Cleaning up a Swedish Bromma Dollar System Pipe

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Blog by Steve Laug

I picked up this old Swedish Pipe in a little town in Northern Alberta, Canada. It was an antique mall, the only one in town and I was able to pick up this one for about $10 so I did not feel too bad about it. I had not seen one of these pipes before. It is stamped BROMMA over Sweden on one side of the shank. On the other there is an Elephant logo in a circle and inside the circle is the word DOLLAR. The bowl is briar and the rest of the pipe seems to be either plastic or Bakelite. It is interesting. I was able to take the stem out when I picked it up but the bowl would not budge. It was definitely a screw on bowl as it was on crooked and at somewhat of an angle. The stem had tooth chatter on the top and bottom but no tooth dents. I sprayed some solvent on the bowl stem connection to try to loosen it. I twisted it carefully but it would not budge so I set it in my box of pipes for repair.

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Today was my day to work on it. I took it out of the box and gave the bowl a twist and it would not budge. I used the sanding board to top the bowl and once it was smooth and clean I wiped the entire bowl with acetone. I was careful not to get any on the shank or bottom of the part. I then used Isopropyl and a cotton swab to swab alcohol around the bowl and the bottom portion of the pipe – the keeper for lack of a better word. I repeated this several times and tried to carefully twist the bowl off the keeper. I repeated the swab and alcohol until finally I was able to twist it off the keeper. The next two photos below show what I found inside the keeper portion of the pipe. This is amazingly like the stem portion of the Falcon pipes. The difference is the material it is made of. It is incredibly lightweight and resilient. The base was absolutely full of hardened tars and sludge. My guess is that it had never been taken apart after the initial purchase and after the bowl was put on and misaligned. This would take some work to be sure. The stuff was as hard as rock and would not budge with a pipe cleaner.

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I decided to drop the bowl into the alcohol bath and let it soak away while I worked on the stem and base portion. I used my dental pick and Isopropyl alcohol to work at the rocklike tar in the base. I soaked the tarry stuff with alcohol and picked at it with the dental pick. Once I had some of it loose I would use the cotton swabs to daub out the gunk and alcohol and then repeat the process. The next series of three photos show the process of picking away the tar and the results after wiping it clean with the swabs. I probably used about 60 or more swabs and removed a lot of the gunk from the bottom of the base. I soaked it and kept at it. I used 0000 steel wool to scrub the tars once I had the majority of the material picked free. Then I took it to the sink and used a microfiber cloth to scrub the base with hot water and degreaser.

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The next two photos show the inside of the base after it has been thoroughly cleaned. The shank itself was almost like a Kirsten barrel and need lots of soft tissue and cloth run through it until it was clean and shiny on the inside. The photos are slightly out of focus but the cleanness of the base is very visible.

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I then removed the bowl from the alcohol bath and went to work on it. I picked out the two putty fills with my dental pick. I also followed the threads with the dental pick to remove the grime and grit that filled the threads and did not allow the bowl to be threaded on correctly. I also used a bristle tooth brush and alcohol to scrub the bottom of the bowl from the threads down to the nipple like structure on the bottom. The next four photos show the bottom of the bowl and the threads after cleaning them. There is an inset portion of the bowl bottom that is like a moat around an island that has the moutainlike nipple in the centre. This took quite a few cotton swabs to clean the grime out of the channel. Once it was clean there is a patent stamp on it. It reads Pat. S. I am guessing it is a Swedish Patent mark. The portion of the bowl that is threaded seems like it is made of the same kind of material as the base of the pipe. The mountain in the middle is briar. It is an interesting and unique design. I am looking forward to firing it up and giving it a smoke once it is finished.

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Once the bowl was clean I decided to replace the fills with briar dust and super glue. The next series of photos show that process. I had already picked out the putty fill. I used a dental pick to tamp briar dust into the pits on the bowl. The first picture shows the briar dust before I wiped it smooth and added a few drops of super glue to the mix. The second and third photo are a bit out of focus but show the repaired fills after I sanded them down with sandpaper to smooth the surface to match the surface of the bowl.

