Restoring a Tim West Pipe!!

10 Replies

Blog by Paresh Deshpande

Tim West with a couple of his pipes

This sure is going to be an embarrassing while being a challenging project. Why? It’s embarrassing because the pipe that I have decided to work on now is made by a living legendary pipe repairman and a pipe maker from USA and here I am one who has just embarked on a journey into the world of pipe restoration with minimum of equipment, materials, spares and experience!!! It’s challenging because he is very well known to my friend and mentor, Mr. Steve Laug and living up to their standards is always a huge challenge. The project that I have selected to work on is a huge freehand pipe from Tim West!!

No, this pipe did not come to me in inheritance, but was purchased on eBay about 9 months back. Boy, am I glad that I made this purchase!! It’s a huge and heavy piece of briar with beautiful straight grain all around, including on the shank, with a plateau rim top and a vulcanite shank extension in to which fits a fancy, straight vulcanite stem. It has a shiny ring insert (or so it appears) between the shank and the shank extension. The shank extension helps in breaking the monotony of the briar while easing the flow of the humongous stummel in to the stem. The pipe has minimalistic stamping with “TIM WEST” in a slight arch over “PIPE” on the left side of the shank.I was keen to know more about Tim West, the carver and repairman, his pipe making techniques and philosophy. I searched pipedia.com and there is a very nice write up on him. I reproduce snippets information available on pipedia.com from his interview in December 1995, for a quick read.

Tim made his first pipe in 1967 and went full-time as a pipe maker in 1975. Only the best quality fully cured natural Greek Briar goes into a Tim West Briar Pipe. Tim’s designer shapes are designed for eye appeal and a great smoke. All processes, step by step, are natural processes insuring a sweet cool smoke for every recipient of a Tim West Briar Pipe.

In 1980, Tim opened Tim West Pipes, a retail shop in the Ohio Center near downtown Columbus. He closed the shop in 1991 and moved the entire business to his home workshop to concentrate on wholesaling. The workshop takes up most of the basement of his house, but it isn’t very big–some tools, racks of briar blocks, cabinets full of stems and boxes of half-finished pipes. To this day, Tim believes that he is much less mechanized than most pipemakers he knows of. He does have a top turner and a frazer, but they’re not hooked up, and the top turner is his television stand.

Tim acknowledges that, as a pipemaker, he is entirely self-taught, having learned through trial and error. He believes that pipemakers who have had the chance to study pipemaking or to work with established pipemakers are lucky because ‘it just mystified me for years wondering how they did it–while I was doing it.” And though he does use some power equipment today to drill, shape, sand and buff, everything is still set up, guided and shaped by hand.

When I asked Tim about his philosophy of papermaking, he laughed for some time. We talked further about the changes in his pipemaking over the years, and he allowed as how, during his first year at Monkey’s Retreat, a good 50 percent of his pipes were sculptured (piano pipes, toilet pipes, guitar pipes, etc.) because he had lots of time and could take a week to carve a pipe for someone. It might be his only sale for a week but would still provide enough cash to keep him in business. As his popularity grew, he needed to make more pipes and thus increasingly produced smooth shapes, either freehand or standard.

The entire interview makes for a very interesting read and is a highly recommended. Here is the link to the interview: https://pipedia.org/wiki/West

INITIAL VISUAL INSPECTION
The stummel surface of this pipe boasts of beautiful straight grain all along the stummel surface as well as on the shank. The stummel surface is covered in heavy overflow of lava which in turn has attracted a lot of dust and grime and has a few dents and dings likely due to uncared for storage. The briar is dull and lifeless and has taken on a layer of aged patina, through which one can make out the beautiful grains all round. This beautiful piece of briar will definitely clean up nicely. This pipe must have been a favorite of the previous Steward (I really like this address of a pipe smoker as coined by Mr. Dal Stanton and his reasoning for calling them as ‘Steward’) and has seen considerable use as evidenced by the thick layer of cake in the chamber. The condition of the inner walls of the chamber can be ascertained only after the cake has been removed completely and taken down to bare briar. However, the bowl feels robust and solid to the touch from the outside. This issue should be a breeze to address. There is a very strong but pleasant smell in the chamber.The plateau rim top has darkened considerably, due to frequent lighting, on the back side of the rim. There is a very heavy overflow of lava on the plateau rim top and covers the surface completely. This can be seen in pictures above and below. The condition of the inner edge and rim top can be commented upon only once the rim has been cleaned. The vulcanite shank end extension is heavily oxidized and is also covered in oils and tars and grime from previous usage. The mortise does show heavy accumulation of dried oils, tars and remnants of ash, greatly restricting the air flow. The vulcanite stem on this pipe is where the maximum damage is seen. The previous Steward must have been very fond of clenching his pipes while smoking. This is apparent from the damage that is seen towards the end of the stem. The stem has significant damage in the form of deep bite marks and cinching on the upper stem surface near the edge of the lip, while the lower surface has a through hole, exposing the stem’s airway. The stem’s surface around the damaged portion has become very brittle and considerably thin. The tenon on stem is covered in dried oils and tars and so is the airway. The button end hole is completely blocked save for a small opening, greatly constricting the airflow. The air flow through the stem is laborious to say the least. The fit of this stem in to the mortise is very tight and the stem does not seat completely in to the mortise (marked in yellow circle). This issue may get addressed after the mortise and tenon have been cleaned. All in all, restoring the stem will be the biggest challenge in this project. THE PROCESS
I embarked on the journey of restoring this pipe by addressing the stem first since it was damaged the most and would take considerable time to repair. First thing to do was to clean up the external surface and the internals of the stem. Since the button hole was clogged up, I used all the tools available to me in clearing up the button hole. It was not surprising at all to see chunks of dried gunk which had accumulated in the airway coming out of the airway. Once satisfied with the internal cleaning, I wiped the external surface of the stem with a cotton pad dipped in isopropyl alcohol to get rid of all the dirt and grime accumulated over the surface. The number of pipe cleaners used does not tell the real story of how difficult it really was to get the internals of the stem cleaned up.I followed up this cleaning regime by gently removing the thin and cracked chips of vulcanite from around the damaged stem surface till I reached the solid vulcanite. I did so because I planned on anchoring the stem fill on solid surface. To begin the stem repairs, I smeared a pipe cleaner with petroleum jelly and inserted it in to the stem airway. I prepared a mix of CA superglue and activated charcoal and applied it over the gaping hole and cinched surface of the stem and set it aside for curing over night. For the discerning reader who would have noted that I did not resort to the trick of using the Bic lighter, the answer is that I was apprehensive that the heat from the flame of the Bic lighter would put additional stress on the expanding vulcanite resulting in greater damage to the stem. What followed this stage were endless hours and days spent in sanding, layering with a coat of charcoal and superglue mix and again following the same sequence till I achieved a solid fill. I am afraid that I have not taken enough pictures to show the progress as I had three beautiful pipes, all with their button end chewed off for about an inch and inch and a half, being worked on simultaneously. These projects were also proving to be very difficult and tedious.While the stem fillings were curing, I worked on the stummel. I started by reaming the chamber with size 4 head of PipNet reamer. The size of the chamber was so huge that I had to use the Kleen Reem reamer also. This is where I hit the second hurdle in the restoration of this pipe. There was a bump (circled in red) on the chamber walls that had hardened to an extent that the blades of the PipNet or Kleen Reem reamer could not cut through it. I began wondering with wrenching guts, if the bump is not a JB Weld repair. To further probe this bump, using my fabricated knife, I gouged at the corners and realized that it was not a JB Weld repair but just a very, very hard accumulation of cake.  I decided to soak the chamber in alcohol to loosen the cake. I packed a few cotton balls half way in to the chamber and soaked it in isopropyl alcohol for a few hours. A few hours later and the hardened cake came off easily. I used a 220 grit sand paper, pinched between my thumb and forefinger, to sand the inner walls of the chamber. Once I had reached the bare briar, I wiped the chamber with a cotton pad dipped in isopropyl alcohol. This removed all the residual carbon dust. However, in spite of the alcohol soak and removing all the cake, the ghosting was still all too pervading!! Hopefully after the completely choked mortise has been cleaned, the smells will also fade away to oblivion. I followed up the reaming by cleaning the mortise and air way of the pipe, using hard bristled and regular pipe cleaners, q-tips and shank brush dipped in alcohol. The mortise and the draught hole was so chock-a- block with all the dried tars, oils and gunk that I had to use my fabricated spatula and the drill bit from the Kleen Reem pipe reamer!!!! Chunks of the gunk that were removed from the mortise are a testimony to how badly this pipe was abused by the previous Steward. I gave a final clean with shank brushes dipped in alcohol and dried the mortise with a rolled paper napkin. The shank internals and the draught hole appear to be clean. But the strong ghosting still persists. I shall address this issue later by giving the chamber an alcohol bath.Before progressing any further, I had to get the stummel all cleaned up. Using a hard bristled tooth brush dipped in undiluted Murphy’s oil soap, I very deliberately scrubbed the stummel, cleaning the surface thoroughly. Special attention was paid to scrub out all the dirt, dust and lava from the crevices in the plateau rim top with a brass wired brush. The stummel and plateau rim top were dried using paper napkins and soft cotton cloth. To eliminate the ghost smells from the pipe, I had decided to treat it with salt and alcohol. I do not use Kosher salt as it is not readily available here and if available, it’s very expensive. I use cotton balls which is an at par substitute as I have realized over the last year or so. I draw out a wick from the cotton and along with a folded regular pipe cleaner; insert it in to the mortise and through the draught hole in the chamber. Thereafter, I pack the chamber with cotton balls to about quarter of an inch below the rim inner edge. I soak the cotton balls with isopropyl alcohol up to the brim. About half an hour later, the level of alcohol has gone down, having being absorbed by the cotton. I top it up once again and set it aside overnight. By next afternoon, the cotton and alcohol has drawn out all the remaining oils and tars from the chamber and mortise and the cotton and alcohol had fulfilled its intended task. I removed the cotton balls and ran pipe cleaners through the mortise to clean out all the loosened tars and gunk. My, was I surprised to see that the pipe cleaners come out all sticky, black and dirty. I persisted with the cleaning till the pipe cleaners came out clean!!!! The next set of pictures tells the story by themselves. Finally, after hours of toiling and large number of pipe cleaners, I can say that the mortise is now well and truly cleaned. Also the ghosting is now consigned to history.Now that the internals of the stummel are clean, I work the external surface. I sand the vulcanite shank extension with 220 and follow it up with 320 and 600 grit sand papers and got rid of all the oxidation. I wanted to further highlight the grain seen on the stummel. To achieve this aim, I sand down the stummel using micromesh pads, wet sanding with 1500 to 2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200 to 12000 grit pads. The stummel now has a deep shine with grains popping out with magnificent contrast. Though this part of restoration is the second most time consuming and laborious, the end results are also the most satisfying. The play of grains, the contrast and the smooth surface are well worth the efforts. I rub a small quantity of Extra Virgin Olive oil in to the shank extension and set the stummel aside for the oil to be absorbed by the vulcanite shank extension. I rub a small quantity of “Before and After Restoration Balm” in to briar and let it rest for a few minutes. I took some extra efforts to work the balm in to the plateau rim top of the bowl. The balm almost immediately works its magic and the briar now has a nice vibrant appearance. I further buff it with a horse hair shoe brush. With the stummel nice and clean and attractive, I worked the stem of the pipe. The fill on the stem had cured nicely and I sand it down with a flat head needle file. I sharpened the lip edges using a needle file and sand the entire stem with 220 followed by 400, 800 and 1000 grit sand paper. This helps to reduce the sanding marks left behind by the more abrasive 220 grit paper. To bring a deep shine to the vulcanite stem and the tenon, I went through the complete set of micromesh pads, wet sanding with 1500 to 2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200 to 12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem with alcohol after each pad and rubbed it down with Extra Virgin Olive oil. The pictures of the final results are shown below. What is not stated and pictured here is the fact that the fills on this stem had caved in thrice and that many times I had to rebuild it from the scratch. Every time I tried to match the fill to the surrounding surface, the fill area would get thinned out and break apart. In the end, I left the fill slightly higher than the rest of the surface and was better masked during the micromesh cycle. At this point, I check for the seating of the tenon inside the mortise the find that the stem sits flushed in the mortise. To finish, I re-attach the stem with the stummel. I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel on to my local machine which is similar to a Dremel.  I set the speed at about half of the full power and applied White Diamond compound to each of the three pipes. I wiped/ buffed the pipe with a soft cotton cloth to clear it of any leftover compound dust. I then mounted another cotton cloth wheel on to the polishing machine and applied several coats of carnauba wax over the stummel and the stem of the pipe. I finished the restoration by giving the pipe a rigorous hand buffing using a microfiber cloth to raise the shine further. The completed pipe, with the dark brown hues of the stummel contrasting with the shiny black shank extension and stem, looks lovely, fresh and vibrant; the photographs speak for themselves. The beauty, size and shapes of this pipe make it one of my favorites and will find a place of pride in my modest collection. If only the pipe could tell some of the stories and techniques used by Mr. Tim West while carving pipes….Cheers!!

