A Reborn Peterson Tankard

Blog by Steve Laug

I have looked for one of these little Peterson Tankards for a long time. I have always liked the delicate simplicity of the pipe. The bowl is a round tankard and the pencil shank with the silver Peterson collar looks elegant. The rim is rounded and crowned. The stem has a gentle bend that allows the pipe to sit plat on the base. It is stamped on its base Peterson Tankard, Made in the Republic of Ireland. The pipe is pictured in the photo below, the third pipe down. It was one of the five I found on my recent pipe hunt.The Tankard was in worn but decent shape. The finish was dirty and there was darkening around the bowl middle from the hands of the previous owner. The rim had a thick buildup of tars and oils that had hardened. There were burn marks around the inner edge of the rim at the back of the pipe and the right front. The burn on the front of the bowl was more extensive that then one on the back inner rim. The bowl had a thick cake in it and the shank was dirty. The stamping was readable but faint. The stem had tooth marks on the top and bottom sides of the stem near the crease on the P-lip. It was badly oxidized and there was a heavy calcification around the stem about an inch in from the button. The silver ferrule was clean and would shine up easily. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer to remove the cake back to bare wood. I scrubbed down the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap on a cotton cloth and wiped it off to clean the briar. The next photo shows the reamed bowl and the caked rim top. It was very thick so it would take some work with sandpapers and oil soap to remove the tars. I scrubbed it with the soap and then with alcohol to remove as much of the tars as possible. I then sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge. I wiped it down with acetone once I had finished sanding it. The extent of the rim damage can be seen in the second photo. I wiped down the finish with acetone on cotton pads to completely remove the wax and the finish from the outside of the bowl. I set the bowl aside to work on the stem. I used a Bic style lighter to “paint” the surface of the stem and lift the tooth marks. Doing this I was able to remove many of the tooth dents and lessen the depth of the remaining ones. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the rest of the dents and the oxidation and calcification. I reshaped the button and the crease to sharpen them. There was one tooth mark that I could not minimize further without damaging the thickness of the stem at the crease. I used a clear super glue to fill that spot. Once the glue had dried I sanded it and then used a needle file to reshape the crease and smooth things out. I sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges until I had blended it into the surface of the vulcanite. I sanded the stem with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads to polish and finish it. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three grits. Once I finished with the micromesh pads I buffed the stem with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax to protect it and give it a deep shine. I decided to leave the finish natural and not stain it. I rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil to enhance the redness of the briar. I took a close up photo of the rim to see if the scratches were still visible. At the back side of the rim there were still some scratches that I needed to work on more to remove. I also wanted to see if I could also remove some more of the rim damage from the burn marks.I sanded the rim with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to work on the scratches and the burn marks. Working on the surface with the sanding sponge I was able to remove the scratches and some more of the burn marks from the surface. I sanded the bowl with the same fine grit sanding sponge and then buffed it with White Diamond. I took special care around the stamping to make sure that I did not damage the light stamping. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and lightly buffed it to a shine with a soft flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe is shown below. The birdseye grain on the sides and the cross grain on the ends both work really well. It is a beautiful pipe and I think it will be a great smoking pipe as well. It should provide many more years of service and certainly live beyond my lifetime to be passed on to a new generation of pipemen.

Breathing New Life into an Astleys 48 Cherrywood

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Blog by Steve Laug

The third pipe from my recent pipe hunt that I chose to restore was the last one pictured below. It is a rusticated Astleys Cherrywood style pipe with a tight rustication pattern resembling a sandblast. I think the process may have been to rusticate and then to sand down the high spots until they were smooth. The texture is really well done and comfortable to hold. The pipe is a light weight with a classic look.The finish was in pretty good shape with a few worn spots where the stain was rubbed off on both the bowl and shank. The rim had a buildup of tars and oils that had hardened and formed a scale on the rim. The bowl had a thick cake that choked out the diameter of the bowl. The stem had been over bent to the point it hung oddly in the mouth rather than the way the original bend had made it hang. It was also oxidized and had a buildup of calcium around the button end of the stem that covered several deep tooth marks on both the top and bottom sides of the stem. As shown in the photo above the bowl had been stamped on the smooth bottom of the bowl. It read Astleys over 109 Jermyn St.Under that was stamped London over 48. I looked up the shape in an old Astleys catalogue (page pictured below) and found the 48 was round Cherrywood Briar. The description stated that it was a copy of an old English cherrywood with a flat base. The correct bend can also be seen in the photo below from the catalogue.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to bare wood. The oily, sweet, aromatic smell was more than I wanted to deal with in terms of ghosting.I cleaned out the internals with isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs and pipe cleaners until they came out clean. I scrubbed the pipe with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a soft tooth brush for the sides and shank. I used a brass bristle tire brush to clean off the buildup on the rim. I then scrubbed the rim again with soap. When the scrubbing was finished I rinsed it with running water and dried it off with a cotton towel.I used the stain pens from Greg to touch up the worn spots on the finish of the bowl and shank. I buffed the bowl with a shoe brush once the stain was dry.Once the bowl was cleaned and buffed I turned to work on the stem. I used a needle file to give better definition to the crease on the button and clean up the bit marks on top of the button on both sides. I heated the tooth marks with a Bic lighter to raise them and then sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the small marks left behind. I also sanded to remove the calcium and oxidation on the stem.Up to this point I worked on the stem off the pipe. I avoided the area on the saddle where it sat against the shank so as not to round the shoulders. I cut a plastic washer and put it between the stem and the shank to allow me to work on the shoulders without damaging them when I sanded. I lightly reworked that area with the 220 grit sandpaper and then sanded the entire stem with medium and fine grit sanding sponges.There were still some small divots in the top of the stem so I removed it from the pipe and sanded them once more with the 220 grit sandpaper and the sanding sponges.I sanded the stem with the usual battery of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. As the stem absorbs the oil the oxidation comes to the surface and the oil makes sanding much simpler. When I finished with the 12,000 grit pad I gave it a light buff with White Diamond.I gave the light spot on the shank shown in the above photo a touch up of stain and then put the stem back on the pipe and buffed the whole pipe lightly. I gave the bowl several coats of Halcyon II wax and then buffed the stem with more carnauba. I gave the entire pipe a light buff with a soft flannel wheel. The finished pipe is shown below.