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The bowl was now ready to be stained with an oxblood coloured aniline stain. I applied the stain with a cotton swab and then flamed it and buffed it off. The first two photos below show the stain applied and ready to be flamed with a match. I held the bowl with a dauber so that I could manipulate it to apply the stain.

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The next two photos show the bowl after a buff with Tripoli. I had not polished them at all at this point I merely buffed off the stain to get an even coat on the bowl sides and rim. The great thing with the briar and super glue fill is that it takes the stain and darkens with the finish coat. It is far more attractive to me than the pink putty fills that were originally present.

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The next two photos show the pipe taken apart. There is the bowl base and long shank that is made of the plastic or Bakelite material, the bowl itself. It has a small burn mark on the top of the rim but I left it rather than take it down any deeper into the surface. The third portion is the stem unit with a four finned stinger apparatus. The airflow is straight through from the bottom of the bowl to the slot in the button. The stinger with cooling fins is designed to cool the smoke and trap the tar and oils along the fins. This portion and the inside of the stem took work to clean. It is open enough to take a pipe cleaner through it with no problem.

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The final four photos are of the complete pipe reassembled and ready to smoke. I coated the bowl base and stem with Obsidian Oil and then hand waxed it with Halcyon II wax and buffed it to a shine by hand as I did not want to risk it on the buffer. I have had this kind of material melt when buffed so I am shy to try it on this pipe. The stem was sanded with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit and then polished with Maguiar’s Plastic polish as I have been doing on all of the pipes lately. I put some carnauba wax on the threads of the bowl to lubricate make the threads as I screwed on the bowl.

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McClelland Tobacco Company – Levin Pipes Personal Reserve Series Brochure

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I had this great old document on my hard drive and thought I would share it with you all. It is an interesting piece of pipe and tobacco history. Many of the tobaccos mentioned in this document are still made by McClellands and available in their current lines of tobaccos. The description are great.ImageImage

New Life for a Wally Frank Super Delicious Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

I have become familiar with many of the Wally Frank lines of pipes but this was one I had not heard of before. It almost sounds like something to eat rather than smoke. It is stamped Wally Frank Ltd on the left side of the shank and on the right Super Delicious – interesting stamping indeed. The pipe was one of the bowls that I had in my box needing to be restemmed. It also had a cracked shank that was present before I matched a stem to it. Often a shank will crack like this if a tenon that is oversized is forced into the shank. That obviously had happened to this old pipe sometime in its life. I found a stem that fit the shank and inserted it enough to show the crack in the shank for the first photo below. The crack approximately ½ inch long and was in a portion of the shank where it was thinner than the other side. One of the challenges in restemming these older pipes is the fact that the shank is very often out of round and the stem has to be shaped to match it accordingly. The bowl has some nice grain on it and was well worth restoring. The remaining three photos in the first group of four show the grain and shape of the pipe. Note that rim was not only darkened but was worn on the front edge of the outer rim.
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I reamed out the bowl and removed the cake that was present only in the top half of the bowl. It seemed that the lower portion of the bowl was not even broken in. The top of the bowl needed to be topped to even out the flat top of the bowl. The way the angle was after the tars and grime were removed was d a slight slant toward the front of the bowl and the front edge was rounded from tapping out the bowl repeatedly on a hard surface. I used the board and sandpaper to top the bowl and even out the top. I also made certain that the bowl was held against the board to even out the angle and make the top smooth and flat. The first photo below shows how out of round the shank is in proportion to the mortise. Notice the difference in thickness all around the shank diameter. The crack in the shank is at about 3 o’clock on the shank. The next two photos show the bowl after it has been topped and is even with no slant toward the back or front of the bowl.
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After I had topped the bowl and evened things out I wiped the entirety of the bowl down with acetone on a soft cotton pad to remove the grime and the remaining finish on the bowl. It came off almost black when I was finished cleaning it. I then needed to band the crack shank. I opened it with the stem and then dripped a bit of superglue in the crack before pressure fitting the band in place. The first photo below shows the shape of the shank and makes the thin area very clear. This would require quite a bit of shaping to make the stem fit the shank correctly. The next two photos show the banded stem and how it fits on the shank. I kind of like the look of the band against the natural colour of the briar.
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The next two photos below show the stem shape after I had removed much of the material at the top left corner of the picture. The stem is round at this point but the tenon is no longer in the center of the stem. It is proportionately toward the top left of the picture and on the top bottom when it is in place in the shank.
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At this point in the process I restained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain that I thinned with isopropyl alcohol so that it would match the colour of the bowl. My goal was to match the rim that I had topped and was raw briar to the natural patina of the bowl and shank. I mixed the stain until it was the colour I was aiming for and then stained the entire bowl with multiple applications of the stain to the rim. I flamed the stain and reapplied it to the rim, flamed it again and then took the pipe to the buffer. I buffed the bowl and stem with Tripoli and White Diamond. Once I was done with that I buffed the bowl and shank with multiple coats of carnauba wax to bring depth to the shine and also to blend the rim and bowl together.