 

Time for an Easy Cleanup – A Pipa 2005 Bent “Blasticated” Billiard

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue came from a pipe that Jeff purchased from a fellow in New York who picks up some nice pipe for us on his “treasure hunting adventures”. This one was a Pipa 2005 Savinelli Made bent billiard. It is stamped on the underside of the heel and shank and reads Pipa 2005 over Savinelli Product followed by Italy. It is a bent billiard shaped pipe with a flat bottom on the heel and part way up the shank. With the stem it is too heavy to be a sitter but it is a beauty. The finish looks sandblasted but upon observation it was rusticated before sandblasting. It is what I call a “blasticated” finish. The rim top was smooth and had a beveled inner rim edge. There was some light tars and oils on the bevel and rim top. The pipe was dusty but the finish looked like it was rich and would clean up well. The stem is striated grey Lucite saddle with a polished brass spacer as an integral part of the stem. There is a Savinelli Shield S on the top of the saddle. The stem has some light tooth marks and chatter on both sides at the button edge. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of the pipe before clean up. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim to show the condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. There was a light coat of lava on the bevel and rim top toward the back side and a thin cake in the bowl. It appeared that the beveled inner edges were in good condition. The outer edges actually appeared to be in excellent condition.He also took a photo of the right and underside of the bowl and shank to show the “blasticated” finish on the bowl and the smooth panel on the underside. The dark and medium brown stain looked really good.Jeff took photos of the stamping on the underside of the shank and the Savinelli Shield S on the stem top. It reads as noted above. The stamping is legible and very readable.The next two photos show the stem surface. They show the light tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The stem is otherwise clean. Once again, Jeff did his usual thorough clean up job on the pipe so that  when it arrived here in Vancouver it looked really good. Jeff reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the rim and the grime on the finish of the bowl of the pipe. He rinsed it off under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove all of the lava build up on the beveled rim top of the pipe. The rim top looked very good. The grain was beautiful and the pipe looked new. The stem looked very good with its striations of silver and grey with some light tooth marks and chatter. Overall the pipe looked almost new. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work. I took close up photos of the bowl, rim and stem surfaces to capture the condition of the pipe before I started my simple restoration of the pipe. The rim top was clean and the beveled inner edge was in excellent condition. The stem was quite clean with some light tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside near the button. The tenon was Delrin and drilled out for a 6MM or a Savinelli Balsa filter system.I took a close up photo of the stamping on the bottom of the bowl. It read as noted above in the earlier paragraphs. The rim top was in excellent condition so I polished it with 6000-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I wiped it off with a damp cotton pad after each sanding pad.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I worked it into the grooves with a horsehair shoe brush. 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. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the grain really stood out on the smooth rim. The finish looks very good with the combined dark and medium brown stain on the bowl and rim. I sanded out the tooth marks with 220 grit sandpaper and then started polishing the stem with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I was able to remove all of the scratches and tooth marks and chatter from the surface of the stem. I polished the stem and brass spacer with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each pad. I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Since I had finished both the bowl and stem I put them together and polished the stem lightly with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The smooth rim top and the “blasticated” finish on the bowl really looks good polished and buffed. The rich dark brown was polished off the high points on the briar and works well with polished striated silver and grey Lucite stem. The finish on this pipe gives it a great feeling pipe in the hand and I am sure that it will be an amazing smoker. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 1/2 inches, Height: 1 3/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/4 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. I will be putting this beauty on the rebornpipes store shortly and it can be added to your collection. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this Savinelli Made Pipa 2005 Bent Billiard.

Restoring a Unique “House of Lords” Sitter

3 Replies

Blog by Paresh Deshpande

I am pretty angry and frustrated at myself!!!!! That’s a very strong and confusing sentiment against oneself, I admit. But that’s the truth. Let me explain.

I spent nearly two weeks working on three pipes; a Dunhill Bruyere, a Tim West Freehand and a Stefano Exclusive. These three had their lip end of the stem either chewed off for about an inch and a half or a through and through hole!!! It could be considered as a major stem repair project. I successfully rebuild the stem end, including the button, lip edges and the slot. Though, I was unable to shape the slot as perfectly as I would have liked on the Dunhill, the repair was perfect on the Tim West and the Stefano. I felt elated and supremely confident about my capabilities. The blending of the repairs appeared spot on and I blazed through the remaining restoration, clicking pictures of the progress without giving them a second look. When, at the end, I went through the pictures while doing the write up, to my horror, the repaired stem and stummel stared back at me with all their imperfections on display in form of scratches, brownish spots of oxidation and fillings showing through the stain!! This was embarrassing for me and I shared these images with Mr. Steve. In his characteristic method of pointing out my short comings, I shall quote his reply to me, “Takes lots of work… I am having a little trouble with that lately…. Trying to rush it. Pipe looks good”, unquote!! Readers of rebornpipes and those who know him would be smiling while reading this part. Well, to cut the banter short, I shall rework all these short comings later as I want to start on a fresh pipe!!

The pipe on my work table, from my inherited collection, is one large barrel shaped full bent (this aspect needs to be confirmed and will be cleared as we progress further) sitter with beautiful and very tightly packed birds’ eye grain on either side of the bowl and shank, extending over to more than half of the front of the stummel. Equally tightly packed cross grain are seen on the front left and back of the bowl and also on the upper and bottom surface of the shank. It is stamped on the left side of the shank as “HOUSE OF LORDS” over “MADE IN ENGLAND” in block capital letters. The right side of the shank bears the numeral “275”, probably the shape code, towards the bowl shank junction. The vulcanite saddle stem bears the Crown logo stamped on the left of the round stem. The stem logo and the shape code are slightly worn off. I have included a picture of the stem logo from pipephil.eu to show how it appears on this stem.To know more about the brand, the lines offered by the maker and attempt to date this pipe, I visited pipedia.org, which has wealth of information on almost all pipes. The only information available here was that this brand was by Samuel Gordon in the early 20th century and thereafter became a Sasieni second. My next go to site is pipephil.eu where the stampings and stem logos on a pipe are used for brand information and to date a pipe. Here is the link for information on the pipe currently on my work table:-

www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-h3.html#houseoflords

This site also pointed to the same information gleaned from pipedia.org. Here is what was found on pipephil.eu.

Brand from Samuel Gordon. Maybe a Sasieni second (J.M. Lopes, op. cit.)

I further followed the link to “Gordon” and learned that Samuel Gordon had founded the brand “GORDON” in 1910-20 eras. This is the link for Gordon brand of pipes; www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-g4.html#gordon

From the above information, it is assumed that this piece is from the early 20th century period. Wow!!!! This is really an old pipe. The pipe brands and its vintage, those that are in my grandfather’s collection, never cease to amaze me and there are some really collectible pipes that I have inherited.