A Face Lift for a Battered Old Meerschaum Bulldog – Robert M. Boughton

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“Age should not have its face lifted, but it should rather teach the world to admire wrinkles as the etchings of experience and the firm line of character.”
— U.S. author Clarence Day, 1874-1937

INTRODUCTION
I agree that facelifts in most cases are attempts, nothing more than vain at best and narcissistic at worst, by those with money to burn to avoid the inevitable, and often enough have undesired effects the recipients deserve. However, in the case of a very battered and generally abused meerschaum pipe, as with some people who have suffered at the hands of others, at least a bit of a makeover is in order. This holds true with a bulldog, the animal breed of which many coarse or misguided folks think lacks beauty in the first place.

The unknown brand I will discuss, clearly a fine Turkish block example, is one of those exceptions. For reasons which will be obvious it resembled a dog that had been in a fight. I received it as part of a lot of eight from eBay that I purchased in large part because I saw the poor bulldog alone among all of the briars, and upon closer scrutiny with the magnifier observed it was filthy and somewhat oddly colored and had horrible scratches all over its once smooth, white, pristine body. Some unknown carver trying to eke out a living as his father and generations before him had done likely made it without even a signature of any sort, as is unfortunately all too common among Turkish crafters due to the central nature of humility in Islamic beliefs.

THE RESTORATION
This unfortunate meerschaum was in about as bad shape as I had ever seen any pipe I still wanted to buy. I thought, if not I, then who? There were others of more merit in the lot, but that one cried out to me. Then again, I do have a sizable collection of meerschaums and knew I would be more than happy to keep that one if things didn’t work out restoration-wise. A former roommate told me many years ago that I am attracted to strays, and although he said it with sarcasm I told him he was right. I see nothing wrong with that trait. By the way, I also tend to root for the underdog – although not as often in organized sports– such as the bull versus the matador. Nothing pleases me more than seeing a jerk in a pompous outfit, with all kinds of helpers, gang up on a bull and find himself gored and bleeding out. But that’s just a dark part of me.

THE PIPE RESTORATION
I have had fair success restoring meerschaums, including the following befores and afters: And so I figured I would give this poor ol’ dog a shot: Despite the deplorable condition of the bowl and rim, I knew from the past that they would be the easy part of this job, so I tackled them first. I reamed the bowl and then used #800 micromesh to smooth it out. Surprisingly, with a light touch and a piece of 400-grit paper, I took the blackness right off of the rim and didn’t hurt the coloring at all. There were a few dings that rubbed out easily with #1000 micromesh.

The hard part, I knew and remember already indicating, but it bears repeating, was to remove as many of the scratches and other blemishes as I could with a minimum of damage to the nice if oddly distributed color on the outside of the bowl and shank. The spread of yellow and orange, not to mention the lack of any shine to the meerschaum, suggested over-hot smoking of this delicate if strongly shaped and named pipe. That conclusion would seem to be a no-brainer given horrendous caking within the bowl and cooking of the rim. And somehow I doubt the maker never treated it with beeswax or something else, yet it was as flat as could be.

My experience with washing the outside of a pipe with distilled water in general is that it seems to give a brighter light on the job at hand by removing all of the filth that has built up over time smoking any pipe. I could see this one was going to be worse than most, but nothing prepared me for the indefensible groping with dirty hands by whatever anti-aficionado of pipe smoking who had abused the bulldog with apparent joyful perversity. Why, I even had to scrub the muck out of the trademark groove beneath the rim! The result was not one or two, but three small pieces of cotton cloth spent and blackened with the physical dirtiness of some variety of pipe lecher.

