Tag Archives: acrylic stem

Moving another one of my own – a Jobey Stromboli 160 Bent Author

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Blog by Steve Laug

This is another pipe that I have taken out of my personal collection as I just do not use enough to warrant keeping it. This pipe was given to me in a group of pipes and I used it a bit when it came in. It is from a period of my journey where I smoked solely Virginia tobaccos so it is quite clean. The airway in the shank and the mortise were quite clean. The rusticated finish and rim top were in excellent condition. It is stamped on the underside of the shank and reads Jobey in script [over] Stromboli. The shape number 160 follows that. There was a light cake in the bowl but the top and inner edge of the bowl clean. The Jobey link system is in the shank and the stem slides on to it. The variegated brown/tan/gold acrylic stem is in good condition with some light tooth chatter ahead of the button on both sides. I took photos of the pipe before I did my clean up work on it. I took a photo of the bowl and rim top to verify the description above. I also took photos of the stem surface showing the light chatter on either side.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above.  I took the stem off the bowl and took a photo of the pipe to give a sense of proportion of the pipe. You can also see the deep and rugged rustication on the briar and it is a beauty.Now it was time to work on the pipe. I cleaned up the light cake in the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I sanded the bowl walls with a piece of dowel wrapped in 220 grit sandpaper.I cleaned the mortise and airways in the shank and stem with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol to remove the debris and tars from my smoking. You can see that it was not too bad as I tend to keep my pipes clean. The bowl was in such good condition that decided to give the bowl and shank a coating of Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for 15 minutes and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. Since the stem was in quite good condition other than tooth chatter I polished out the chatter with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I rubbed it down between pads with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Fine and Extra Fine Pipe Stem Polish. I wiped it down with some Obsidian Oil and buffed it off. It is a beautiful stem. I am excited to put the final touches on this great looking Jobey Stromboli Rusticated Author. I put the pipe back together and buffed the stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I hand buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. It is fun to see what the polished bowl looks like with the rugged rustication all around it. Added to that the polished brown/ gold/tan acrylic stem combined with the bowl and make a stunning pipe. This rusticated Jobey Stromboli is great looking and the pipe feels great in my hand. It is light and well balanced. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 43 grams/1.52 ounces. It is a beautiful pipe that I will soon be putting on the rebornpipes store in the American Pipe Makers Section. If you are interested in adding it to your collection send me an email or a message. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this pipe. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog.

This Castello Sea Rock Briar KKKK 65 Ticks All of My Boxes

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Blog by Steve Laug

It is another hot day in Vancouver with just some afternoon meetings. After a long week I decided to take bit of time this morning for myself. It is hot enough that I went to the cool of the basement to work on pipes. The next pipe on the table is another one that came to us from the auction in Gonzales, Louisiana, USA. The first one, a Castello Sea Rock Briar KKK16 Billiard, I cleaned up and wrote a blog about yesterday (https://rebornpipes.com/2021/06/24/i-really-love-these-castello-sea-rock-briar-pipes-a-sea-rock-briar-kkk16/). This next one is a Castello Sea Rock Briar and it is what Castello calls a Bent Billiard shape though to me it is like a bent egg. It is a pipe that I like so well that I am cleaning it up for myself. It is stamped on the smooth shank bottom and reads Castello [over] Sea Rock Briar followed by KKKK65. That is followed by Made in Cantu [over] Italy followed by an oval containing the name Carlo Scotti next to the stem shank union. The Castello “diamond” inset is on the left side of the saddle stem letting me know this was a pipe made for US import. On the underside of the stem it is stamped Hand Made [over] Castello with no number. The bowl had a heavy cake and there was thick lava overflow on back top side and inner edge. It was hard to know if there was burn damage on the smooth rim top because of the lava but after cleaning it we would know for sure. The rusticated finish was pretty dirty with dust and grime when we got it but still showed promise. The acrylic stem had deep tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The edges of the button were also marked. Jeff took the following photos of the pipe before he worked his magic on them. The pipe must have been a terrific smoker because the bowl was so heavily caked with the thick lava flowing over the rim top. In its condition it was going to take some work to clean out that bowl and be able to see what the rim looked like underneath the layer of lava. The acrylic/Lucite stem was in good condition other than the deep tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem just ahead of the button and on the button surface itself. The rest of the bowl looked dirty but the photos give an idea of what Jeff saw before his cleanup revealed the condition of the pipe. The next photos try to capture the stamping on the flat panel on the underside of the shank. It read as I have noted above. The stem also bears a Hand Made Castello stamp on the underside. Jeff cleaned the pipe with his usual regime that many who read this probably have memorized. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the remnants with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals of the bowl, shank and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap to clean off the dust and grime on the rusticated Sea Rock finish. The smooth rim top looked very good under the thick lava coat. The inside of the bowl itself looked great. He scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub cleanser to remove the grime and grit. The stem was in great shape other than the tooth marks on both sides. It really is a beautiful looking rusticated pipe. I took photos of the pipe when it arrived here. I took some close up photos of the rim top, bowl and stem to show what they looked like after Jeff’s cleanup. It is a startling difference. The rim top looks very good. The stem also looks very good.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank and the stem. It is clear and readable as noted above.I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe to show the proportions of the bowl/shank and the stem length. I cannot seem to retain the details on Castello pipes in my head for long for some reason. The stamping on them – Castello and the Carlo Scotti stamp were things that I wanted to makes sure I understand before I began to work on the pipe. I turned to Pipephil’s site to get a quick summary (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-castello.html). I quote:

Castello PIPA CASTELLO di Carlo Scotti & C. was founded in 1947 by Carlo Scotti (†1988). Franco Coppo (AKA “Kino”) who married Carlo Scotti’s daughter Savina, manages (2012) the corporate since 1985.

The site also gave a good summary of the grading and sizes of the pipes. I quote that in full.

Sizes (ascending):

1K to 4K, G (Giant) and GG (Extra large)

Rusticated grading: SEA ROCK, OLD SEA ROCK, NATURAL VIRGIN,

Sandblasted grading: ANTIQUARI, OLD ANTIQUARI

Smooth grading (ascending): TRADEMARK, CASTELLO, COLLECTION

Other stampings: Great Line (Non-standard or freestyle) Fiammata (Straight grain)

Production (2012): ~4000 pipes / year

I also found a note on the page that the Rhinestone logo was originally on pipes for the US market. It is occasionally used now.

I turned then to Pipedia for more information on the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Castello). The majority of the information was what was already quoted above in abbreviated form. However there was a link to an article by Bob Hamlin that gave some interesting bits of information that I found helpful (http://www.pipes.org/BURST/FORMATTED/196.016.html). I quote in part from that article.

SEA ROCK [Carved Black or dark brown]:  This is the lowest grade of the Castello line and is the most common in the USA.  Sea Rocks are produced by taking a smooth bowl that has not been “final finished” and surface carving the finish with tools. This “carved” finish is then evened out using a steel wire brush, stained and then waxed. The Natural Vergin carved finish is left unstained and unwaxed as a rule, although we have seen waxed and partially waxed “Vergins”.

All carved Castello pipes are graded by the number of K’s that are stamped on each piece and are K-graded by SIZE.  1K is the smallest and fairly rare, 2K is small to medium, with 3K or 4K being the most common and ranges from medium to medium large. Large pieces are stamped “G” for giant and extra large pieces are stamped “GG” for double giant.  In addition to the number of K’s on a carved Sea Rock piece the shape number is almost always added.  As a rule a Sea Rock Castello is stained Black, although recently there have been quite a few coming in stained deep brown and still stamped “Sea Rock”.  American Logo’d Sea Rocks are all priced the same to the consumer, although most are 2 or 3 K’ed models.  G/GG models are charged at a higher price on American pieces and are basically the same as their European counterparts.

The Castello Sea Rock briar I was working on had the 4Ks of a Medium Large sized pipe. It definitely was made for the American Market with the Rhinestone in the stem. It had the black/dark brown finish. The 4K stamp told me that it came out in the late 1960s onward and was a mid-large sized pipe from that time period. The number 65 makes it a Bent Billiard.

I decided to work on the stem first and try to remove and repair the tooth marks on both sides of the acrylic stem. Since acrylic does not have “memory” like vulcanite I did not try painting the stem surface. I sanded down the chatter in preparation for repairing the tooth marks. I filled in the tooth marks with clear CA glue. Once the repairs cured I used a small file to flatten them out and recut the sharp edge of the button. To blend in the repairs I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and started the polishing with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the stem with 1500-12000 grit pads. I dry sanded it with the pads and wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I finished polishing the stem with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine polishes. I wiped the stem down with a damp cotton pad afterwards and buffed it with a soft microfiber cloth. I set the stem aside and turned my attention to the bowl. I polished the smooth rim top with micromesh sanding pads -1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the rim top down with a damp cloth between each sanding pad. The rim top began to really shine. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the rusticated Sea Rock finish on the bowl and the rim top. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect the wood. Once the bowl was covered with the balm I let it sit for about 20 minutes and buffed it off with a soft cotton cloth and the shoe brush. I polished it with a microfiber cloth. I took photos of the pipe at this point in the process to show what the bowl looked like at this point. I put the bowl and stem back together on this beautiful Castello Sea Rock Briar KKKK 65 Bent Billiard. I polished the stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the Lucite. 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 contrast of the blacks and dark browns of the briar with the polished black acrylic/Lucite is quite stunning. The dark, coral like rustication around the bowl and shank is quite remarkable and gives the pipe an incredible tactile presence that only improves as it heated from a smoke. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 2 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The pipe weighs 67grams/2.36oz. This is a beauty that will be staying with me as it ticks off all the boxes of a Castello that I have been watching out for. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me. I always enjoy working on Castello pipes. Cheers.