I then worked on the oxidation of the stem. I had shaped it to fit the shank with my Dremel and when it fit well I sanded the stem from front to button with 280 grit sandpaper and then 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper to remove the oxidation and scratch marks from the Dremel. Once it was smooth I progressed through the micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit. In between 4000 and 6000 grits I polished the stem with Maguiar’s Scratch X 2.0 and then finished sanding with the micromesh. I finished the stem with a coat of Obsidian Oil and then multiple coats of carnauba wax to give it shine. The next series of four photos show the finished pipe. It is shined and ready to smoke.
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Refurb on a Loewe & Co. Lovat

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This old Loewe was an easy one to refurbish. When I removed it from the box it was clear to see that it was barely smoked… In fact it had  it had no cake in the bowl and did not seem to be even broken in. It would take very little to clean out the bowl and polish it and the stem. The pipe is stamped L & Co. and has an older style orific button – the button style and the stamping point to it being an older Loewe pipe. It is in good shape for an old timer and is typical of this era of Lovats in terms of size and shape – 4 1/2 inches. In terms of issues it has a small hairline crack in the right side of the bowl from the rim down about 1/8 of an inch. The finish was dirty but the stain was intact. The stem had minor oxidation.
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I wiped off the bowl with some Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and grit of the years. I used the soap to also scrub down the rim. I buffed the bowl and the stem with Tripoli and White Diamond to bring back the shine and take care of the minor oxidation. Once it was clean I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to bring back the shine. Though the crack is virtually invisible it is present under careful examination. It has not been a problem thus far and should last at least as long as I am able to use it. In fact my guess would be that it outlasts me.
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Father Tom – A Problem of Focus

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Father Tom was having a hard time focusing. No matter how hard he tried he could not keep his mind on the work in front of him. That would not have been bad in itself had it not been that the work to be finished was his sermon for the next day. Because of that he did not have the luxury of putting it off to another day. But the deadline did not seem to give him any impetus and his mind kept wandering in a variety of directions – none of which converged on the text of the sermon. He found himself looking at the pipes that were on his desk that needed to have his attention. The older he got the more he found delight in the restoration of pipes that he would pick up on his travels. He loved handling them and trying to listen to their stories. He loved reworking them, cleaning them, refinishing them. But today was not supposed to be about that it was about writing the sermon for Sunday. He had to try to settle down to the work at hand. What was it going to take to get his mind on task? He had the outline that he had written sitting on the desk in front of him… along with about four pipes in need of various repairs, some remnants of sandpaper that he used on them, some tenons and stems… but none of that was getting the sermon finished. Try as he might he could not focus.