INITIAL VISUAL INSPECTION

The chamber shows a nice even build up of a cake which makes it difficult to comment on the condition of the inner walls of the chamber. However, the general appearance of the stummel makes me believe that there will not be any major issues with the chamber walls. The rim top is clean with no overflow of lava and this is a big surprise coming from my inherited collection!! The chamber is out of round with the inner rim edges showing charring at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock direction. It appears that this charred area of the inner edge was tried to get rid off in an amateurish way. The outer rim is also damaged and has a few chips and dents to the front, probably caused due to hitting the bowl against a hard surface to remove the dottle!! All in all, I would say that this was one of the few well cared for pipes from his collection!!The surface of the stummel is covered in dirt and grime accumulated over a period of time. The stummel surface is peppered with numerous dents and dings, more so towards the front of the bowl, probably caused due to careless and uncared for storage for the last 40-45 years and equal number of years of previous usage!!!! It will be a big decision whether to address these dents and dings by abrasive sanding method and loose the patina which has developed on the surface, or let them be. Well, I shall cross the bridge when I reach it. The mortise appears to be either clogged or has some obstruction as air flow through it is hard and laborious. The vulcanite stem is heavily oxidized. Some light tooth chatter is seen on both surfaces of the stem towards the lip. This issue should not be a major headache to address. The lip edge on both sides is crisp but lightly damaged. The quality of vulcanite is good.The thing that struck me odd was the bend on the stem. It was bent way too much than the normal. When I shared the pictures of this pipe with Mr. Steve, he too found the angle of the bend too rakish and very odd, to the extent that he felt it might not even be correct for the pipe. However, the stem logo confirmed otherwise. So, I am confronted with the controversial prospect between “PRESERVATION” and “RESTORATION”!! While I do not have as clear a mandate as Mr. Steve had, managing this conflict, for me, is more challenging. To me, this inheritance is a family heirloom and in this particular instance, I would rather maintain this profile instead of straightening it. Mr. Steve gave me a second perspective that the stem was bent during storage due to intense heat which is prevalent in India and may not be original as my grandfather had smoked!! Well, this could be true. The inner conflict continued while I proceed to clean and spruce up the pipe to its pristine condition (or at least make a sincere attempt at it)

THE PROCESS
I reamed the chamber with my fabricated knife and scraped out all the cake. With a folded piece of 180 grit sandpaper, I further sand out the last traces of remaining cake and expose the walls of the chamber. There are some very minor and insignificant webs of line on the chamber walls that can be seen to the front and above the drought hole. I wiped the chamber with a cotton pad dipped in isopropyl alcohol to remove the carbon dust left behind by all the reaming and sanding process. I gently scraped the rim top surface with a sharp knife to remove the lava overflow. Using the same knife, I gently scrapped out the charred briar from the inner rim edge till I reached solid wood. The following pictures show the inner rim edge after the removal of the charred wood from the 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock direction. Also seen is the earlier amateurish attempt at addressing the issue of out of round bowl. I shall address this issue by creating a bevel to inner edge. This was followed by cleaning the mortise with cue tips, pipe cleaners and shank brush dipped in isopropyl alcohol. With my fabricated spatula shaped knife, I scrapped out the dried oils and tars from the mortise. My, there were chunks of gunk in there and can be seen in the following pictures!! Finally after some diligent cleaning, the mortise is clean and this further completely eliminated traces of old smells from previous usage.The internals of the stummel is now clean and fresh. Now, it was the turn of the stummel to get cleaned up. Using a hard bristled tooth brush dipped in undiluted Murphy’s oil soap, I very deliberately scrubbed the surface of the stummel. I cleaned the rim too. The stummel and rim top was dried using paper napkins and soft cotton cloth. I am not very happy the way the rim top appears at this stage with all the charring and uneven inner and outer rim edges. This needs to be addressed. I set the stummel aside to dry out naturally. After cleaning the rim top with Murphy’s oil soap, the inner edge damage was even more evident, and begged to be addressed before I proceed any further. I topped the rim on a 220 followed by 320 and 600 grit sand paper, checking frequently till I was satisfied that the charred surface was greatly reduced. The inner edge is still uneven, though much better than before topping. With a folded piece of 180 grit sand paper pinched between my thumb and fore finger, I created a bevel on the inner edge. This addressed the issue of uneven and out of round inner edge. A couple of dents and chips are also seen to the outer rim edge and one (circled in red) in the newly created inner edge bevel. There were a few slightly deeper chips on the stummel surface. I gouged out the old and dried wood from these dents from the front of the stummel, inner rim edge and the heel and spot filled it with a mix of CA superglue and briar dust (believe you me gentlemen, making and thereafter applying this mix to fill the pits is not as easy as it appears!!!!!! The moment superglue comes into contact with the briar dust; it hardens even before you can blink. Maybe there is an issue with the glue that is available to me here, coupled with the prevailing climatic conditions or maybe one Mr. Dal Stanton could help!!). I always over fill the holes so that when I sand them down they are smooth and I can feather in the fills with the rest of the briar. I set the stummel aside to cure overnight. I had applied this mix of superglue and briar dust to the inner rim edge as it would not be coming in direct contact with heat from the burning tobacco leading to health issues. While the stummel was drying, I worked the stem. I covered the stampings on the stem with whitener using a whitener pen. I flamed the stem surface of the stem with a Bic lighter to raise the tooth indentations and scratches on the stem. The heat from the flame of Bic lighter causes the vulcanite to expand and regain its natural shape, reducing the marks. Using a needle file, I sharpened the lip edges. For a better blending, I further sanded the entire stem with 220 followed by 600, 400 and 800 grit sand paper. This helps to reduce the sanding marks left behind by the more abrasive 220 grit paper. To bring a deep shine to the vulcanite stem, I went through the complete set of micromesh pads, wet sanding with 1500 to 2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200 to 12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem with alcohol after each pad and rubbed it down with Extra Virgin Olive oil. The internals of the stem was cleaned out using alcohol and pipe cleaners. The finished stem is shown below. By the time I had worked on the stem, the fills on the stummel surface had completely cured. I sanded the fills using a flat head needle file and checked to see if I had missed any spots. I wanted the entire surface smooth to the touch. I sanded the spots down and blended them into the bowl surface using a folded 220 grit sand paper. I followed this step by sanding the entire stummel with a 220 grit sand paper followed by 600 and 800 grit sand papers. Once that was done I wiped the bowl down with a cotton cloth dampened with Isopropyl alcohol to remove any remaining dust. I wet sand the stummel with 1500 to 2400 grit pads and follow it up by dry sanding with 3200 to 12000 grit pads. Once I was through with the micromesh pad sanding, the fills showed in complete contrast with the rest of the stummel, as can be seen in the pictures below. I hope they will blend in better once I apply the balm and buff the stummel. I rub a small quantity of “Before and After Restoration Balm” in to briar and let it rest for a few minutes. The balm almost immediately works its magic and the briar now has a nice vibrant appearance. I further buff it with a horse hair shoe brush. The stummel, at this point in restoration, looks beautiful save for the fills which can still be seen in all their awfulness. To address this, I have the option to stain the stummel with a dark brown stain or I let it be as a being part of its journey thus far!! Thus, another conflict has been added to the existing one regarding the stem. I shall think about it once I reach that point in restoration. Before I proceed to final stage of polishing and applying carnauba wax coats, I want to address the superficial and insignificantly thin lines in the chamber as a precautionary measure. I mix activated charcoal and yogurt to the consistency of a thick porridge, not runny while being pliable. Inserting a folded pipe cleaner into the mortise till it peeps out of the draught hole, I apply an even coat of this mixture to the inner walls of the chamber with a modified bamboo frond and set it aside to dry out overnight. The next evening, the coat has completely dried out and is hard. Using a piece of folded 220 grit sand paper, I lightly run it over the coating to a smooth finish. I had a long look at the dark fills against the rest of the stummel and did not like it. I made a decision to stain the stummel in dark walnut stain. I use the powder variety of stain and mix it with 99% isopropyl alcohol. I heated the stummel surface with a heat gun and applied the stain with a folded pipe cleaner. As I paint the stummel with stain over sections at a time, I burn the dye using a Bic lighter that combusts the alcohol in the aniline dye and sets the dye pigmentation in the wood.  After fully saturating the stummel and covering the whole surface, I set the stummel aside to rest for several hours. Once the stain had set, I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel on the Dremel and set the speed at about 40% full strength and apply red compound to the stummel. This does help in revealing the grains gradually while masking the darker fills. To finish, I re-attach the stem with the stummel. I mounted a cotton cloth buffing wheel to a locally manufactured machine which is similar Dremel.  I set the speed at about half of the full power and applied White Diamond compound to the entire pipe. I wiped/ buffed the pipe with a soft cotton cloth to clear it of any leftover compound dust. I then mounted another cotton cloth wheel on to the polishing machine and applied several coats of carnauba wax. I finished the restoration by giving the entire pipe a rigorous hand buffing using a microfiber cloth to raise the shine further.

The completed pipe looks lovely, fresh and vibrant; the photographs in this case, do not do justice to the appearance of this beautiful large barrel-shaped pipe. Thank you for having the patience to reach this far while reading the write up. And as usual, I request all those readers to please leave a comment as it will help me to improve further and hone my skills. PS: After the pipe restoration was completed, nearly 15 days later my guide and mentor, Mr. Steve casually asked me if I had decided to straighten the stem. This set me thinking that here is a gentleman who is still thinking about the bent stem and that he is still doing so as he is convinced that a straight stem would look nicer on the pipe and would be original to the pipe. This convinced me to re-straighten the stem to its original. I place a fluffy pipe cleaner through the airway to prevent it from collapsing due to heating and with a heat gun; I heat the stem till it is pliable and straighten out the stem just by eyeballing the shape till satisfied. Here are a few pictures after the stem was straightened. Yes, there are a few minor issues which is a direct result of the process like the alignment of the shank end with the tenon end and slight dullness in the shiny stem etc, but they will be addressed subsequently. The overall appearance of the pipe is much better and the shank flow into the stem is more fluid and even. Thanks Mr. Steve!!

 

Restoring a “Naturel” Bent Sitter

Leave a reply

Blog by Paresh Deshpande

The next pipe on my work table is a beautifully grained sitter with a nice feel in hand and light weight to boot, with a fantastic balance when clenched (though I do not like to clench). This pipe has been with me for a very long time, awaiting its turn for restoration, in fact for so long that now I do not even remember how it ended up with me!! It’s definitely not from my inherited collection.

