairs disappeared into cyberspace. Fortunately I had saved copies of every post with pictures included on my hard drive. But to add insult to injury the next thing that happened was that my hard drive crashed. I took it to the shop and they were able to rescue my files including the posts. That was enough for me. I found the WordPress site and signed up for the free version of the blog. I put everything on the web and breathed a sigh of relief. Now I have the blog plus I backed it up on DVDs and have them in storage and I keep the current years’ work on my new hard drive. I am convinced that one can never be prepared enough!

Over the years the blog has grown to include more than me – there are now many folks who have joined me in posting their work. I bought the domain name and upgraded the storage space and capacity of the sight. It did not take too long before I began to get emails from folks who wanted advice on how to repair their pipes or wanted to send them to me for a repair. In those early days I generally did the work for barter. A tin of tobacco, a box of pipe cleaners or even pipes were often the form of payment. All of these were ways I tried to keep from crossing the line and make my hobby into work. I still had an aversion to that and wanted to keep the line very clear.

Well the bartering took a turn – more of a slow and steady slippage into doing the work for others. Looking back I can see how it happened and when it took a turn. It seems like friends of friends wanted a new stem or a repair or a tenon replacement. There was no end in sight so I sought yet another way to keep the hobby just a hobby. I still did not want to step into the doing repairs for a fee. I did a bit of research to see what others charged to do what I was doing. My thinking at that point was truly to set a price and discourage the knocks on the door, the emails and the phone calls. However, it did not do that. Slowly but surely the stream increased. I still did some of the repairs in exchange for a tin of tobacco or something else that would be worth bartering. In my head I kept trying to at least postpone the inevitable day that would come when I would have to charge.

But the slippage into doing repairs for others continued and soon the postie was delivering boxes from all over the world for repairs. Sometimes I wonder what he thinks when he rings the bell and hands me yet another small box that says pipe for repair. I could still rationalize to myself that I was just helping friends I had met online in the various pipe forums or through the blog. But my rationalization was more a form of denial as the repairs kept coming. My wife and daughters soon raised the question that I had sensed was coming, “When are you going to come up with a price list for your repairs? You should get some compensation other than more pipes and tobacco for the work you are doing.” I tried to ignore them for as long as I could but one day I sat down and figured out a price list for what I do and designed a business card to match.

I should have figured out that the line was crossed with these two creations – a price list and a business card. The first iteration of the card only said Used and Estate Pipes Bought and Sold so I was still able to live in the wonderful world of denial. But even that soon gave way as with the next iteration of the card I added the word Repaired between Pipes and Bought.

The question is clear for me, “Did this signify the beginning of the end for my hobby – at least at some level?”. I continue to work on pipes I find and the ones my brother supplies me with as a hobbyist. The trouble is that I now have to fit them in between the ones that I am fixing for others. I cling tenaciously to the hobby aspect of refurbishing and refuse to let go of it! However, no matter how hard I tried the slippage became a full out free fall not long ago.

I know the precise moment that it happened. I can tell you the date but that really does not matter. I do know that when it happened it was a dark rainy Vancouver evening. After work I took my daughter to an eye specialist for an appointment. When I dropped her off I remembered that there was a cigar/pipe shop just down the hill from the clinic. So instead of paying a garage parking fee or feeding a meter I drove down the hillside to shop and parked in their lot. My thinking was I could park there for free and do a bit of shopping at the same time. It could be a win win for me – no meters or parking fees and I could pick up refurbishing supplies. I needed some pipe cleaners and I wanted to see what pipes the shop had available.