Finally he gave up and turned away from trying to work on his sermon text. He knew that eventually he would get back to it but it just was not happening at the moment. He left it on the desk in front of him, just in case he had the urge to get back to it. He rationalized that a good pipe of his favourite Virginia would help him focus. He picked up his old BBB bulldog and packed it with the tobacco of choice and fired it up. As he sipped on the smoke, tamped it a few times, relit the bowl he also picked up an old pipe from the repair pile sitting on his desk. It was a promising looking GBD billiard that he had found at a flea market a few days earlier. It did not appear to need a lot of work so it would not take a lot of time to get it cleaned up. He turned it over in his hands and looked at the rim and bowl. He sniffed the bowl to see if he could identify the tobacco that remained. He looked over the damage to the rim and noted that under the buildup of tars and juices it was still smooth. Ah, he thought to himself this would be a relatively easy cleanup. Without any hesitation he took out his cleaning kit and began to wipe down the rim and bowl with a soft cloth and his special mixture to loosen the grime. He continued to smoke his pipe as he worked on the old timer. Soon he was lost in the task in front of him. All thoughts of other things were pushed to the side as he wondered about what stories this old pipe would tell if only it could speak.

He was puffing on his pipe and talking to himself while working while he worked. The old pipe in his hands had a small wad of tobacco left in the bowl. In fact it was about half full and unlit. It was as if the pipe was being filled when it was set down. It made him wonder what had interrupted the process. Where had the pipeman gone leaving behind the half-filled bowl? Why hadn’t he come back to finish packing the bowl? While mulling these things over Father Tom had finished working on the rim. It was clean so he scraped out the old tobacco onto a paper on his desk – yes onto the sermon notes if you must know. He did not even seem to notice this fact. He took out a pipe reamer and gave the bowl a quick ream to smooth out the cake. Then he took the pipe apart and worked on the inside of the shank and bowl. He used the isopropyl alcohol that also sat on his desk next to the study books – kind of a ready bookend for what he was reading… in preparing his sermon. He ran pipe cleaners through the shank to clean up the tars and dust. He finished and laid the pipe aside then picked up the stem. He was fortunate as it was fairly clean. There was no oxidation to deal with and no tooth marks. He ran pipe cleaners through it as well until they came out clean. He then put the pipe back together and took it out to his buffer.

He kept the buffer in the laundry room so that he could access it quickly from his study. He buffed the pipe and waxed it until it shone. When he was finished he carried it back to his desk. At that moment he noticed the dottle and carbon dust on his sermon, mumbled to himself, shook his head and carried his paper to the waste can next to his desk. He shook the tobacco and carbon into the can and then took a tissue from his desk, wiped off the remaining dust and tried to remove the stains from his papers. He shook his head while mumbling to himself that it did not matter and went back to the desk. He laid down his now finished pipe in the pipe rest and took the jar of tobacco from the corner of the desk. He packed the newly cleaned pipe, tamped it down and fired it up. He spoke his thoughts out loud, “Now to finish that bowl for you.”

As he sat enjoying the smoke, the thoughts of the pipe’s previous owner went through his mind. There was a satisfaction about reclaiming an old pipe and putting it back into service. He wondered again about the original pipeman who had left his bowl half packed. What had happened to him? He shook himself and turned back to work on his sermon. He smoked the “new” pipe contentedly and picked up his pen. He scanned through his notes and made a few corrections to the text. He turned to the carbon stained page and put the final touches to the manuscript. He read through his final draft as he puffed on the pipe. “Not bad, not bad at all”, he said to himself. I have no idea if he was talking about his sermon or the pipe full of Virginia that was smouldering under his nose. I guess we may never know but in fact it does not matter at all. Time to light a bowl of my own and get back to working on the pile of papers on my own desk… now where was I?