If anyone loves a briar pipe with tightly packed, distinct and beautiful bird’s eye grain at all, then this sitter will definitely attract such a smoker. It has lovely bird’s eye grains on either side of the bowl, extending towards the front from either sides but not quite joining. On the front part of the bowl and towards the rear, densely packed cross grain adds to the visual appeal of the stummel. The cross grain on the back of the bowl continues on to the top half and left bottom portion of the shank while the cross grain in the front extends to the bottom of the heel. I believe the following pictures will do far greater justice to the stummel visually than my limited descriptive powers!! This is one beautifully carved pipe where it appears that the grains dictated the end shape of the pipe and that the carver has done great justice to this beautiful art of nature!!!! It is stamped on the left of the shank as “NATUREL” while the right is stamped as “MADE IN LONDON” over “ENGLAND”. At the bottom surface of the shank, near the shank end, is stamped the numeral “300”, which could be the shape code. All my sincere and untiring efforts to search for information on this pipe have come to a naught. Any help to unravel the mysteries surrounding this pipe and pipe maker is welcome and would be highly appreciated.

INITIAL VISUAL INSPECTION
The chamber shows a nice even build up of a thick cake which makes it difficult to comment on the condition of the inner walls of the chamber. There is a light overflow of lava over the rim top. The inner rim edge of the rim has a number of minor dents which could easily be addressed by creating a slight bevel. The outer rim too has numerous dents and dings all around its circumference. The rim top also had an uneven surface, probably caused by negligent handling of the pipe by the previous owner.The surface of the stummel is covered in dust and grime giving it a dull and lackluster appearance. The stummel surface is peppered with numerous dents, dings and a couple of marks akin to a road rash, probably caused by rubbing against a hard surface during storage. There is one fill in the stummel on the left side. There are a number of small mysterious spots on the left and front side on the stummel. These spots are definitely not fills and neither are they water marks!!!! I shall try to learn more about these mysterious spots as I progress during the restoration. The mortise is surprisingly clean and air flow through it is open and full. The vulcanite saddle bent stem has an aluminum ridged stinger. Heavy tooth chatter is seen on both surfaces of the stem towards the lip with comparatively lighter bite marks on the upper surface. This issue should not be a major headache to address. The lip edge on both sides is crisp but lightly damage. The saddle portion of the stem has gouges on the left side and how did it get there? It’s a mystery!!!!! The finned torpedo shell shaped stinger is dirty and would need a thorough cleaning. The quality of vulcanite is good and should turn out beautifully.THE PROCESS
I reamed the chamber with size 1 PipNet reamer head. To reach the areas where the PipNet reamer could not reach to remove the carbon cake, I used my smaller fabricated knife and scraped out all the remaining cake. I further used a folded piece of 180 grit sand paper to sand out the last traces of remaining cake and expose the walls of the chamber to ascertain that there are no cracks/ heat fissures, and there were none. I wiped the chamber with a cotton pad dipped in isopropyl alcohol to remove the carbon dust left behind by all the reaming and sanding process. The walls of the chamber were solid with no damage. I gently scraped the rim top surface with a sharp knife to remove the lava overflow. This was followed by cleaning the mortise with cue tips and pipe cleaners dipped in isopropyl alcohol. I scraped out the now moistened gunk in the mortise with my fabricated spatula and followed it up with a second round of cleaning with pipe cleaners. This further eliminated traces of old smells from previous usage. However, the dents and dings to the rim top surface and edges are now clearly exposed. The internals of the stummel are now clean and fresh. Now, it was the turn of the external surface of the stummel to get cleaned up. Using a hard bristled tooth brush dipped in undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap, I very deliberately scrubbed the surface of the stummel. I cleaned the rim too. The stummel and rim top was dried using paper napkins and soft cotton cloth. I am not very happy the way the rim top appears at this stage with all the dents, dings and uneven inner and outer rim edges. This will need to be addressed. But now that the stummel surface is nice and clean, the beautiful bird’s eye and cross grains on the stummel present themselves in all their glory. Can’t wait to see the grains in their resplendent beauty once I am done with final polishing and buffing!! After cleaning the rim top with Murphy’s oil soap, I had observed that the rim top surface, outer and the inner rim edge was uneven, presenting a very sorry appearance. I topped the rim on a 220 grit sand paper, checking frequently till I was satisfied that the uneven surface is completely addressed. The inner and outer rim edge is still uneven, though much better than before topping. Using a folded piece of 220 grit sand paper pinched between my thumb and fore finger, I shaped a light bevel on the inner edge and a slightly prominent bevel on the outer rim edge. I was careful while shaping the outer bevel as I did not want to greatly alter the overall shape of the pipe. The rim surface and both edges now look pristine. Subjecting the rim top and edges to a regime of micromesh pad polish will further enhance the finish and help in blending the bevel with overall shape of the stummel. Next, I decided to address the dents, dings, road rash marks, mystery spots and one fill on the stummel surface. As I have remarked earlier, the mystery spots were indeed baffling. I tried to erase them by spot cleaning these blemishes using acetone followed by alcohol and finally by sanding the stummel with sand paper, but to no avail. These buggers appear to keep winking at me mischievously!!!!! I turned to my mentor, Mr. Steve and shared pictures of these spots and tricks employed (though unsuccessfully at that) to address them. These spots baffled him too. He thought over it, researched and suggested that these could be “Root nodules”. This seemed a plausible explanation. My research on root nodules says that these are found on the roots of plants, primarily legumes that form a symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, rhizobia. It is known that this process has evolved multiple times within the legumes, as well as in other species found within the Rosid clade (flowering plant species) and Erica arboria (briar wood) is a flowering plant which falls within the Rosid clade. Thus, these spots are most likely root nodules which have developed in this piece of briar and there is nothing that can be done to eliminate these spots. You cannot fight nature’s mysteries!!

With the mystery of the spots resolved, I proceed to refreshing the fill and addressing the road rash. I reduced the road rash by sanding and removed the old fill. I trowel a mix of briar dust and superglue in to this gouge and over the road rash marks and set it aside to cure. I overfill the gouges as it helps in subsequent blending of these fills with the rest of the stummel during the sanding process.While the fills were curing, I worked the stem. Using a Bic lighter, I flamed both the surfaces of the stem. The heat from the flame helps the vulcanite to rise to the surface and in the process addresses to a great extent all the issues of tooth chatter. I followed it by reshaping the lip edges with a flat needle file. I further sand the entire stem with 220 followed by 400, 600 and 800 grit sand paper. This helps to reduce the sanding marks left behind by the more abrasive 220 grit paper. To bring a deep shine to the vulcanite stem, I went through the complete set of micromesh pads, wet sanding with 1500 to 2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200 to 12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem with alcohol after each wet pad and rubbed it down with Extra Virgin Olive oil. The internals of the stem was cleaned out using alcohol and pipe cleaners. The fills had hardened by the next day and with a flat head needle file I proceeded to sand the fills to a rough match with the rest of the stummel. Further blending of the fills was achieved by sanding the entire stummel with 220, 320, 600 and 800 grit sand papers. I am pretty satisfied with the appearance of the fill and stummel at this stage.At this stage my aim was to bring a deep shine to the briar and highlight the lovely grain which is what had attracted me to this pipe in the first place. I wet sand the stummel with 1500 to 2400 grit pads and follow it up by dry sanding with 3200 to 12000 grit pads. I had wiped the stummel with a moist cloth after every wet sanding pad as it gives me an idea of progress being made. Save for the dark spot of the fill, the stummel now looks amazing with all the bird’s eye grain and cross grain peeking out of every inch of the stummel!! And this brings me to a difficult decision; should I stain it or let it be? I decide not to stain the stummel as it would take away the natural look of the briar while suppressing the appearance of the grain. Here is how the stummel looks at this point in restoration. I rub a small quantity of “Before and After Restoration Balm” in to briar and let it rest for a few minutes. The balm almost immediately works its magic and the briar now has a nice vibrant appearance. The balm works to rehydrate and revitalize the briar. I further buff it with a horse hair shoe brush to bring a deeper shine to the stummel. To finish, I re-attach the stem with the stummel. I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel to the Dremel (actually it is not the brand machine, but a local machine which is similar).  I set the speed at about half of the full power and applied White Diamond compound to the entire pipe. I wiped/ buffed the pipe with a soft cotton cloth to clear it of any leftover compound dust. I then mounted another cotton cloth wheel on to the polishing machine and applied several coats of carnauba wax. I finished the restoration by giving the entire pipe a rigorous hand buffing using a microfiber cloth to raise the shine further. The completed pipe looks lovely, fresh and vibrant; the photographs in this case, do not do justice to the appearance of this beautiful pipe. Thank you for having the patience to reach this far while reading the write up.