I had not been there for a long time so I was looking forward to checking it out. I had heard that they had a good selection of pipes and tobaccos. It had originally been just a cigar shop with nothing pipe related so this would be interesting. I parked in their lot and went inside. I greeted the two women who were running the shop and went into the pipe area. They had indeed made a lot of changes and carried some beautiful pipes. I was looking at the Peterson pipes in the display case when one of the women asked if I would like a coffee. I accepted her offer and was soon chatting with her about the pipes and tobacco they carried. As I we talked I asked her for different items and began to build my purchase pile. These included two packages and an additional six bundles of pipe cleaners and a tin of Escudo. She asked me what I needed that many pipe cleaners for so I told her that I worked on estate pipes. I even went out of my way to make it clear that restoring and repairing old pipes was a hobby that I really enjoyed.

That was where things got interesting. She wanted to know what kind of restoration work I did so I summarized what I did. I told her about my blog and suggested she check it out to see what kind of work I did. Up to this point I was pretty oblivious to where this was going. We were just having a conversation so I did not think too much about it. She asked for an email and a link for the blog so I gave them to her. You might think I was a little dense at this point and you are probably right in your assumption. When I am in a pipe shop I am pretty focused on pipes and tobaccos and not thinking about much else. I went through the various display cases and enjoyed the Dunhills, Chacoms, Butz Choquins, Brighams and several baskets of inexpensive pipes and cobs. Time was flying by while I waited to pick up my daughter.

Finally, I made my way to the cash register to pay the bill and collect my purchases. They ladies asked me if I had a price list of the work I do. I laughed and said yes I did. She then told me that the pipe repairman that they referred people to had retired. He lived in Toronto and was no longer working on pipes. They were in need of a new repairman. Then came the question – “Would I be willing to have them refer people to me with their repairs?” Unthinkingly, truly I did not think too much about it, I said sure. Well the slippage was over and I was free falling into repair work. I did not think much about it and went to pick up my daughter, quite oblivious to what would transpire.

It was not long before I began to get phone calls asking if I would repair a stem, a broken tenon, a damaged finish or a dent in a bowl. People began to drop off pipes at my door for me to repair. I think this is more than my family was expecting. Not too long ago my wife asked me when our home had become a pipe shop… fortunately she was laughing but I got the point. But what could I do, I was caught in the free fall and was doing repairs. I have met some interesting people in the last few months of this adventure. I had no idea the number of pipe smokers in Vancouver. I know a few from the pipe club here but the ones stopping by for repairs are people I have never met before of a variety of ages. It is great to see that our hobby is alive and well even in the anti- smoking climate of Vancouver.

I will see where this aspect of pipe refurbishing and repair takes me. But one thing I know is that I still have a huge box of pipes of my own to refurbish so the hobby will continue. I am just going to have to learn to pace myself so I can still enjoy my hobby while fixing other people’s pipes.

Gift from a Newfoundland Friend– Rare & Unique Unsmoked Ellsworth Roto Bowl

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Blog by Steve Laug

A friend I did a pipe repair for in Newfoundland, on the east coast of Canada, left a message on my phone the other day to let me know that he was sending a package to me. He said that it would have a couple of horn stem pipes – old timers and a unsmoked unique pipe that he thought I would be interested in having. He had purchased 6 of these pipes that were unsmoked and sent me one of them. The package arrived yesterday and the horn stem pipes were great and would clean up nicely. The Roto Bowl is in stellar shape and is a (New Old Stock) NOS pipe. I had never heard of the brand but was intrigued by his description of it over the phone when we talked over a month ago. I took some photos of the pipe when I unpacked it to show you all. It is pretty unique. The overall length of the pipe is 5 1/2 inches. I rotated the bowl insert from the base and took a photo of the inside of the bowl to show the unique drilling it had. There are two air holes on the bottom on the sides and then two of them half way up the bowl sides.When I lifted the bowl insert out of the bowl (it was pressure fit and was easily removed) I could see that the airway entered the bottom of the outer bowl perfectly centered. There was a groove carved from the airway up to the height of the upper air holes in the bowl insert. There were also marks on what would have been the front and the back of the bowl insert. The first mark was a single small drilled circle and the second one was two drilled circles. When the single mark was turned to the back of the bowl the airflow was constricted by at least half. When the double marks were turned to the back the flow was wide open. It kind of works like a Kirsten end valve is controlling the airflow from the bowl to the stem. It controls burn rate as well. Each turn of the bowl insert modified the airflow proportionally between the single and the double mark. Overall this little pipe was intriguing to say the least. It was yet again another attempt to find a drier and cooler smoke.