Reworking a Dr. Grabow Viscount

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I had this old bowl in my box of pipes to refurb. It needed a stem and it needed a good cleanup. When I took it out of the box to match a stem to it, I noticed that it had some pretty nice grain under the cherry red stain. It seemed like it had a nice dark contrast stain added to bring out the grain and then the red stain was over that. On top of the red stain was a coating of varnish or lacquer of some sort. That topcoat was peeling and the red beneath it was also rubbed off. It seemed like the red stain was more of a wash on top of the bowl rather than one that permeated the bowl. I went through my can of stems and found an old saddle stem that fit quite well. It was badly oxidized but I liked the overall look of the pipe with the saddle stem.
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With the state of the finish I decided to wipe it down with acetone to remove the varnish/lacquer finish and see what I could do with the stain. I was not overly concerned as I figured I would need to remove the red topcoat and start over. The wiped off portions of the finish would require a restain. I just was not sure what was underneath the topcoat. Sometimes on these older Grabows there are a lot of fills hidden under the opacity of the topcoats. I was hoping that this would not be the case with this one. I used a cotton pad wet with acetone to wipe down the finish on the bowl. The rim took a bit more work to remove the tars and build up. I used a fine grit sanding pad and carefully removed the grime while leaving the finish intact. I wipe the bowl down with about three pads and acetone. The result is seen in the photos below. The grain and the stain on this one was beautiful. It has a great contrast stain that makes the grain pop and the lighter reddish brown stain provides a soft canvas to highlight the grain. Once the red finish was removed I left the bowl as it was. I buffed it with White Diamond to polish and remove any remaining red portions of the stain. Then I waxed it with multiple coats of carnauba wax. I put the stem in an Oxyclean bath to soak while I continue to polish the bowl and finished cleaning out the interior of the shank and bowl.
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The stem took a lot of work as the oxidation was very deep. I soaked it twice in the Oxyclean bath and sanded it with micromesh 1500 and 1800 grit sanding pads between soaks. There was some deep, stubborn oxidation on the flat portion of the blade – about mid stem. It was very hard to remove. I sanded it with 2400-3600 grit micromesh and then polished with Maguiar’s Scratch X 2.0 polish repeatedly. Eventually the stubborn oxidation came to the surface and I was able to remove it. I then continued to sand on the stem with the higher grits of micromesh sanding pads – 4000-12,000 grit. I find that the higher grits really deepen the shine of the stem. Each successive grit of micromesh pad brought more of a polish to the stem. The hardest spot at the end was the saddle area. In the photos below there still remains a bit of oxidation that I am still working on – this is particularly clear in the photo of the underside of the pipe.

Ah well – here is the reworked Dr. Grabow Viscount. It is ready to load up a bowl for its new inaugural smoke.
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GBD Bulldog #549 New Standard Restoration

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I picked up this New Standard GBD bulldog on Ebay recently.
They briar had quite a build-up of what I hoped was just tars on the bowl top and the stem had a small amount of chatter that I thought could be removed.

I reamed the bowl and soaked in in 91% isopropyl alcohol and sea salt.  The stem was soaked in a 3:1 solution of Oxyclean and water.  I put a dab of grease on the brass GBD rondelle.  Here is the bowl soaking in oxyclean.

After a few hours of soaking in the Oxyclean solution, the stem was ready for sanding.  I removed the teeth chatter with 800 grit wet paper. One tooth indention remained, but it was small enough I didn’t bother trying to fill it.  1500 and 2000 grit wet papers were used next to bring up the shine.  The stem looked like this after the 1500 grade paper:

I then buffed it on a machine with tripoli rouge which removed most of the oxidation.  Then, back to the micromesh papers, using the 8000 and 12000 grades of paper to bring up the shine.  The stem was then finished with white diamond on the buffer followed by an automotive plastic polish.

After the bowl was done soaking, I turned my attention to it.  It was buffed on the wheel with tripoli, white diamond and finally several coats of carnuba wax.  Despite the heavy cake and tar buildup, inside the  shank was really clean inside.  So, I anticipate no ghosting.
Below is the finished pipe, which is being enjoyed by its new owner who lives in Norway and happens to be a reader of this blog – Enjoy!