Life for a Beat up Bari Senior Old Briar Pick Axe

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue came from a pipe that Jeff purchased from an antique shop in Brookings, Oregon. He stopped by there on a trip last fall and picked up a few pipes. He picked up quite a few of his pipes and they included this interesting, Kriswill like Bari Senior. It is stamped on the left side of the shank and read Bari over Senior over Old Briar. On the right side it said Made in Denmark over the shape number 503. It is a pick axe shaped pipe with a deep pointed bowl and a narrow shank. The entire pipe had some beautiful mixed grain around the bowl but it was covered with deep cut marks on both sides and the front of the bowl. The rim top was covered with lava and darkening. The pipe was filthy but the grain underneath was rich and the finish looked like it would clean up well. The stem is vulcanite and has a pinched side on both left and right just past the saddle. The stem is oxidized and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides at the button edge. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of the pipe before clean up. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim from various angles to capture the condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. There was a thick coat of lava on the rim and the cake in the bowl. It appeared that the beveled inner edges were in good condition. The outer edges actually appeared to be in excellent condition.He also took a series of photos of the sides of the bowl and shank to show the beautiful grain on the pipe but also the serious damage to the bowl – large gouges in the briar all around the bowl sides and front. The number of the gouges was a nightmare. Jeff took photos of the stamping on the left side of the shank. It reads as noted above. The first stamp BARI is legible. The second line that reads Senior and the third that reads Old Briar are both less legible.The next two photos show the stem surface. They show the tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The stem is oxidized and has a thick build up around the button end. The pinched stem is a beautiful and sleek addition to the pipe.Once again, Jeff did his usual thorough clean up job on the pipe so that  when it arrived here in Vancouver it looked really good. Jeff reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the rim and the grime on the finish of the bowl of the pipe. He rinsed it off under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove all of the lava build up on the beveled rim top of the pipe. The rim top looked pretty good though there were scratches in the flat top and a little darkening on the inner bevel toward the front of the bowl. The grain was beautiful but there were a lot of deep gouges in the briar around the sides of the bowl. He soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer and was able to remove the oxidation. The pipe looked very good.I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work. I took a close up photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before I started my restoration of the pipe. The rim top was clean but had some nicks on the flat surface and some darkening on the inside edge of the rim at the back of the bowl. The stem was quite clean with some light tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside near the button.I took some close up photos of the sides and front of the bowl to show the deep gouges in the briar. They were cuts rather than dents so steaming would not repair them. This would take some sanding and then strategic filling and staining to blend them into the briar. Time would tell if I could achieve what I wanted to do with this one. I started my restoration of the pipe by dealing with this damage. I sanded the damage areas on the bowl sides and front with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I worked on the areas until the lighter damaged areas were removed and the deeper ones were less visible.I filled in the deeper gouges with clear super glue. You can see the repairs are almost like pock marks around the bowl. They also highlight the extent of the damage on the sides of the bowl were when I started.When the repairs had cured I sanded them smooth with folded 220 grit sandpaper until they blended in to the surrounding briar. As I sanded I also found more damage on the front of the bowl and filled it in and sanded it smooth. I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the sanding dust. I wanted to remove it in preparation for restaining the bowl.I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage on the rim top and edges of the bowl. It did not take too much sanding to remove the damaged areas and leave the top ready for the next step.I sanded the bowl and rim with a medium and a fine grade sanding sponge to remove the sanding marks from the briar on the bowl and rim top. It was the first step in polishing the briar to ready it for staining. I continued to polish the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I  wiped the briar down after each pad with an alcohol dampened cotton pad. I decided to stain the pipe with contrasting stains – a dark brown undercoat and a cherry top coat. My thinking was that this would minimize the visual overload of repairs. I stained the bowl with the dark brown aniline stain and flamed it to set the stain in the grain of the briar. I repeated the process until the coverage was even and then set it aside for the afternoon. My thinking was that the dark stain would highlight the grain and also hide some of the repairs to the briar bowl.I wiped down the excess stain on the bowl with a cotton pad and isopropyl alcohol. I wanted to make the stain a bit more transparent and prepare it for buffing. I buffed the pipe with Red Tripoli on the buffing wheel to remove the excess dark stain. After buffing the bowl the Tripoli the grain was darker and the contrast between the light and the dark on the grain was quite stunning. I wiped the bowl down with alcohol and then rubbed some Before & After Restoration Balm into briar to enliven and preserve it. I buffed it with a soft cloth to raise the shine at this point. Once I had buffed off the balm I gave it a top coat of Danish Oil Cherry stain. I applied it with a soft cotton pad and let it sit for about 30 minutes before buffing it off with a cloth. Here is what it looked like as it dried. With the second coat of stain finished, 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. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening is lessened. The finish looks very good with the combined rich brown and cherry stain on the bowl and rim. The stem was in good enough condition that I was able to polish out the tooth chatter and marks by wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I then dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each pad. I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. There was a spot of metal embedded in the vulcanite of the stem on the top left side ahead of the button. I have marked it with a red circle to highlight it for you as you look at the photo. It does not disappear as the stem is polish but seems to go quite deep in the rubber of the stem. Since I had finished both the bowl and stem I put them together and polished them both with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain around the sides of the bowl really began to stand out with contrast as I buff the bowl. The rich dark brown undercoat and cherry top coat finish on the briar works well with polished black vulcanite stem. Bari made some beautiful pipes and this is certainly one of them. The darker stain does the job hiding the repairs to the gouges and makes the grain really show through. This pipe is a great feeling pipe in the hand and I am sure that it will be an amazing smoker. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 1/2 inches, Height: 2 1/2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. I will be putting this beauty on the rebornpipes store shortly and it can be added to your collection. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this Bari Senior Old Briar 503 Pick Axe.

Fresh Life for  a Stanwell Brazilia 87 Apple

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue came from a group of pipes Jeff and I purchased from a fellow in Pennsylvania who was selling out his collection as he no longer smoked a pipe. We picked up quite a few of his pipes and they included this beautiful Stanwell Made in Denmark Brazilia with a horn shank extension. It is a round apple shaped pipe with a round rim top curving from the sides into the bowl. The entire pipe had some beautiful mixed grain around the bowl. The rim top was covered with a thick tar and lava coat. The pipe was filthy but the grain underneath was rich and the finish looked like it would clean up well. The pipe is stamped on the underside of the shank and reads Stanwell over Brazilia over Made in Denmark. On the right side of the shank it is stamped with the shape number 87. The stem is vulcanite and has the Stanwell Crown S on the top side. The stem is dirty and had deep tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem at the button edge. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of the pipe before clean up.Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim from various angles to capture the condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. There was a thick coat of lava on the rim and the cake in the bowl. It appeared that the beveled inner edges were in good condition. The outer edges actually appeared to be in excellent condition. He also took a series of photos of the sides of the bowl and shank to show the straight grain around the bowl. It is very dirty but the grain is visible in the photo. Jeff took photos of the stamping on the underside and the right of the shank. It reads as noted above and is clear and legible. The horn shank extension is quite stunning and should shine up nicely. The next two photos show the stem surface. They show the deep tooth marks on both sides near the button. The stem is oxidized and has a thick build up around the button end.Jeff did his usual thorough clean up job on the pipe so that  when it arrived here in Vancouver it looked really good. Jeff reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the rim and the grime on the finish of the bowl of the pipe. He rinsed it off under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove all of the lava build up on the beveled rim top of the pipe. The rim top looked really good with a little darkening on the inner bevel toward the front of the bowl. The mixed grain stood out on the clean pipe. He soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer and was able to remove the oxidation. The pipe looked very good.I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work. I took a close up photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before he started my restoration of the pipe. The rim top was clean but had some darkening on the inside edge of the rim at the front of the bowl. It was solid so it was not charred. The horn shank extension looked dry and lifeless but otherwise in good condition. The stem was quite clean with some deep tooth marks on the top and underside near the button.I started the process of the restoration by working on the bowl. I worked over the inner bevel of the rim with 220 grit sandpaper to address the darkening and light damage.I polished the briar with 2400-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-4000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each pad. I found that with each successive grit of micromesh the grain on the bowl and shank sides stood out more and gave a shine to the pipe. The sanded rim top was beginning to blend in quite well. I stained the top of the bowl to match the rest of the bowl. I used a Maple stain pen and set it aside to dry.As is my pattern on these restorations, 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. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening is lessened. The finish looks very good with the rich brown stain on the bowl and rim. The horn has come alive once again and the striations of colour are rich. I am very happy with the results. With the bowl finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I filled in the deep tooth marks with black super glue and rebuilt the damage on the button. I set the stem aside to let the repairs cure overnight.In the morning when the repairs had cured I used a needle file to cut the sharp edge of the button and to flatten out the repairs. I sanded the stem surface with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out tooth chatter and light tooth marks. I polished the surface of the whole stem with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper.I touched up the Stanwell Crown S with a white touch up pen. I used a dental pick to push it into the grooves and polished the excess off with a coarse cotton cloth. I did it early in the polishing to make sure I did not polish off any of the deep grooves of the stamp.I continued to polish the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each pad. I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. Since I had finished both the bowl and stem I put them together and polished them both with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The mixed grain really began to stand out with contrast as I buff the bowl. The rich medium brown finish on the briar works well with the polished horn shank extension and the black vulcanite stem. Stanwell has a knack for making pipes that not only look good but also feel great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 1/2 inches, Height: 1 7/8 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. I will be putting this beauty on the rebornpipes store shortly and it can be added to your collection. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this beautiful Stanwell Brazilia 87 Apple.

The Decline of Restoring Old Pipes, Part 4/4: Fixing a Meerschaum Shank Everyone Thought Was Beyond Repair

1 Reply

Blog by Robert M. Boughton
https://www.roadrunnerpipes2k.com/
https://www.facebook.com/roadrunnerpipes/
Copyright © Reborn Pipes and the author except as noted

 To him that will, ways are not wanting.
— George Herbert, in Jacula Prudentusm or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (posthumous, 1651). 

RECAP
Part 1 hypothesized that the discontinuation, illegality and dwindling or total unavailability of vital materials, used in antique and other very old pipes, will lead to a serious crisis in restoring these heirlooms and otherwise prized implements of contemplation to their original conditions.  My main theme was the need for those of us in the business – having considerable, moderate or little experience under our belts – to learn how to overcome these difficulties that will become more acute all too soon.  In hindsight, I should have emphasized better the need for those who now have the know-how to use their own perhaps self-discovered and unique (read proprietary) heroic measures to cooperate in sharing them with the rest of us.

Part 2 described the first of three such repairs I have completed, its example being a Colossus Pipe Factory (CPF) Best Make turned lion’s head meerschaum with a gold band and genuine cherry red amber stem that needed reconnecting with a new bone screw tenon.  Five years after I began searching for the one part, I was compelled to send the otherwise restored CPF to a specialized repair service that may have been the only place capable at the time to affect the rehabilitation – for lack of a proper bone tenon or anyone to whom I could turn for instruction on how to repair damage to the inner shank.  Now I know the necessary work was relatively minor.

Part 3, taking the form of a fable, told of the misadventures of the Restorer during his two-year quest to cleanse of all evils a Kaufman Brothers & Bondy Blueline Bakelite dated by its owner to 1911 and entrusted to the Restorer’s care for a simple cleaning and restoring.  The ensuing calamities must be read to be believed.

INTRODUCTION
I became involved with this small old meerschaum smooth bent billiard by the most unusual circumstances of any restoration I’ve made so far.  My pipe club meetings take place the third Thursday of every month in a back room of the local Moose Club Lodge, where the Ladies of the Moose are gracious enough to cook a special dinner for us at a low price that just covers their expenses, not counting the tips we’re more than happy to contribute.

Before dinner was served at the December meeting, one of the ladies, Sherry, happened to buy two of my pipes.  One was the best I had, a beautiful Ben Wade by Preben Holm Danish freehand, and the other a vintage Dr. Grabow easy bent natural billiard.  Sherry didn’t know much about pipes but liked those two, which I let her have at the 15% club discount minus the usual $8.00 shipping fee.  She mentioned finding at a yard sale a little pipe, in a leather case, she described as very dirty but white underneath with a broken stem.  She thought it might be antique.  I told her it was probably meerschaum, explained what that meant, and  encouraged her to bring it with her the night of the next meeting so we could all have a look and see what might be done.

Before dinner was served at the January meeting, Sherry handed me the little brown case.  There’s something mysterious about such objects, teasing the beholder to approach and open them and reveal the secrets hidden within.  Nothing we’ve been taught by fables, folklore and outright superstition entreating us not to meddle with common-looking doodads, unless we’re prepared to face the unknown but likely negative consequences, is powerful enough to stay our hands.  “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp,” which was not added until 1704 to the original Arabic tales from the 8th-14th centuries, comes to mind.  The tale of the powers of the Magic Lamp, during more than three hundred years of oral and other popular re-telling, has been altered from its actual story in which all ends well to a warning to be careful what we wish lest we get what we ask for.  But in this event, the contents pf the brown case appeared benign. The top felt lining of the open box identified the meerschaum billiard as a First Quality, but whether that was an old brand name or the importer I have not been able to determine.  Sherry’s main concern, of course, was if her $8 yard sale find could be fixed so she could smoke it.  Seeing the severe damage to the inner shank, my hopes were not high.  I observed the stem that was with the meerschaum was too short and also smaller in diameter than the shank and suspected its use as a replacement of the original may have caused or worsened the harm. Still, with wishful thinking, I thought the gutted, ragged shank of the little pipe (only 5” long) might be mended with Plaster of Paris or some sort of putty.  I was sitting next to Don Gillmore, the artisan pipe maker whose business is called DW Pipes, and he nixed those ideas.  Any new stem and tenon, Don said, would not support the billiard’s weight with the sort of shank repair I proposed.  We passed it around the table, and that was the general opinion.  For such a small pipe, it was rather heavy, and at least part of me had to go along with everyone else’s verdict.

Sherry also wondered how old the First Quality pipe was.  The group conclusion was that it dated to between the turn of the 20th century and the 1930s.  Everyone agreed the stem was Bakelite, but in a later experiment that ended with shocking results I proved that was erroneous.  More about that later.

And so I had to tell Sherry, choosing my words with special care, that her pipe was very old but there was nothing we could do to attach a new stem.  Still I thought there might be some way to accomplish the feat.  I kept that to myself, however, instead offering to clean up the pipe and make it look nice, at least, at no charge.  I could see the well-masked disappointment on her face and had to bite my tongue to hold back my seemingly irrational hope so as not to risk another let-down.  For the meantime, Sherry let me take the pipe for cleaning.

George Herbert’s proverb, later reiterated as “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” is the prefect prelude to this blog.  Everyone else present at the January meeting of my local pipe club reached the same conclusion, that the restoration was impossible given the severe damage and known methods of repair I proposed that were intended for small jobs of meerschaum patchwork,  I even consulted our host, Steve, in a short exchange of emails in which I suggested more and more creative (meaning desperate) approaches   I should have accepted the wholly sensible belief that the smooth little billiard was past fixing when I received Steve’s emphatic consensus that any such approach would not support the inherent torque between the stem and shank.  In fact, for a moment I did give up hope   

I’m afraid my mind was already ensnared by what my dad always called a steel trap, however, and I had to find a means of escape even if it required sending the pipe to miracle workers such as the folks at Norwoods Pipe Repair, who had bailed me out several times already.  I was growing tired of such surrender, but with that end in mind, I sent Norwood the younger photos clarifying the damage and text adding every possible material of the main parts to be used, in the preferred order.  As always with that fine business, I had a positive response the same night.  Assured the job could be done, I prepared a realistic estimate of the amount Sherry would pay, with parts, labor, shipping there and back and the 11% tax included, and forwarded the good news to Sherry.

But you see, another aspect of Herbert’s collection I like is the comparison of the modern sense of the word outlandish in the book’s subtitle being “freakishly or grotesquely strange or odd” compared to the now archaic meaning, from the Old English utlendisc, as foreign or not native.  I also appreciate the translation of the main title, from Latin, referring to careful darts.

Remembering the antique CPF turned lion’s head meerschaum pipe I sent to Norwoods to have the original amber stem reattached with a new bone screw tenon, I took a closer look at the shank as it appeared before and after the wonderful work that was accomplished.  An outlandish notion in both senses of the word began to form in my mind.Notwithstanding my good faith communication with Norwoods, I knew I could accomplish the task myself.  Because of the way the CPF’s previous shank threading was filled with some permanent solution, sinking the new bone tenon within it, all I needed was a practicable guess as to the solidifying substances used.

Thinking it might present somewhat of a difficulty to Don, I drove to his house and showed him the CPF.  After examining the shank for a few seconds, Don suggested epoxy mixed with powdered wood.  He half-filled a plastic 35mm film tube with the latter – more than I’d need for far more meerschaum repairs than I could make in quite a while – and said the epoxy was up to me.  Of more importance to me was his change of opinion regarding my ability to accomplish the task.

I cut in half my previous estimate of Sherry’s cost to fix her meerschaum pipe and sent her a new email asking if I could proceed with the work, guaranteeing the price.  It was the only time I’ve bid on a job, and my goal being less to make money than to demonstrate how this kind of meerschaum repair could be performed by almost any restorer (not to downplay my experience more than is appropriate), I decided to undercut the competition with assertive style.  Her reply was that if I was confident I could do the work, get on with it.

With the pipe already cleaned by then, I had reluctantly concluded an amber bit was not viable at the time because of general unavailability of any color without sending the pipe to someone else to do the work.  I only had to acquire a Bakelite stem of an appropriate length and color (as close as possible to the orange of the poor replacement shown above, based on Sherry’s wish) and a selection of bone tenons and Teflon push-pull sets from which to choose when I decided the type I would use.

JH Lowe turned out to be the single supply store I found with all of the above but sold the push-pull sets in 12-packs.  I would only need one, and thinking I’d save on my expenses, I ordered a three-pack from Royal Meerschaum.Also, the JH Lowe bit page did not mention available colors, and the closest length was 3”, the standard.  For the pipe to fit its case as it had when first made, the bit needed to be 2½”.  On a tip from a friend, I called Tim West of JH Lowe and asked if he had any orange or even yellow Bakelite bits of the right length that were pre-bent.  Every source I had found, online and friends, stressed that Bakelite could not be bent.

CORRECTION TO PART 1: In the first blog of this series, I noted that hand-crafted old pipes, including the stems, were made to the exact and often eccentric specifications of the maker, and therefore one of the problems “for purposes of restoring old stems made of Bakelite…[is that] any necessary replacement can be reworked in only one way: fitting an over-sized stem of an otherwise suitable candidate to a shank by serious sanding or other such methods.  Any other alteration, such as bending or threading, is strictly impossible.”  When Tim repeated that Bakelite bits were pre-fashioned for individual pipes, I told him I was aware of that obstacle and it was, indeed, the cause of my greatest difficulty – finding one already bent.  Without a bent Bakelite stem, I added, I could not complete the project at hand.  With a little reluctance, Tim then insisted that although it is “tricky at low temperatures, Bakelite can be bent.”  He assured me he has succeeded in bending Bakelite “a little but not much.”    

Just to be on the safe side, I ordered a 3” straight bit that was dark reddish brown, a 2½” “orange or yellow” bit Tim was sure he had in a back room, whether or not it was bent, and a 12-pack of assorted bone tenons.  Both bits were pre-drilled for the “push” side of the set.  Given Tim’s qualification of the bending process being chancy at low temperatures, I reasoned, if need be I would crank the oven up a little at a time and see if the world’s first synthetic plastic became more malleable.  But Tim came through with all of it, including a 2½” easy bent yellow bit, leaving my experiment for a later date – but not too far in the future, perhaps even as a follow-up to these four blogs. By the way, Tim is experiencing technical difficulties with his website navigation menu.  As a workaround solution, he has made sure that browser searches for JH Lowe pull up direct links to each of his pages.  He apologized for the temporary inconvenience.

RESTORATION
The basic cleaning of Sherry’s pipe was finished the morning of January 18, the day after she left it with me for that reason.  I started with a simple wipe down using a small part of a paper towel and purified water and was amazed by the difference. Meerschaum rims tend to be easier to rid of char than wooden ones, and this was no exception, despite the awful looking burns, using super fine “0000” steel wool.  Exercising great care, I used a reamer to begin clearing the crusty chamber of built up cake, followed by 150-, 320-, 600- and 1000-grit papers.  I also applied the three finest-grit papers to the shank opening to make it smooth.I finished cleaning the outer stummel with a soft tooth brush dipped in purified water.Now, here’s where I had to start making the big decisions, the first of which was to use a modern push-pull set instead of a bone screw tenon for which the pipe was made.  I wanted to use the bone tenon, but that was my ego trying to get the better of me.  The most important factors were the integrity of the bit to shank connection and the pipe’s ultimate lasting use to its owner.  The next two photos show how the push-pull set is designed to be installed and the perfect fit of the push half in the bit.The reality of the situation, however, was that the correct insertion, or receiving, side of the Teflon set was the same diameter as the shank.  In other words, there was no way whatsoever that the right way would work.  Again, I wanted to go with a bone tenon that would have been good for my own use, but that would have meant more work and less strength for the pipe in terms of the higher risk of the actual owner breaking the fragile bone.

Since the latter was all that mattered, I used the easiest and safest improvisation of reversing the order of the push-pull set.  Even this required widening the mortise, and the only tools available to me for the procedure – one each slotted and Phillips head screw driver and a small but sharp pen knife – could best be described as inadvisable.  I proceeded with a mix of confidence and willingness to pay the price of a similar, name brand and definitely antique replacement complete with its own case that I took the precaution of making sure was available to Buy Now on eBay.