Since I had never heard of the brand I did some searching on the web and found a bit of information based on the stamping I found on the pipe. On the left side of the shank it is stamped with the name of the pipe in a circle with ROTO arched on the top of the circle and Bowl arched on the underside. There was a dot in between ROTO and BOWL and one in the centre of the stamp. On the right side of the shank it is stamped PAT. NO. 1988588 and on the underside of the shank Imported Briar. There are no other marks or stamping on the pipe, the bowl insert or the stem.

I found the first information on eBay on a previous sale (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ellsworth-Roto-Bowl-Pipe-NOS-1946-/272119388370?hash=item3f5b9458d2:g:~MoAAOSwKtlWq9Xh). The link will likely be dead shortly so I copied the text and the photos for reference. The seller not only gave some pertinent information on the brand but also photos of the booklet that came with the pipe. Here is what the seller said about the pipe (including the sales pitch).

“Here is your chance to own one of the rarest of the rare in Brand New unsmoked condition with original instruction booklet. This pipe was manufactured in small number in 1946 by Francis P. Ellsworth. It is called a Roto-Bowl and was quite the invention. This pipe sold new in 1946 for $12.50 and in today’s dollar that amounts to $123.00. You can see why not many of these pipes were sold. Check out the pics for the best description. This pipe would enhance even the most advanced collection. I searched the internet and could find out very little about these pipes.”

I saved the photos he included with the sale information and have included them below. The brochure gave me some more information as well as the name of the pipe’s inventor, Francis P. Ellsworth. The brochure was produced in 1946 by Woodward and McDonald Inc, New York. Some of the descriptive phrases and turn of phrase on the cover were great. The first is “It’s Your Move to Lasting Sweet Smoking Satisfaction” and “Read a Scientific Analysis of Smoking Pipes”. On the back cover it reads “It’s no pipe dream…it’s a dream of a pipe”. Take time to read the inside of the booklet as it is a fun read. The 1940’s description and “Scientific” information is entertaining. I would never have guessed that the bowl was to be smoked with a cotton ball placed in the bottom of the bowl between the bowl and the insert for trapping and retaining moisture from the smoke. I know that there are more pages in the booklet but this is all that were included by the eBay seller. Here is a photo of the back cover of the booklet.Further digging using the patent number on the right shank led to me the following link on the US Patent Search website: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=01988588&PageNum=1&&IDKey=E06B2A6032A2&HomeUrl=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1%2526Sect2=HITOFF%2526d=PALL%2526p=1%2526u=%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r=1%2526f=G%2526l=50%2526s1=1,988,588.PN.%2526OS=PN/1,988,588%2526RS=PN/1,988,588

Included with the patent information is a set of drawings by the inventor and also a narrative description of the pipe and how it was supposed to work. It makes for fascinating reading for those of us who love the descriptions and details of these old timers. This was a rare pipe for me not just because of its uniqueness and age but because it is one of very few that I have received that I did not have to work on or clean up. I want to give a shout out to Joe in Newfoundland for the amazing gift pipe. Thanks so much Joe for thinking of me.

What is he looking at? A Portrait of a Pipeman

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Blog by Steve Laug

I love looking at old paintings and framed prints while I am out hunting for pipes. I have found some pretty interesting old pieces that are now in various rooms in our home. My brother came across this painting in an antique shop near where he lives in Idaho. He said it just stood out to him while he walked around the shop. It is certainly a picture that I would have spent time looking at and enjoying. I would also have asked the owner what he was willing to sell it for and my brother did the same. The owner quoted him a price and my brother countered with an offer. The seller accepted the offer and my brother walked out as the new owner of the painting.
He showed it to me on Facetime and I was struck by what a great photo it was. He took a picture of the painting and sent it to me. He said he cut off a bit of the hat and the smoke from the pipe but the general idea was still clear. The great thing to me was that he said that he was going to send it to me. I can’t wait to see the portrait in person.