New Life for a Charatan Lonsdale 87X Cutty

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue is yet another interesting pipe from the Michigan lot – a well-made Charatan Cutty with plateau on the rim top and shank end. The entire pipe had some beautiful cross grain on the front and rear of the bowl and the top and underside of the shank. It had some great birdseye grain on both sides of the bowl and shank. The bowl has a forward cant to it that defines the cutty shape. The pipe has a natural briar 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 left side of the shank. It reads Charatan’s Make (over) London, England (over) SPECIAL. There is the circle cursive L identifying the pipe as a Lane era made Charatan. To the right of the stamping is the shape number 87X. The stem is an obvious replacement and is Lucite rather than the original vulcanite and has no marking or stamping on it. It is given a unique saddle shape that looks good with the Cutty pipe. This is another nice looking piece much like the rest of those in this 21 pipe Michigan pipe lot. The Charatan’s Make I am working on is shown on the top shelf of the rack pictured below. It is the third 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 very dirty and well used. There was a thick cake in the bowl and 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 Lucite stem is dirty and had bite marks but still had a gloss to it. 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 beautiful canted Cutty shape. 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 had some damage from knocking the bowl out against a hard surface. There is also a general accumulation of grease and grime ground into the finish on the rest of the bowl and shank.He also took a photo of the right and underside of the bowl and shank to show the interesting grain around the bowl and shank. The finish is very dirty but the grain is visible in the photos.Jeff took a photo of the stamping on the left side of the shank. It reads as noted above and is clear and legible.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. I wanted to know where the Special fit in the Charatan Hierarchy so I turned to Pipedia to get a grasp of the order of the various pipes that were made. Here is the link(https://pipedia.org/wiki/Charatan). I did a screen capture of the poster to the left showing that the SPECIAL is just below the strain grain and was noted for perfection in grain and had a natural finish.

I thus knew I was dealing with a higher grade Charatan’s Make pipe. It also has the circled L which was the Lane Trademark. Pipedia said that:

The Lane Trademark serif and circled L indicates the pipe is from the “Lane Era” (approx. 1955 to 1979 -1984?), however it appears that both the English factory or Lane themselves sometimes, or perhaps even often forget to stamp the L on a pipe. The Charatan factory was known for inconsistencies, especially in stampings. Therefore, although an L on the pipe definitely defines it as a Lane Era pipe, the lack of it could simply mean the pipe missed receiving the stamp from the factory. The lack of the trademark could also mean the pipe was destined for the European market.