Therefore, with the highest care, I applied stronger use of the #1000 micromesh to the seemingly endless scratches and other stray marks, like signs of skin cancer, that were everywhere. When I had stopped and resumed again time after time, finding more and more marks upon this wonderful pipe, I was at last as satisfied with the results as I knew I would ever be.

Then I used more stem cleaners and pipe freshener than I had ever expended on a single pipe, let me just say that, to sanitize the stem, shank and bowl, and by the end of it I have to admit only the stem came out perfectly clean. But I knew it was sanitized and ready to smoke one good bowl of tobacco, so I chose my own blend of burleys, Oriental, perique, a touch of Cavendishes and a bit of Virginias including red cake that I call Sneaky Rabbit (and which will soon be a house blend at my favorite tobacconist) to smoke the pipe once.
True enough, I wanted to know how this unusual bulldog smoked, but my main reason for lighting up a pipe I intend to sell and therefore knew I would have to give another quick clean was to heat the meerschaum enough to melt beeswax from a bar evenly over the outer area. I swear to it! I had researched online different processes for accomplishing this necessary completion for previous restorations, and the method I described had worked before so I knew it would again.

And so, once the smoking enjoyment had reached a high enough degree, I began applying the beeswax as described, and it worked just as well as I was certain it would. I took my last puffs of the pipe and cleared out the ash with care quickly before rubbing the beeswax vigorously into the meerschaum with a big soft cotton cloth.

The stem, despite the awful damage inflicted on the meerschaum, to my great surprise was in okay shape and only need some sanding and micro-meshing to prep it for a spin on the wax wheels.

Here are the final results: CONCLUSION
This was a work of love, and I know the results are a little rough around the edges. But I was determined throughout the process to assure that no more damage than had already been perpetrated against this pipe be made. It is already up for sale, but if nobody ever buys it, I know it is safe in my possession.

Restoring a Dunhill Shell Billiard 42121

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Blog by Steve Laug

Of all my finds on my recent pipe hunt this little Group 4 Dunhill Shell is one of the favourites. It has a great sandblast that really had some nice craggy grain. The finish was in good shape. The rim was dirty and had a slight build up of oils and tars. The bowl was caked with a thick cake. The stem was oxidized and also had a calcium buildup for the first inch of the stem. The stem had an inner tube inside that was slightly bent that kept the stem from seating correctly in the shank. There were several shallow bite marks on the top and bottom sides of the stem near the button. Internally the stem and shank were surprisingly clean. It is stamped on the underside of the shank with 42121 Dunhill Shell over Made In England and next to the D of England was an underlined and superscript 20 next to that was an underlined 23. Using John Loring’s Dunhill Briar Pipe book the dating is 1980 as seen by the underlined 20 slightly elevated and following the D. The underlined 23 indicate that it was sold in 1983, due to the one year guarantee.The next photo shows the buildup on the rim that needed to be dealt with in a cleanup and restoration of the pipe.I cleaned out the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and 99% isopropyl alcohol until the cotton swabs and pipe cleaners came out clean. I scrubbed down the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap on cotton pads and then rinsed it off with running water. I dried it with a cotton towel.I scrubbed the rim with a soft bristle brass tire brush to clean off the tars and oils and open up the sandblast on the rim. I scrubbed it with a soft cotton pad and alcohol to remove the pieces left behind by the wire brush.I touched up the finish around the edges of the bowl rim and the end of the shank. I also touched up spots on the sides of the bowl and the bottom of the shank. I used the Guardsman Stain pens that Greg sent me to do the touch up work. I chose to use the lightest stain pen as it matched the colour of the bowl precisely. When I use these pens I always start with the lightest stain and work toward the darkest until I get a match. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove the oxidation and the calcium deposits. I “painted” the tooth marks with the flame of a Bic lighter to lift them closer to the surface and then sanded what remained with 220 grit sandpaper and the sanding sponges.Taking a cue from Al Jones I made a plastic washer to put between the shank and the stem to make the sanding of the saddle simpler. I could sand right up to the edge without damaging the end of the stem and rounding the edges. I sanded the stem with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. Between each set of three pads I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil before moving on to the next set of three. When I had finished with the 12,000 grit pad I took the pipe to the buffer and buffed the stem with White Diamond. I lightly buffed the bowl and the stem once again with the White Diamond and then used Halcyon II wax on the bowl and carnauba on the stem. I hand buffed the pipe with a shoe brush and raised the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. I am looking forward to loading an aged bowl of McClellands 5100 and having the inaugural smoke in this beauty.