When I see old paintings like this I always am drawn to reflect on the subject of the painting and the setting. I think it comes from the remnant of those art history courses I took in university some 40 years ago. I like to look at the style of the painting and the perspective of the artist. From there I try to figure out a bit about the person in the painting.

From the angle of the face I wonder if this is not a self portrait of the painter. The perspective of the way he looks out from the painting leads me to think that he was looking at himself as he painted this piece. To me the character of the old man who comes through those eyes. He has a certain whimsical air about him almost as if he is quietly chuckling around the bit of the pipe. The wrinkles around the eyes and the creases in the forehead should a man who loved to laugh. He obviously enjoyed life. The pipe appears to be clay with a reed stem and mouthpiece. To me it looks like a bit of a homemade pipe – using and old bowl and then inserting a hollow reed to make it usable.

Whoever this anonymous painting is by and whoever it is who sat for the portrait – whether the painter himself or a photo or friend it is a well done piece of pipe art. I am looking forward to seeing he print/painting in person one day. I know that it will find itself in a place or prominence in my study overlooking the desk I use as a worktable for pipe restoration. Somehow I think that is a fitting spot. I will have to watch myself as I am sitting under the watchful eye of this old gentleman. He looks like he knows more than he is saying.

A DadsPipe is Reborn! – Reinventing a Fletcher Billiard

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Blog by Charles Lemon

I was just putting the finishing touches on this pipe refurb when Steve Laug invited me to write a guest blog for rebornpipes. Timing couldn’t have been better, as the restoration of this old Fletcher billiard epitomizes for me the spirit of rebornpipes – taking an old, worn pipe and creating from it a beautiful and functional smoking companion.

Thanks for having me drop in on rebornpipes, Steve. I hope you and your readers enjoy this restoration journey.
– Charles
—–
I’ve had this old billiard pipe in my refurb box for a while now, so I decided that it was time to do something with it. It’s stamped “Fletcher, Genuine Briar, 4” on the flat bottom. A search online turned up absolutely nothing about the brand, though I can surmise that it was made somewhere in the USA circa 1950 to 1970 or so.

The bowl had a worn sandblast finish, and though covered in dirt, appeared to be in decent shape. There was a bit of cake buildup and tar on the rim that would clean up easily enough, but the stem was another matter. At some point in its history, the button had broken or been bitten off, and the remaining stem had been crudely “MacGuyvered” to allow the piper to continue smoking it. A file had been used to roughly gouge a line across the top and bottom of the broken bit to give at least some purchase in the teeth, and it had been left like that until the piper again bit through the stem, this time removing a chunk from the bottom of the “new bit”. This guy was a real pitbull!

I decided that, with about 3/4 of an inch missing, the mangled stem was too far gone to attempt to save it so I dug about in my stem box and came up with a replacement that fit the bill. This stem is brother to the one I used on my first parts pipe. They were both salvaged from estate pipes with ruined bowls, and both have the large silver dot on the side. The tenon on the replacement stem needed only a bit of tweaking with sandpaper to fit snugly in the mortise. As you can see in this pic, the shank diameter is a bit larger than that of the stem, so there will be some reshaping to do to get the flow right from bowl to button, but I like the shape of things to come. With the stem problem sorted, I got to work cleaning both stem and stummel before I got too far ahead of myself. I used my Castleford reamer to take the cake in the bowl back to bare wood. Luckily there was no damage hiding underneath, so I moved to the exterior, scrubbing the sandblast finish with Murphy’s Oil Soap and an old toothbrush. This lifted an inordinate amount of gunk from the stummel, leaving the briar quite patchy in places. I decided that a complete stripping of the old finish was in order, so I dropped the stummel into an alcohol bath, the stem into a Oxyclean bath, and left them to soak overnight.