Starting with the pen knife, I whittled away the roughest area of the mortise, then inserted the slotted screwdriver with minimal force and very slowly turned the head until there was no resistance.  That left the mortise round and the thickness of the meerschaum even but a tad too small for the short end of the push side to fit snugly.  The Phillips head was wide enough to slide into the mortise with the same minimal force as before, and a couple of slow turns made the hole perfect.  The one good aspect of using the Phillips head was that it roughened the inner wall as the instructions for the upcoming epoxy and powdered wood application suggested.I had to pay Don one more visit to have the bit opening widened to accommodate the push-pull part usually inserted in the shank.  With his big power drill press that could be set to stop at the exact depth required, the task took Don only a few minutes.  I also picked up a band I wanted to put on the pipe, not for repairing a crack but for cosmetic and further support purposes.  Although I wanted to use a sterling band, the only type Don had on hand that fit was a 12½mm nickel one.Back at my own modest home workshop that night, using a file, I scuffed the parts of each push-pull half to be inserted in the bit and shank, as shown below with the shank side.  Then I ran a pipe cleaner through the mortise and draught hole of the stummel and another through the bit’s airway to prevent excess epoxy and shaved wood mix from seeping and setting inside either.  Sliding the Teflon parts over each cleaner so they were just above the connection points, I mixed a small amount of epoxy and powdered wood and applied the mix to the upper halves of the scuffed areas one at a time and pushed each into place when it was ready, knowing the adhesive concoction would spread out over the whole connectors.  The initial bonding took 60 seconds, during which time I moved both cleaners back and forth a fraction to assure they didn’t stick. Nine minutes later, the epoxy mix fully set, I removed the two cleaners that came out with no resistance.  The hardened, even fill of the adhesive solution is clear in the last photo.  I gave the push tenon inside the shank a good tug to test the bonding, and it didn’t budge.  Poking the re-cleaned thin metal shank clearer of my three-piece tool into the opening of the stem’s push-pull half, I angled it to grip the inner side and tugged, again without any movement of the part.

The longest, most difficult labor of the entire restoration still awaited me: matching the 15½mm bit opening to the 12½mm shank.  Most people think of 3mm as a small measurement, but any pipe restorer knows it’s a massive discrepancy. All of this adjustment required 150-grit paper and hours – over a period of days – of patience not to eliminate a fraction of a millimeter too much of the Bakelite after so much effort.  Here it is close to the end of the first stage, before sanding down the left shank to get rid of the chip and make the two halves of the pipe flush. Also still remaining was much of the tapered bulge, especially on the top, but I slowly worked it down before adding the band with a few tiny dabs of Super Glue.  Adding the band showed the sides of the shank that still needed to be evened out, which I did with 220-grit paper and super fine steel wool. After that, there was still one problem I had to address.  The mouthpiece was so wide that the leather case would not snap shut.  That meant an assault on both sides of the mouthpiece with 150-grit paper.  Fortunately, Bakelite, like acrylic, is more forgiving than Vulcanite/Ebonite as far as scratches go, and it was nice and smooth after a full course of micro mesh.  I also buffed the bit with carnauba on my electric wheel. Case closed, so to say.CONCLUSION
Not forgetting the mishap with the short, undersized bit that was used by a previous restorer, I determined it was not Bakelite.  After speaking with Tim at JH Lowe and before I received the needed parts that included a stem of the correct length and already bent, I decided to prepare for the possibility of needing to bend it.  And so I pre-heated the oven to 250° F and placed the old bit inside on a piece of aluminum foil.  Not even 10 minutes later, in the living room, my eyes were watering, and I noticed smoke and a noxious odor.  Rushing to the oven and opening the door, I beheld what can only be described as vampire remains after exposure to sunlight.  Really, nothing was left but a small outline of black soot.  Even the tenon that we all believed to be bone had vanished.  Recovering from the shocking sight, I realized the bit had been the cheapest variety of plastic.

To be sure, Norwoods, with its two generations of experience, would have returned a pipe finished with a perfectly shaped bit, not to mention one made of orange amber and connected with a bone screw tenon in keeping with the ideal of completing such restorations with all of the original materials.  As far as my substitution of a Teflon push-pull tenon set goes, I stand by my decision that was based on the owner’s need for enduring enjoyment of her First Quality meerschaum pipe.  Concerning the slight bulge that remains in the bit, I’ll just say I did the best I could in the time allowed, by hand using paper without even the benefit of an electric sanding wheel.

Still, I will follow up with Sherry and offer to give the bit the finishing touches it could use.  But this restoration was a success in that I learned how to repair a mangled meerschaum shank on my own and now share the experience so that other restorers will have the same ability.  That, after all, was the highest goal of this series.

SOURCES
https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/os-XI/42/139/1538585?redirectedFrom=PDF
https://academic.oup.com/res/article/os-XI/42/139/1538585
https://rebornpipes.com/2018/12/16/the-decline-of-restoring-old-pipes-part-1-4/
https://rebornpipes.com/2019/02/05/the-decline-of-restoring-old-pipes-part-2-4-an-antique-cpf-meerschaum-five-years-finishing/
https://rebornpipes.com/2019/02/21/the-decline-of-restoring-old-pipes-part-3-4-sir-daryl-and-the-golden-blueline-bakelite/
https://www.royalmeerschaumpipes.com/Regular-Stem-Push-Pull-Fittings-p/sft-3.htm
http://www.jhlowe.com/misc-items.htm
http://www.jhlowe.com/bits-bakelite.htm

Underneath the grime was a Beautiful Butz Choquin Maitre Pipier Flamme

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue came from a group of pipes Jeff and I purchased from a fellow in Florida who was selling out his collection as he no longer smoked a pipe. The pipe is a beautiful Butz Choquin Maitre Pipier Flamme pipe. It is a flat bottom sitter with a square shank and a very uniquely shaped bowl. The entire pipe had some beautiful flame grain around the bowl and birdseye grain on bottom and top of the shank. The rim top was covered with a thick tar and lava coat that even went down the sides of the bowl. The pipe was filthy. But underneath I could see that the carver had done an amazing job utilizing the block of briar to maximize the grain. The pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads Butz Choquin over Maitre Pipier over Flame. On the right side of the shank it is stamped Fait Main over St. Claude France. The stem is vulcanite and has the inset BC circle on the left side of the saddle. It is a uniquely fit saddle stem.

Jeff took some photos of the pipe when he received them to show the general condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. The pipes from this collection were all very dirty and well used. The finish was covered with a thick coat of grime and tars. There was a thick cake in the bowl and lots of lava overflowing onto the rim top. It was hard to know if the edges of the bowl were damaged or not because of the cake and lava. The stem is dirty but it was in remarkably good condition under the grime. There were light tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem at the button edge. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of the pipe before clean up. Jeff took a photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. There was a thick coat of lava on the rim and the cake in the bowl. It shows the mess this pipe was in when we received it. The thick lava overflow on the rim top made it hard to know what the inner edges of the bowl looked like. It looked like there maybe some damage on the back inner edge toward the left side making the bowl out of round. The outer edges actually appeared to be in excellent condition.He also took a series of photos of the sides of the bowl and shank to show the straight grain around the bowl. The finish has a lot of grime and thick layers of tars on the surface. It is very dirty but the grain is visible in the photo. Jeff took photos of the stamping on the left and right sides of the shank. It reads as noted above and is clear and legible. The left side of the saddle stem has the typical inlaid BC in acrylic. The next two photos show the stem surface. They show the tooth chatter on both sides near the button. The stem is dirty and is lightly oxidized. I have worked on another Maitre Pipier not too long ago and wrote up a blog on it. It was a nice looking Calabash (https://rebornpipes.com/2019/02/14/a-butz-choquin-maitre-pipier-hand-made-calabash/). On that blog I included some overall information on the brand and I will repeat it here to set the stage.

Butz Choquin was a brand that I was familiar with having worked on quite a few of them over the years. I decided to check on a few sites to refresh the memory of the brand. I turned first to Pipephil and as usual the site gives a great summary (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-butzchoquin.html). I quote:

The origin of the brand reaches back to 1858 when Jean-Baptiste Choquin in collaboration with his son-in-law Gustave Butz created their first pipe in Metz (France). Since 1951 Butz-Choquin Site officiel Butz Choquin, pipes de Saint-Claude jura. BC pipe de bruyere luxe is a brand of the Berrod-Regad group (Saint-Claude, France).

I also found the line of Fait Main Maitre Pipier pipes listed. The pipe I am working on is stamped the same way as the one in the screen capture below. The shape is different but the rest is the same. The capture has a small paragraph on the line that reads as follows: Pipes of the “Maitre Pipier” séries were crafted by Paul Lanier until he retired and after him by Alain Albuisson. I turned then to Pipedia to see what I could find out there (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Butz-Choquin). I quote the article in its entirety as it gives a clear history.

The pipe, from Metz to Saint-Claude. Jean-Baptiste Choquin of Metz started out as a tobacconist. This enterprise was prosperous; he had several employees. Among those, there was a certain Gustave Butz who was its first workman and who became his son-in-law by marrying Choquin’s daughter Marie in 1858.

In 1858 Jean-Baptiste Choquin created, in collaboration with Gustave Butz, the Choquin pipe. This bent pipe with a flat-bottomed bowl was finished with an albatross-bone mouthpiece, fixed with silver rings.

In 1858, still in Metz, Gustave Butz built an establishment for the manufacture of the Choquin pipe which took the name of . In 1951, the Berrod-Regad company bought the trademark, continuing manufacture until 2002. Departing from Metz, the workshop was relocated to Saint-Claude, then also called “the world capital of the briar pipe,” under the Berrod-Regad group. The Berrod-Regad group would go on to completely rebuild the network of representatives until finally entering the export market in 1960 and has since won several prizes, as well as the Gold Cup of French good taste.

In a few years, the brand’s collection increased from ten to seventy series. 135 years after it was founded, the pipe is still well-known not only in France but throughout the world. In 2002, the Berrod family, wishing to preserve manufacture of pipes in Saint-Claude, handed over the company to Fabien Guichon, a native of the area, who will continue to develop the brand during the 21st century.