Restoring a Yello-Bole Imperial Bulldog for John

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Blog by Steve Laug

The last of John’s pipes that I worked on while he was working on the Danish Sovereign Peewit was a beautiful old Yello-Bole Bulldog. It was stamped KBB in a cloverleaf on the left side of the shank next to four lines of stamping. The first read Yello-Bole and underneath that was stamped Cured with Real Honey and an R in a circle. The third line read Imperial in script and the fourth read Imported Briar. The stem had a push tenon and had the yellow circle inset in the vulcanite. It is shown in the photo below – it is the last pipe in the column on the left side of the photo. This pipe actually was one of the free ones that came with the pipe rack that John purchased. It was sitting on the rack without a stem. The stem was inside the humidor jar. I had seen it before and had assumed that the tenon was broken but it was not. It was just very loose and would not stay in the shank. The metal spacer that separates the shank and stem was attached to the stem and not to the bowl. The bowl itself was very dirty and caked. The finish was not too bad and there were no deep dents of scratches in the briar just some ground in grime. The rim was caked with a thick buildup of tars and oils that had almost fossilized. The stem was in good shape other than being oxidized. There was tooth chatter on the top and underside of the stem.

I used cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol to clean out the bowl, shank and the inside of the stem. I worked them until them came out white. I scrubbed the aluminum space with alcohol and then with a metal polishing cloth to bring back the original shine. I wiped down the briar with acetone on cotton pads to remove the grime from the finish of the bowl and the grain underneath really popped. The rim buildup was so hard that I used the topping board and sandpaper to remove it and lightly sand the rim surface itself to remove the pitting. I sanded the outer edge with a folded piece of sandpaper to minimize the rough spots on the edge. I sanded the rim with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I touched up the rim with the stain pens until it matched the stain colour on the bowl. I then wiped down the pipe with some olive oil on a paper towel and let it soak into the finish. I sanded the stem with 220 sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter and oxidation and then with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12,000 grit sanding pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil after each set of three pads. When I had finished with the sanding I buffed the stem with White Diamond. To make the stem snug in the shank I used a cotton swab and water to wet the mortise in the shank to swell the briar. This helped a lot and the stem was much tighter. It was still too loose to my liking so I ran clear superglue around the tenon and lightly sanded it to obtain a snug fit on the stem. I put the pipe together and buffed it with White Diamond. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to seal and protect the stem and bowl. I buffed it with a soft flannel buff to get the shine. The finished pipe is shown below and is yet another clean and ready pipe for John to load and smoke. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of the smoking characteristics of this old timer. It turned out to be a beautiful pipe with nice looking mixed grain. The old vulcanite was interesting to me in that it had pieces of metal that were part of the casting of the stem. I remember reading somewhere that these occurred in stems that were made during the war years when rubber was at a premium. To my thinking that helps to date this bulldog to the late 1940s or early 1950s. Enjoy your “new” pipe John and be sure to let us know how it smokes for you.

Changing Directions in the midst of a Refurb – Plugging a Burnout in a Paul’s Canadian