From there I turned to do some reading in a link on Pipedia to a 1951 Charatan Catalogue. I wanted to be able to do some more reading on the “Natural Finish” noted above and also to see if I could identify the shape 87X that was stamped on the left side of the shank at the stem/shank junction. Here is the link (https://pipedia.org/images/3/37/CHARATAN_1951.pdf). I did a screen capture of pertinent parts of the catalogue. The first is the concept of their Natural Bruyere. The second gives a listing of the hierarchy of pipes. Note in that clipping that the SPECIAL pipes were Premier quality pipes, cut in “cross grain” or “bird’s eye” graining. In paging through the catalogue, I found what I was looking for in terms of shape designations. I had looked on various shape charts and had not found the shape 87 number. In this catalogue not only did I find the shape number but a drawing of the shape with the original’s stem. The pipe is what Charatan called the Lonsdale with the 87 being the larger Lonsdale shape.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 rim top to show the darkening on the top and the burn damage on the front and right inner edge. Jeff had done an amazing job cleaning off the lava buildup. The outer edge of the rim has some deep nicks on the front of the bowl. The bowl is slightly out of round on the right rear inner edge. The Lucite saddle stem photos show the tooth marks and the wear on the button surface on both sides.I decided to start my work on the pipe by addressing the darkening and damage to the rim top and edges. I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage and minimize the outer and inner edge damage. I was able to remove much of the damage. To address the burn on the front edge and the area on the right rear edge making the bowl out of round I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to give the rim edge a slight bevel. The bevel worked to hide the damage and bring the bowl back into round. I polished the bowl sides and rim top with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl and rim down with a damp cloth after each pad. As I polished it the sanded rim top began to shine and blend in with the rest of the briar. 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. The finish looks very good with the rich finish on the bowl and rim. I am very happy with the results. I used a folded piece of 240 grit sandpaper to blend the repairs into the surface of the stem. Once the surface was smooth I sanded out the scratch marks and started the polishing of the stem with a folded piece of 400 grit sandpaper. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and took the following photos.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 wiped it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I put the stem back on the bowl and polished them both with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and 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 natural brown briar that had darkened over time came alive with the buffing. The replacement Lucite stem had an interesting asymmetrical saddle that looked very good with the stem. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/4 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. This beauty will soon be on the rebornpipes store. It would make a a beautiful addition to somebody’s pipe rack. Thanks for walking through the restoration of this uniquely carved Charatan from the Lane Era with me it was a pleasure to work on.

 

Repairing a Hole in an Acrylic Stem

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Blog by Greg Wolford

A couple of weeks ago I received an IM from a Facebook friend; he’s a pipe collector and reseller. He attached the following photos of an acrylic stem with a hole in the underside.
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He had seen photos of some of my work bad wanted to know if I could repair this stem for him; he said the top of the stem and the stummel were pristine and this was the only problem with the pipe. I said I could fix it so he told me the stem would be in the mail in a couple of days.

A week later I found a box in the mail from a sender I didn’t recognize and I wasn’t expecting any packages so I was eager to see what was inside. When I opened the box I found a beautiful large Radice (I forget the model name and didn’t remember to photograph it) inside – with a big hole in the stem; apparently the seller sent the pipe directly to me first and, after repairing it, I would forward it to my friend.

The hole was larger than it appeared in the pictures. And it was a bit “ragged”, too. So I picked it with my dental pick and smoothed it with a round needle file to have a good surface to work with. I bent a pipe cleaner to make it triple-width to fit the slot and greased it with vegetable shortening; I’ve had trouble with petroleum jelly in past not keeping the glue in place real well and have started using the shortening instead.

I began by applying a drop or two of black super glue to the hole an pd then setting it aside to cure; it was going to take several layers to fill this hole so it would be a waiting game. Later that evening I applied a few more drops and left it overnight to cure.

In the morning I found the patch had shrunken, as expected, and needed more glue. I applied two more patches that day, once in the morning and another that evening and allowed it to cure overnight again.

It was at this point I began to have some fairly dramatic vision problems due to diabetes, which I’d been recently diagnosed with. (More on that can be found here if you are inclined to read about it.) So I sent my friend a message telling him what was going on and it might be several more days before I could finish the repair. His reply was no problem, make sure I took care of me first.

Several days later my son and I stopped into the local Hobby Lobby to pick up some new micro mesh pads. As we browsed I found a small “spray bottle” labeled adhesive accelerator; I immediately wondered what kind of adhesive it was for and began to read the label, with my son’s help, since my vision was still not clear. It was for most glues so I thought it might be a similar product to Stewart-McDonald’s super glue accelerator – but only $3.99 – so I bought it. I was now even more anxious to work on that Radice stem!

I experimented on an old stem, vulcanite, with a large hole first, not wanting to “play” with someone else’s pipe. The results were great: the super glue set up hard in about 15 minutes and it looked just like it normally would, with no adverse effects from the overspray. Next I’d try it on the Radice.

It was, indeed, a few more days before I could see well enough, long enough to work on the repair. I sprayed the patch with the accelerator, applied the final drips to the patch, sprayed it again and set it aside for 30 minutes. I then filed, sanded (220/320/400/600 grits) and wet-polished with micro mesh 1500-12,000 grits, a final polish with McGuire’s Scratch X 2.0 and hand waxed and buffed the stem with Halcyon II wax; I don’t like buffing acrylic stems, especially when they aren’t mine and are expensive! This is the final repair:

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He is thrilled with the results, as am I. And I’m even happier to find a local source, and less expensive alternative, for the accelerator. If you have a Hobby Lobby nearby you, I highly recommend you grabbing a bottle and giving it a try; you’ll save yourself a lot of time and a few bucks to boot.

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