Jeff did an amazing clean up job on the pipe. When it arrived here in Vancouver it did not look at all like the same pipe we purchased. It is a beauty. Jeff reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the rim and the grime on the finish of the bowl of the pipe. He rinsed it off under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. There was still some shiny varnish spots on the shank and bowl so he wiped it down with acetone to remove the remnants of the old finish. He was able to remove all of the lava build up on the rim top of the pipe. The rim top looked really good with no damage to the edges of the bowl or the top. The flame grain stood out on the clean pipe. He soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer and was able to remove the oxidation. The pipe looked very good. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work. I took a close up photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before he started my restoration of the pipe. The rim top was clean but had some darkening on the surface at the back of the bowl. There was also some burn damage to the inner edge of the rim confirming my suspicions about it being out of round. The stem was quite clean with some light tooth marks on the top and underside near the button.I started the process of the restoration by working on the bowl. I polished the briar with 2400-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-4000 grit pads. I wiped the rim top down with a damp cloth after each pad. I found that with each successive grit of micromesh the grain on the bowl and shank sides stood out more and gave a shine to the pipe. I liked what I saw when I looked at it. I stained the top of the bowl to match the rest of the bowl. I used a Maple stain pen and set it aside to dry.I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the damage to the inner edge of the rim. I worked on it to remove the burn damage and to try to bring the bowl back into round.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar and the plateau 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. I buffed the rim top with a shoe brush to make sure that the nooks and crannies had the conditioner deep in them. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening is gone. The finish looks very good with the rich oil finish on the bowl and rim. I am very happy with the results. With the bowl finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded the stem surface with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out tooth chatter and light tooth marks. I polished the surface of the whole stem with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper.I continued to polish the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each pad. I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. Now with both parts of the pipe finished, I polished stem with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain came alive with the buffing. The rich medium brown finish on the briar works well with the polished, square, black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is a beauty and feels great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 1/2 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 7/8 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. This one will be going on the rebornpipes store shortly and can be added to your collection. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this Hand Made Butz Choquin Maitre Pipier Flamme pipe.

Giving New Life to a “Malaga” Custom Carved Acorn

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

I am working through a lot of the queue of pipes that are sitting in my repair bin in the evenings this week. Next on the table is another Malaga from Alex that he dropped off for a restoration. It is what Malaga called a Custom Carved pipe. It is an Acorn or Strawberry shaped pipe with a smooth finish. The top is slightly crowned with a flat rim top. The pipe has an unstained natural oil finish. The pipe had been lightly reamed and cleaned according to the seller. The bowl and shank were dirty but there was a light cake that was heavier in the bottom half. The rim top had a thick lava coat and some damage on the top surface. There was a deeper burn mark on the front inner edge. The pipe is stamped on the right side of the shank and reads “MALAGA” over Custom Carved. The finish on the pipe is spotty with a lot of grime and dust ground into the finish. The stem was very deeply oxidized and polished over the oxidation. There was tooth damage on the button itself and on both sides of the stem. The photos give a pretty clear picture of the shape of the pipe and its general condition when I received it. I took a close up photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before I started my restoration of the pipe. The rim top had some tars and lava build up but the edges were fairly clean. There was a light burned are on the right front inner edge of the bowl. The stem itself was an interesting mess. It had been shinned and polished but there was still some very deep oxidation that is visible – with the shine is a cloudy brown colour. There are also tooth marks on both sides of the stem and on the button surface. I took a photo to capture the stamping on the right side of the shank and one of the underside of the shank. The first photo shows stamping as noted above. The stamping on this pipe is clear and readable. This time it includes the quotation marks that show up on various Malaga pipes. There was also the letter C was stamped on the underside of the shank at the stem/shank junction. I believe this refers to the fact that the pipe has the Malaga Carved finish. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the brand, I am also including the link to a blog that I wrote that gives some of the history of the Malaga brand and the Malaga Pipe Shop in Royal Oak, Michigan in the USA. Here is the link – https://rebornpipes.com/tag/malaga-pipes/. That blog also includes links to a catalogue and the history of the pipemaker George Khoubesser. If you are interested to learn more, than I invite you to follow the link to get a feel for the brand and the pipemaker.

I reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to clean up the remaining cake and to scrape away the tars and lava on the rim top.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed the bowl under running water and dried it off with a soft cloth. I took photos of the bowl at this point in the cleanup process. I started my work on the pipe topping the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper. I wanted to remove as much of the damage to the rim top as possible and minimize the burn damage on the front edge of the bowl. Once I had the bowl topped I repaired a damaged spot on the front of the bowl with clear super glue and briar dust. While the repair dried I used a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth out the inner edge of the bowl. Once the repair cured I sanded it smooth. I polished the bowl, shank and the freshly sanded rim top with 2400-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the rim top down with a damp cloth after each pad. I found that with each successive grit of micromesh the grain stood out more and gave a shine to the pipe. I liked what I saw when I looked at it. 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. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening is gone. The finish looks very good with the rich oil finish on the bowl and rim. I am very happy with the results. I cleaned out the airway in the shank and wiped out the bowl to clean out the tars and oils. I used a dental spatula to scrape out the hard tars that coated the walls of the mortise. I scrubbed it with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol. With the bowl finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a lighter to raise the deep tooth marks. Heat can raise dents and level out the surface of the stem. Even though I was not able to remove all of them I was able to remove the majority.I filled in the remaining two tooth dents on each side of the stem with clear super glue and set the stem aside to let the repairs cure.Once the repairs cured, I sanded the stem surface with 220 grit sandpaper to blend in the repairs with the surface of the stem and to remove the oxidation. I am happy with the stem surface once that was done. I started the polishing of the surface with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper.I cleaned out the airway in the stem with alcohol and pipe cleaners until all of the tars and oils were removed.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each pad. I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. Now with both parts of the pipe finished, I polished stem with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain came alive with the buffing. The rich oil finish on the briar works well with the polished black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is a beauty and feels great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 3/4 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. This one will be going back to Alex with the rest of his pipes that I am working on. Thanks for walking through the restoration on this Custom Carved “Malaga” Acorn.

Restoring a Malaga Custom Carved Freehand

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue is yet another interesting pipe from the Michigan lot – a Custom Carved Malaga Freehand with plateau on the rim top and horn(?) shank extension. The entire pipe had some beautiful straight grain around the bowl and birdseye grain on bottom and top of the shank. The plateau rim top had some darkening but was otherwise in good condition. The pipe has a natural oil finish that really makes the grain on the pipe pop. The carver did a great job utilizing the block of briar to maximize the grain. The pipe is stamped on the underside of the shank. It reads “MALAGA” (over) Custom Carved. The stem is vulcanite and has no marking or stamping on it. It is a typical freehand style saddle stem. This is another nice looking piece much like the rest of those in this 21 pipe Michigan pipe lot. The Malaga Custom Carved Freehand I am working on is shown on the second shelf of the rack pictured below. It is the first pipe from the right and I put a red box around it to make it easy to identify.Jeff took some photos of the pipe when he received them to show the general condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. Like the rest of the pipes from the Michigan collection this pipe was well used. There was a thick cake in the bowl and some lava overflowing onto the plateau rim top. It was hard to know if the edges of the bowl were damaged or not because of the cake and lava. The exterior of the briar was dirty with grease and oils from being held. The horn shank extension was dull and the fit was not perfect on the shank. The stem is dirty and there were deep tooth marks on both sides of the stem at the button edge and some wear on the button edge itself. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of the pipe before clean up. Jeff took a photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. There was a thick coat of lava on the rim and the cake in the bowl. It shows the mess this pipe was in when we received it. The thick lava overflow on the rim top made it hard to know what the inner edges of the bowl looked like. The outer edges actually appeared to be in excellent condition. The plateau top had a lot of grease and grime in the crevices of the top.He also took a photo of the right and underside of the bowl and shank to show the straight grain around the bowl. The finish is very dirty but the grain is visible in the photo.Jeff took photos of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It reads as noted above and is clear and legible. The horn shank extension was worn and there was grime in the junction of the horn and the briar. The next two photos show the stem surface. They show the tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. There are also some marks on the sharp edge of the button. The stem is dirty and is covered in scratches. Jeff reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the rim and the grime on the finish of the bowl. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove the lava build up on the rim top and you could see the overall condition of the bowl top and edges of the rim. He scrubbed the stem with soap to remove the grime on the surface. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started work on it. I took a close up photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before he started my restoration of the pipe. The rim top was clean but had some darkening on the surface at the back of the bowl. The stem was quite clean but had tooth marks on the top and underside near the button. There were also tooth marks on the button surface on both sides. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the brand, I am also including the link to a blog that I wrote that gives some of the history of the Malaga brand and the Malaga Pipe Shop in Royal Oak, Michigan in the USA. Here is the link – https://rebornpipes.com/tag/malaga-pipes/. That blog also includes links to a catalogue and the history of the pipemaker George Khoubesser. If you are interested to learn more, then I invite you to follow the link to get a feel for the brand and the pipemaker.

I started the process of the restoration by working on the damage to the joint of the horn shank extension and the briar shank I sanded the joint with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the transition and make it more seamless. I polished the freshly sanded horn extension and the smooth briar with 2400-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-4000 grit pads. I wiped the rim top down with a damp cloth after each pad. I found that with each successive grit of micromesh the striations in the horn shank and the grain on the bowl sides stood out more and gave a shine to the pipe. I liked what I saw when I looked at it. I decided to save the 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads until after I had addressed the rim top and inner edge. I turned to work on the darkening and damage to the rim top and edges. I addressed the damage on the inner edge first. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to give the rim edge a slight bevel. I dry scrubbed the rim top with a brass bristle tire brush to remove the darkening around the plateau high spots and the grooves. I was able to remove much of the damage. When I finished with the rim edge and top clean up I went back to the micromesh sanding pads. I polished the horn shank extension and the bowl with 6000-12000 grit pads and wiped it down with a damp cloth after each pad. I rubbed down the shank extension with Obsidian Oil when I had finished and set it aside to dry. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar and the plateau 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. I buffed the rim top with a shoe brush to make sure that the nooks and crannies had the conditioner deep in them. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening is gone. The finish looks very good with the rich oil finish on the bowl and rim. I am very happy with the results. With the bowl finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I filled in the deep tooth marks and dents on the both the top and underside of the stem and on the edges of the button on both sides with clear super glue. When the repairs had cured I used a needle file to flatten the repaired spots in preparation for sanding. I sanded the stem surface with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the waves, remove the oxidation and smooth out the tooth marks on the surface of the button. I sanded with long strokes on the surface to blend in the high and low spots. I am happy with the stem surface once that was done. I started the polishing of the surface with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each pad. I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. Now with both parts of the pipe finished, I polished stem with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain came alive with the buffing. The rich oil finish on the briar works well with the horn shank extension and the polished black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is a beauty and feels great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 1/2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. This one will be going on the rebornpipes store shortly and can be added to your collection. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this uniquely carved Malaga Custom Carved Freehand.