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Blog by Steve Laug

I am finally getting around to cleaning up the pipes I found on my recent pipe hunt. I decided to choose what I thought would be the easiest one. It was filthy and greasy. The top looked like it had been used as a hammer. I figured that it would clean up quickly and I liked the look of the briar that was peeking through. The bowl was stamped PAUL’S on the underside of the shank and Italy across the end of the shank. There is a stylized P on the stem. There was a sticky glue on the briar in several places that I think came from the price tag that was on the pipe. The bowl was really dirty and over reamed. The bottom of the bowl was almost flat. But there was a buildup of carbon from the top down about half way and there was tobacco fragments in the bowl bottom. The sides were no longer parallel and the airway entered above the bottom of the bowl. The stem was oxidized and had tooth chatter on the top and bottom of the stem. I cleaned up the sides of the bowl interior with a PipNet reamer and used a dental pick to remove the detritus on the bottom of the bowl.I scrubbed the exterior of the briar with acetone to remove the grit, grime and grease from the finish. It actually took off the grime and took it down to the nice grain that I had seen peeking through. I think that the briar is oil cured as there is an oily texture to the wood. The top was so beat up that it had to be topped to smooth out the damage and restore the clean edges. I set up a topping board and worked on the top until it was smooth and the outer edges were sharp and well defined. I sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to further clean up the finish. There was some darkening on the sides and bottom of the bowl and I wanted to bring it back to the same look as the shank and the rim. The idea was to bring the pipe back to clean and natural finish so that if I stained it the blend and matching would be much easier. I decided to soak the bowl in an alcohol bath to remove some of the oils and grease on the surface. While it soaked I worked on the stem.I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation, calcium buildup and tooth chatter. I carefully sanded around the stamping on the stem to preserve it. I used a needle file and a sanding stick to rework the edges of the button and sharpen the crease. I took the bowl out of the alcohol bath and dried it off. Once the inside had air dried it was time to raise the bottom of the bowl to the bottom of the entrance of the airway. I mixed a batch of plaster of Paris and packed it in the bottom of the bowl until it was level. Things were looking good at this point. Once it was dried I would give it a coat of pipe mud and it would be good to go. That was when things began to go south for me! I was sanding the bowl bottom and had found a spot that seem to give as I sanded on it. I had wondered if the bowl bottom was too thin from the over reaming but had not seen the soft area of the briar. I used a dental pick to exam the spot and with very little effort the end of the pick went right through the bowl bottom! BURNOUT. I poked around some more and found that there were several very soft spots. This was not what I wanted to find on what I thought would be a very easy clean up!! YIKES.With very little effort the entire area that was darkened broke away. I used a drill to clean up the ragged edges and make the hole round. I used a Dremel with a sanding drum to even out the edges and used it on the inside of the bowl to bring it back into round on the side where there had previously been a slope from a bad over reaming job. I had a round piece of briar left over from a plug I had cut for another burnout I had repaired. I smoothed out the bottom of the plug and fit it into the hole in the bowl. Once the fit was good and snug I glued it in place with wood glue then a top coat of super glue. While the glue was hardening I used the Dremel and sanding drum to take off the excess briar from the plug. I sanded the plug with 220 grit sandpaper to shape it to the curves of the heel of the pipe. The spots that appear as gaps around the plug are where the glue has already dried hard. These will disappear as the glue cures and hardens. I sanded the entire pipe with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge and then wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratches from the finish and blend in the patch with the surface of the briar. I left the pipe overnight to give the glue time to cure. In the morning I sanded the bottom area of the bowl to smooth it out as the areas around the patches had swollen above the patch when they dried.Since the briar had been oil cured I decided to rub it down lightly with some olive oil and let it soak in. The next four photos show the pipe after the light rub down with oil. I spent a bit of time thinking about the next steps in the process. I had a decision to make – whether to leave the plug smooth and just stain the pipe and keep it glaringly present or to rusticate the bottom of the bowl and blend the plug into the rustication pattern. I decided to rusticate it. I took out the rusticator that Chris made for me and drew a boundary line around the area on the bottom of the bowl that I wanted to rusticate. I pressed the rusticator into the briar and twisted it until the surface was roughened I used a brass bristle wire brush to knock off the loose briar and smooth things out. I buffed the rustication with White Diamond to smooth the high points.I stained the rusticated area with a black aniline stain and flamed it to set the stain. I sanded the lines around the rustication and the peaks on the rustication as well to get the look I wanted for this piece. When I came home from work this evening I decided to extend the rustication back along the shank. I used the rusticator to work the briar and then stained the entire rustication with a black aniline stain. I sanded the stem with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads to bring out the shine. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. I mixed a batch of Plaster of Paris to rebuild the bottom of the bowl and raise the part that was untouched by the plug to the same height as the plug and to the bottom of the entrance of the airway from the bowl. I inserted a pipe cleaner in the airway and put the mix into the bowl. I tamped in the plaster mix with a pipe nail and the cuticle tool. It dried to touch fairly quickly and I wiped down the walls of the bowl with a cotton swab and water. I smoothed out the bottom of the bowl the same way. Once the plaster has cured I will give the bottom of the bowl and walls a thin coat of pipe mud to preserve and protect the new plug and the freshly shaped briar on the walls of the pipe.I buffed the bowl and stem with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a soft flannel buff to raise a shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The soft colour of the oil cured briar and the light coat of olive oil bring out the grain. The contrast of the rustication on the bottom of the bowl and the black stain on that gives the bowl a fresh look. One of the side benefits of the added rustication is that the bowl is now a sitter whereas before the rounded bottom of the shank made that impossible. The pipe needs to cure for a few days and then I will give it an inaugural smoke. .

Giving It the Old College Try, As a Favorite Substitute Teacher Used To Say – Robert M. Boughton

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“What is the real purpose behind the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus? They seem like greater steps toward faith and imagination, each with a payoff. Like cognitive training exercises.”
— Author Chuck Palahniuk, in a Seattle Times interview, November 18, 2005

INTRODUCTION
Attention, working memory, processing speed, long-term memory, visual processing, auditory processing, logic and reasoning are the primary aspects of cognitive thinking, or the ability to learn. That’s why I kicked myself, in the figurative sense of course, the other day when I finished this restoration project and discovered I had deviated from my normal habit of photographing each part of the project – in this case, the pipe before it was restored. I mean, that’s not really an important step, after all, only the key to understanding the significance of the end product.

My excuse is that I bought a lot of eight pipes on eBay, knowing they were in foul condition but rather desperately needing more ware for my online store, and in the repetitious task of documenting all of their original conditions from every angle, the one slipped past me. However, being more attentive by nature, I have managed to forgive myself, if not without some wicked self-chastising.

Anyway, I bought that particular set for several reasons: nobody seemed to see what I did, that hidden in the apparent wreckage (at least to someone with an eye to get past all of that) were an unusual Savinelli huge billiard, a Ropp cherry wood, a smooth and well-colored old meerschaum bulldog and a Longchamp pigskin billiard, all of which appeared to be vintage; the bidding was low, I thought – I won for $32.50 with free shipping, more than the price for any one of them with careful work – and I was determined to have them, without sniping, at a sane cost I was confident of achieving by scaring off the competition with a max bid that had to seem outrageous to the others who were watching. I wonder if any of the unfortunate amateurs even took another look to see who won. And, oh, the thrill of victory in the best example of the open market that is eBay, even at its downright dirtiest.

Only one of the eight, a very old corncob, was burned out. In fact, that is putting it over nicely, for there was a glaring hole in the bottom that I confirmed with a poke from my pocket three-in-one pipe utility tool, but even it offered an excellent age-browned stem and gold-colored shank plate that fit an old restore with a crack I’ve been working on. The beautiful Savinelli Punto Oro marked “Herman Marcus” – which the eBay seller misidentified in the ad as a “Neiman Marcus” – on the right shank is very badly caked like the others and has an original short stem that for whatever hair-brained reason was bent up and back and not surprisingly has a chunk out of the lip. Call it foolhardiness or even plain arrogance, but I think I can fix the chunk. The other six pipes are finished, but this account concerns only one.

THE PIPE RESTORATION
My blog today is about a lesser-known pipe brand called Monarch, which was established in Hartford, Connecticut in the 1930s and also distributes the Carey Magic Inch and Aerosphere pipes. Specifically, this concerns an apple shaped sitter with a bizarre patented tenon that screws into the shank. Once inserted with great difficulty, the tenon leaves a jet engine-like protrusion with a tiny piece of the rod that snaps onto the stem. At the time I believed my greatest problem would be disassembling the pipe, as something within the complex tenon system went awry and left the stem and cap spinning out of control with no purchase whatsoever. Naturally, I consulted my friend and mentor, Chuck Richards, first. He examined the pipe, sighed, made a doubtful face and suggested I give the whole thing a hot alcohol flush to see if that might loosen things up. But he was making no promises. And so, just for backup, I emailed our host, Steve, and posed my question. He said he had encountered the same problem once or twice in the past, and the only way he was able to get the pieces apart was to wiggle the stem carefully back and forth for as long as it took to do the job. Steve suggested the process could take some time and be quite tiring.

And so I decided upon a course of compromise. I gave the pipe a normal cold alcohol flush just to remove some gunk, which it did, and as I was quick to wipe up the overflow, it cleaned the bowl and shank well also. Then I commenced the wiggling. Steve was correct. The darned thing wanted to put up a fight. But maybe I lucked out, or the pipe just felt the negative vibes beginning to emanate from my psyche, because after about a half-hour of this nonsense the stem popped off. I was sure I had broken it!

Uncovering something out of a sci-fi comic book from back in the day, before anyone from Earth at least had ever traveled into space, or perhaps more like a diagram one might see in an old tech manual on airplane engines, I grasped the bowl and shank firmly in one hand and seized the curious bulb with two fingers of my free one and tried my hardest to twist. This approach got me nowhere but hot and sweaty.
Acutely aware of how easily I might demolish the entire pipe with one fell move but needing in the worst way to get that thing out of the shank, I wrapped the extending end of the tenon in a few small pieces of cotton and found some pliers. I started with the least necessary force and worked my way up a few notches before thinking better.

Sitting down and applying all of that processing (in particular visual), logic and reasoning I mentioned in the beginning, I noted the small opening in the exposed end of some sort of rod as yet unknown to me but most certainly to become so. And I remembered something (learning) I had done before to extract similar parts jammed in admittedly more sturdy objects. Rummaging through my toolbox, I found a small screw and screwdriver and with all due respect for the frail pipe, not to mention the unknown integrity of the odd tenon, forced the screw a short distance into the hole, where it jammed as I had intended.
Reversing the turn of the screw, no pun intended, I was rewarded almost at once with movement of the rod. Soon it became loose enough to finish by hand, and then the whole, approximately two-inch, grimy rod, along with the bulbous end and the stem cap, were in my hands. I know pride is supposed to be a sin, but not in all cases, and at any rate, there it is.

The patented supertenon, which appeared not to be intended for removal in order to accomplish such trivial tasks as cleaning the pipe now and then, suddenly told me, as clearly as if it spoke the words, why I found it and the inner shank coated with vile muck accreted over the decades. Intense alcohol scrubbing with stem cleaners corrected that problem.

But then there were the bowl and rim to make right again, and I emphasize that term. The iniquitous conditions of the two, un-photographed as they may be, can be approximated by a shot I took of those areas of another pipe from the same lot:Although clearly not even the same material as the Monarch apple, the rim scorching and cake buildup in the bowl are for all intents and purposes identical.

I reamed that bowl with vigor and then sanded it, first with 150-grit paper and then 400, for about 40 minutes, until it was completely clear of carbon and down to the briar at the top. I used 220 on the rim, then micro-meshed it with 2400.

In this way time flew, and the hour arrived to reassemble the pipe. I really had no idea how that would go, but after a few tries I managed, with the rod inserted through the holes on either end of the bulb and decorative cap that was attached to it, to turn the crazy tenon as far as it would go back into the shank. Relieved that the cap was snug in place, I made several tries to line up the tiny exposed end of the rod with a space station-like dock deep inside the hollow stem. For some odd reason I felt like Major Tom floating in a tin can. At last I heard a happy click of connection, and the pipe was as whole as it could be.
You see, that was the problem right there. Even after I buffed up the stem with red Tripoli and White Diamond, and the briar with the works, I just was not satisfied with the wicked little Apollo 13 shimmy thing going on between the stem and the tenon. My attention, working memory, processing speed, long-term memory, visual processing, logic and reasoning were all whirring at full capacity as I tried to rationalize putting this piece of horse pucky up for sale on my new Web store, but something in my subconscious still refused to learn this new trick.

Therefore, I went to the Google chalkboard to see if I could work it out by looking up “Monarch tobacco pipe tenons,” which was actually a suggested search, and found images of them. And what do you know, but right there, number one, was my hideous creature. Take special note of two items of intelligence we can gather from this photo: the significantly greater length of the rod sticking out of the bulb, and the still far too big of a gap between the exposed rod and the connector in the stem of my Monarch. The first thought I had was to disassemble the doggone thing again and see if I had somehow made a mistake – which does happen sometimes – and perhaps the tenon was screwed in too tightly. I’m sorry to say it wasn’t.

Still, the exercise in self-doubt was a success in that without it I might not have observed the length of the tenon loose in my hand again and imagined it re-inserted into the shank without the bulb and cap in the way. I mean, I never really liked it from the beginning, let’s face it, and so the notion of tossing it into my growing assortment of pipe odds and ends was rather appealing.

I made a battlefield decision and thought, what the heck. I’ve already spent too much time on this fanciful, vintage and even patented experiment in pipe making, so what are a few more minutes? After re-screwing in the rod without the bulb and cap, I snapped on the stem – and it indeed was a much better fit.
CONCLUSION
Now that all is said and done, I am happy that I did the work of making this sad example of pipe craft look beautiful again and ready to smoke in some fashion. But the bottom line is, I don’t even want to keep it around to use for my own enjoyment, so I certainly won’t sell it to anyone. First thing after finishing this blog and dispatching it, I intend to remove the pipe from my online store, where I have already posted it for $35. To me that would be the same as robbery, and even offering it free with the purchase of another pipe would be a cruel joke to play on some unsuspecting customer. Besides, it would only come back to me by the power of three times three. Maybe I’ll give it to a friend who is particularly fond of apples, with a copy of this blog. At least I have made it reasonably easy to remove the so-called tenon now.

To me, this is the real purpose behind the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Learning.

John’s First Restoration – A Danish Sovereign Peewit #30

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When John and I got home from our pipe hunt we spent the evening and the next morning working on the pipes he had found. We figured that the best way for him to learn how to refurbish pipes was to work on this lot together. That way he would learn as he worked with me on the pipes and we could discuss any issues that might arise during the process of the cleanups. He was intrigued with the idea and liked working with his hands so it seemed like this might be a part of the pipe smoking hobby that he could use to unwind and clear his thoughts from the heavy work of his day to day work as a Presbyterian minister. For his first pipe to refurbish he chose to restore a Danish Sovereign Peewit Shape #30. It is shown in the picture below and is the second pipe in the first row at the top. Walking through the entire process with him on this pipe and one of the others that he did taught him everything from removing the cake, cleaning the finish on a bowl and restaining it to cleaning and polishing a stem to the point that it shone. Once again I forgot to take photos of the pipe before we started but remembered after I had reamed it with a PipNet reamer. The bowl was badly caked and the rim had a thick buildup of tars and oils. The briar had a nice blast on it and the stain was worn in quite a few spots. The stem was odd on this particular pipe. The tenon had a sleeve on it that added diameter. It appeared that somewhere along the way the shank had been redrilled larger than the original tenon so the sleeve was a necessity. The bowl was drilled way off centre to the right so the airway entered the bowl on the right side of the bottom of the bowl. The bowl itself was round but the pipe itself was way out of round with far more briar on the right side than the left. John scrubbed the bowl with a tooth-brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and the old finish. He used a dental pick to remove the remainder of the buildup on the top of the rim. He rinsed it under running water to remove the soap and grime and dried it with a soft cloth. He used a dark brown stain pen (thanks Greg) to match the stain on the bowl in those areas on the shank and rim where the stain had worn off. He buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax and hand buffed it with a shoe brush. The stem needed a lot of attention. There were some tooth dents in the surface of the stem on the top and bottom side. We set up the heat gun and heated the vulcanite to lift the dents. We also adjusted the bend in the stem while we were at it with the heat gun. The next photo of the end of the tenon shows the sleeve that had been added to the tenon to increase the diameter. John sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the calcification and the oxidation. He also used that to sand out the remnants of the tooth marks after we heated the stem. He then sanded the stem with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratch marks left behind by the sandpaper. Once finished he moved on to sand with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I had him rub the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. He buffed the stem with White Diamond and then we waxed it with some Renaissance Wax (he will not have access to a buffer at home so I was trying work as much as possible without one). I had John give the pipe another coat of Renaissance Wax and buff it with a shoe brush to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below in all of its new sheen. I think John will enjoy smoking this one. I know when I refurbished my first pipe it seemed to smoke exceptionally well. I think it is the time spent bringing it back to life that makes this happen. Great job on this one John, it is a refurbished pipe to be proud of. Be sure to let us know how it smokes when you fire it up.

Restoring a Peterson Dunmore #72

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Blog by Steve Laug

The Dunmore line from Peterson really is a stripped down pipe. The one that I worked on this weekend was in essence a system pipe. The lack of a ferrule is made up for by a stylized carving around the shank end. The stem sits snugly against the end of the shank but is not flush with the diameter of the shank. The saddle on the stem has a different flair than a regular Peterson pipe. The one we found had a Plip stem. This particular Dunmore was found by my friend John when we went pipe hunting this weekend. We had a blast as can be seen from the haul of pipes that he picked up below. The Dunmore is picture at the top left of the first column in the photo below. below. While John worked on restoring the oak pipe rack that he had found I worked on his Peterson Dunmore. This old pipe had some beautiful grain – birdseye on both sides and cross grain front and back. The bowl almost perfectly aligned with the grain on this one. I forgot to take pictures of the pipe before I began cleaning it up so the only one that is left of the pre-clean is shown in the group photo above. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and then cleaned out the sump and the internals of the bowl and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol until all came out clean. The finish on the bowl was virtually non-existent as it had worn away. I wiped it down with acetone to clean the briar and remove the oils and marks that had settled on top of the wood. The acetone pads came away dirty with the grime more than with any previous colour or stain. Cleaning the surface revealed even more clearly the marvelous grain that was on this pipe. The top of the bowl and rim had some damage from tapping out the pipe. The outer edge of the rim particularly had taken a beating. The bowl was still in round so the inner edge was fine. To minimize the damage to the top and the outer edge I set up a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper and worked on the bowl top. (The whole time I was working on this pipe I gave a running commentary to John as he wanted to know the process so that he could clean up some of the other pipes once he had finished the rack). After topping the bowl I sanded the outer edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to remove some of the darkening around the bowl top. I resanded it with medium and fine grit sandpaper to remove scratches and did the same to the rim top. I sanded the entirety of the rim and edges with 2400 grit micromesh to smooth it out. After wiping down the briar with alcohol to remove the dust from the surface of the bowl John and I decided not to stain the pipe but to keep it natural. I rubbed it down with a bit of olive oil to give some life to the wood and then buffed it with White Diamond. I was careful to not buff the areas around the stamping so as not to damage them. I chose rather to buff these areas by hand with a shoe brush. I gave the bowl several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff to shine it. There were two small crevices that showed up on the inside of the bowl on the right side about ¼ inch below the rim. I mixed a batch of pipe mud and filled the small crevices and smoothed the mud over the surrounding area of the bowl. I set it aside to dry while I worked on the stem.

The stem had a lot of tooth chatter and a few shallow tooth marks on the top and the bottom next to the button. It also had a deep oxidation that required a lot of elbow grease to remove. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the surface oxidation and the calcification near the button. I “painted” the stem with my Bic lighter to raise more of the oxidation to the surface and also to raise the small tooth marks on the stem. I sanded it some more with the 220 grit sandpaper followed by a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. That work brought it to the condition shown in the next two photos below. I sanded it with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down between each set of three pads with Obsidian Oil. After finishing with the 12,000 grit pad I buffed it lightly with White Diamond on the wheel and then rubbed it down one more time with the oil. When it had dried I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it to a shine. I hand buffed the completed pipe with a bit more wax and a shoe brush to finish the polish. The finished pipe is shown below in all of its beauty. I am really glad we decided to leave the wood natural and only give it a light oil finish before waxing. The grain stands out well and the feel of the pipe in hand is very nice. John loved the finished pipe. I am looking forward to hearing from him once he has smoked it a few times.