A Bruyere Dublin – Given New Life

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This little Bruyere pipe came to me in a box from a friend in Germany. It had a lacquer coat on the bowl and the rim was blistered a bit and the outer edges damaged from tapping it out. The bowl had a light cake that was incomplete – leaving the bottom of the bowl uncaked. The stem was oxidized but did not have any tooth marks or dents on it. The overall condition was promising and needed a bit of time. I removed the stem and put it in the Oxyclean bath that I have made up. It takes a full scoop of Oxyclean and two cups of warm water. It has a lid so I shake the mixture until it is well mixed. The stem sat in the bath while I worked on the bowl.
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I reamed the bowl with the smallest bit on my Pipnet reaming set. I wiped the top of the bowl and the outside of the bowl with cotton pads soaked in acetone to remove the lacquer finish. I find that while the acetone does not remove the lacquer it does soften it enough that it sands off easily. I set up the sandpaper on the board I use for topping a bowl and work the top of the bowl on the sandpaper until it was smooth and the roughened edges were not as noticeable. I then used sandpaper to bevel the outer edge of the rim to further hide the rim damage. I sanded the entire bowl using 380 grit sanding pads and removed the remaining lacquer finish. I wiped it down between sanding with acetone. The final sanding was done with micromesh sanding pads 1500-12,000 grit. I restained the bowl with a medium brown aniline stain, flamed it and then buffed it with White Diamond.

I took the stem out of the bath and wiped it dry with a rough cotton cloth that removed the moisture and also removed the top layer of oxidation. I then buffed the stem with Tripoli and White Diamond before returning to the work table to sand it with micromesh pads. I sanded it with 1500-3200 grit micromesh pads and water. I dried it and polished it with the Meguiar’s Scratch X 2.0 polish. I wiped it down and then finished the sanding with the 3600-12,000 grit micromesh. I dry sanded with these grits. Once the stem was smooth and shiny I put it back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with White Diamond and multiple coats of carnauba wax.
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Really? Why wouldn’t you stop after doing this the first time?

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I was browsing EBay this morning and came across a group of Dunhill pipes that were being sold individually by the same seller. There are four pipes all being sold at strangely high prices with several bidders. All of them obviously came from the same pipe smoker. The three below are the worst of the lot. The last of the foursome is probably redeemable with a light topping and reshaping of the rim. These three would take quite a lot of work. The incredible thing to my mind is the amount of damage caused to all of them. I look at them with sadness and wonder at the person who would do that to that many pipes. Personally I would think that if I had one pipe sustain that damage I would change my habits. Not so with the pipe smoker of this trio, all nice lovats. If you look at the pictures below you will see that all three have a burn in pretty much the same spot. The sacrifice of briar to the flame is absolutely unnecessary.

From my experience this kind of burn is caused by repeatedly using a torch lighter and carelessness in directing the flame into the bowl. Repeatedly lighting the pipe in the same way from the same angle produces the results visible in these photos. I know that they are Dunhill’s and odds are they were not cheap pipes. But they are still selling on EBay at a price that a similarly burnt no name or low name pipe would never see.

I have repaired a lot of burned rims and damaged rims but these seem so unnecessary to me. Ah well I won’t be bidding on them. All three would need a serious topping to bring them to even close to pristine condition and would also ruin their value to collectors. Why buy them at all? I suppose some folks would fall under the spell of the white dot or maybe they are just going for the well kept stems.
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An Interesting Weatherproof Wally Frank “Pepper Shaker”

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I picked up this interesting piece of tobaciana somewhere though I no longer remember where it came from. It is an oval bowled pipe by Wally Frank and it has a briar wind cap that is attached via a brass peg. To me it looks like a Pepper shaker so that is what I have named it. I have a few other ones like this but the cap is made out of Bakelite and is on a side pin that allows it to flip forward. This one spins to the side or can be removed should the pipeman not want to use it covered.

It came to me unsmoked and clean on the inside. The finish was very poorly done. There was a coat of varnish or lacquer on the pipe. It was spotty and in some places seemed to have bubbled or ran when it was applied. The stain that was underneath obscured the grain on the pipe. I decided to refinish the bowl and give it a new stain. I soaked it in an alcohol bath and then wiped down the bowl with acetone to clean the finish off. Once it was removed I sanded it with micromesh pads to get it smooth. I restained it with a nice cherry aniline stain. I flamed the stain to set it in the grain and then buffed the bowl to remove the excess and surface stain. The stem and pipe were buffed as a whole with white Diamond and then several coats of carnauba. Here is the finished product.
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