The following day I retrieved the stummel from its soak and rubbed it in an old towel. To my surprise, most of the black topcoat came off on the towel! My guess is that our intrepid DIY piper “fixed” his pipe’s worn finish with a liberal application of black shoe polish….. I wiped the stummel down with acetone to remove as much of the loose colour as I could and then finished the basic cleanup of the stummel by scrubbing the airway and shank with alcohol & pipe cleaners.

The stem cleaned up easily enough after its Oxyclean soak with a run of 600 – 2000 grit wet sandpapers and a few pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol. Removing the built-up wax and dirt from the stummel had revealed a flaw in the briar. A “fault line” of sorts wound its way across the lower front face of the bowl. There was no indication that the flaw extended through to the tobacco chamber, but I flowed some CA glue into the line anyway. This may or may not have been necessary, but at least this way I hope that the line won’t expand to a crack the first time I light the pipe.

I also found a small flaw in the rim, which I filled with CA glue and briar dust. I topped the bowl lightly after the fill cured to sand it down flush with the rim and remove a few small rim dents at the same time.

As I pondered how to refinish the pipe, I worked on the shank with various grades of sandpaper to reduce the diameter to match that of the stem and generally improve the flow of the shape from shank to stem. This smoothed out the sandblast on the shank, so I decided to rusticate the entire stummel to replace the texture and hopefully disguise the stabilized fault line on the bowl face. For this I used a round carving burr mounted in my rotary tool, working my way around the stummel until the entire surface had been carved, eradicating the sandblast. I then made a second pass with the burr, carving deeper lines and pits into the briar to give a chunkier finish and help blend in a few deeper pits left from the sandblasting process. I finished up the new rusticated finish by going over the entire stummel very lightly with a wood rasp to knock off a few sharp points and rough edges.

I left the stummel at this point and went back to the stem to address a few issues there. The bite area had several deep tooth dents top and bottom and the button was quite worn. I dealt with both issues by mixing up some CA glue and activated charcoal powder and layering this mixture onto the stem, filling the tooth dents and building up enough material to carve a new button.

This repair always looks plain nasty at this point, but quickly improves once the CA has cured and I can get at the rough lumps of material with a file. I start by cutting the sharp leading edge of the button. This establishes the demarcation point between button and stem. After I have a nice sharp line all the way around the stem, I use files and sandpaper to remove excess material and create an even button height that matches the curvature of the stem.

Now in the home stretch of this restoration, I cleaned up the dust generated by the stem repair and set up my workbench for staining the pipe. I applied a two-step finish to the briar, starting with a diluted mixture of Fiebing’s Saddle Tan and Brown leather dyes. This matched the original colour of the smooth area on the bottom of the stummel, which will help tie this area in with the new smooth area on the bowl rim. When the first stain coat was dry, I rubbed off the excess colour with an old towel and applied a topcoat of stain made with Dark Brown and a little Black dye mixed together. I let this dry fully before scrubbing the stain off the high areas with 0000 steel wool. This exposed the lighter tan colour underneath, but left the black in the low areas of the rustication.

I finished the staining by wiping the stummel with mineral oil to add depth to the finish and moisturize the briar. Then it was off to the buffer for a run of White Diamond and several coats of Carnauba wax. This old Fletcher pipe is unrecognizable as the pipe I started with. I rather like the chunky rustication and the new stain. The grain on the rim and flat bottom really pops. A side benefit of old briar like this is the light weight. The pipe tips the scales at a mere 32 grams or 1.1 ounce. This rejuvenated old soul will be a comfortable all-day companion to its next piper. Here’s the finished pipe: