Tag Archives: amber

Restoring an old VFSH Meerschaum lined Carved Fox and Chicken Briar Long Canadian

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by Steve Laug

On to the next pipe on the table. This one is carved Briar with a meerschaum lined bowl. It came to us from a Facebook auction from a seller in Old Lyme, Connecticut, USA on 04/29/2020. It is long and Canadian shaped with a carved fox capturing a chicken in the grass and branches on the top of the shank. The briar bowl is lined with meerschaum that is in good condition though sporting a thin cake in the bowl. The briar outside bowl has a crack on the left outside running from the rim top to the bottom of the bowl, ending just short of the heel. The exterior of the bowl is dirty and dusty but otherwise the carving is very detailed. The fur on the fox and the feathers on the chicken are well done. The grass, plants and branches with vines are well executed. The last inch of the shank is smooth. The stem is a short tapered Canadian style made of amber. It has some small nicks and chips at the shank/stem junction but otherwise is quite smooth. The black leather case is made to fit the carved pipe. The case is worn in spots but is solid. The inside of the base is lined with a velour that is brown and padded. The top of the case is more satin and is stamped V.F.S.H. The same four initials are stamped on the left and right side of the shank below the carving. I took photos of the case and the pipe it held before I started my work on it. . I took a photo of the V.F.S.H. embossed stamp on the inside of the inside of the case.I removed it from the case and took photos of the pipe to show the carving from the sides and the top and underside of the stem. I also captured the condition of the rim top and crack in the side of the bowl. The amber stem is also shown in the photos below. I took photos of the rim top to show the meerschaum lining in the bowl and the condition of the amber taper stem. It is a beauty.I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the parts. It is a well shaped carved pipe and the amber stem works well with the pipe.I took some photos of the carving on the shank that clearly showed the fox and hen as well as the fence on the back of the bowl and the grass and greens trampled under the feet of the fox and the hen. The feathers on the bird and the fur on the fox are very well done.There is a VFSH in an oval stamp on the underside of the shank just ahead of the bowl. It is on both the left and right side of the shank.The briar bowl that held the meerschaum liner had a large crack running down the right front of the bowl from the rim top down to the heel of the bowl. The inner meerschaum bowl is snug in the briar outer bowl and should be a reasonably easy repair.I reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to carefully scrape the cake from the bowl. I took the cake back to smooth walls. I sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a dowel to smooth out the walls of the meerschaum. I used a medium grit sanding block to remove the build up on the rim top of the outer briar bowl and the meerschaum liner.I repaired the crack with clear CA glue and briar dust. I filled in the crack with clear CA glue and then pressed briar dust into the crack with a flat dental file. I sanded the repaired area with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the repair. I scrubbed the carved bowl and shank with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and warm water. I worked over the nooks and crannies with the brush and the soap. I rinsed the pipe off with warm water to remove the soap and debris on the surface. I dried the briar with a soft cloth. I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm and worked it into the carving as much as possible with a horse hair shoe brush and qtip cotton swabs. The intricate carving on parts of the fox and hen were slow and tedious work but it made a difference to the briar once it was thoroughly worked into the surface. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. The amber stem had some chips in the surface on the top right side. I filled them in with clear CA glue. Once the repair cured I sanded the stem smooth with 220 grit sandpaper.I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit 2×2 inch sanding pads. I worked over the repaired areas and the entirety of the amber stem with the pad – dry sanding with each pad. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with a cloth and Obsidian Oil. It really began to look better. I polished the stem with 1500-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I dry sanded it and after each sanding pad I wiped it down with an Obsidian Oil cloth. Once finished it took on a rich shine and glowed with the warmth of amber. This Hand Carved Meerschaum Lined Fox and Chicken Canadian has a beautiful, unique carved finish on a smooth bowl and shank. The large smooth meerlined pipe has some great grain around the bowl and shank. The well done carving is almost alive looking with the fox shaking the hen in his mouth. The polished reddish amber stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and hand buffed the pipe with a soft cloth. I gave the stem multiple coats of Clapham’s beeswax/carnauba wax mixture with my finger tips and a qtip. I followed that by buffing it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Fox and Chicken Hand Carved Canadian is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 10 inches, Height: 2 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 1 inch. The weight of the pipe is 104 grams/3.77 ounces. This one will be going into my own personal collection. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe Thanks for your time.

Bringing New Life to an Older BBB Gourd Calabash

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by Steve Laug

I regularly am in correspondence with quite a few people through the reach of rebornpipes. This week alone I have received emails from Hungary, Slovakia, England, Australia to name a few. On top of those are the emails from the US and Canada. I received one from a Paul in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada about a pipe he recently picked up and he wrote to me after finding a similar one on rebornpipes. Here is his initial email:

I have purchased an old pipe. The case said BBB in it so I googled it. It is a Calabash like on your website, but the steel rim has an actual flap over the bowl that you can open or close with vent holes in it. It has three markings stamped on it, anchor-lion-n (not the “f”like yours). Can I send you a picture? – Paul

I wrote him back and asked him to send me the pictures. I was very curious to see the age of the pipe and perhaps help him that way. He sent me the following photos. The first two show the bowl as a whole. It was an interesting looking pipe. Paul also sent me photos of the rim cap and bowl cap so I could see how they function and could read the stamping on the silver of both. The stamping was as he noted in his first email.He also included photos of the case exterior and the inside. The inside of the case is stamped with a BBB Diamond logo in the lid of the case. I wrote Paul back about the pipe to help unpack the stamping on the top of the rim and cover. The stamps can be interpreted as follows:

The LB on the cover of the rim/windcap is for Louis Blumfield.

The other stamps are as follows:

Anchor is for Birmingham the city where the silver was made and fitted to the bowl.

Rampant lion is for the quality of the silver used in the rim cap and cover. It means that it is .925 sterling silver

The letter n is the date stamp. I included a copy of the Hallmark chart for British hallmarks. I can match your pipe’s stamp to 1912. I have marked it on the chart below in red.Paul responded with his thanks and a further email:

Hi Steve is it possible to give it a tune-up? professionally? And also, do you think I should just display it? Or is it ok to use? What would you do? – Paul

I wrote back and sent him my address and he mailed the pipe to me to work on. When I got it I opened the box and took some photos of the case and the pipe. The case is worn black leather with nicks and scuffs on it. The case is obviously hand fitted to the pipe. I took the pipe out of the case and took a look at what I had to work with. The gourd was dirty and had a burn mark on the underside at the bend. The shank end is Maple I believe and has some glue dried on from a silver shank band that was missing. The rim top had a silver rim cap and wind cap. It was loose on the top of the gourd. I removed it underneath the bowl lining appeared to be clay. It had some repaired cracks. It was sitting in a wood base that was inserted in the gourd. The base has pins snapped off in it that originally held the rim cap in place. The bowl itself had a large opening in the bottom but there was a lot of debris and clogging in the bowl. There was a rattle in the gourd itself. The stem was amber and was in very good condition. There were light tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside ahead of the button. The airway in the stem was very dirty and the shank was also very dirty. I took photos of the wind cap and rim cap to show the scratching and wear on the silver. It was worn and tired with a little bit of tarnish as well. I will need to polish both with some silver polish to remove the tarnish and the scratching. The amber stem looks good with some light chatter on the top and the underside ahead of the button.I removed the silver rim cap and windcap. I took a photo of the clay bowl insert. It is pitted and dirty but you can see what I have to work with. It is hard to see but the original pins that held the cap in place are all snapped off in the clay. I took a photo of the bowl with the cap and stem off. I carefully scraped out the clay bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to remove the cake build up in the bowl and also tobacco debris on the walls of the bowl. I sanded the walls smooth with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper.I cleaned the internals of the gourd shank and below the clay bowl with pipe cleaners and alcohol. I cleaned the amber stem at the same time with pipe cleaners and alcohol. Once it was clean the pipe smelled significantly better.The burn on the underside of the gourd had a burn mark and a gouge. I filled it in with clear CA glue. One it dried I sanded it smooth and polished it with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. Once finished it looked much better.I used four spots of all-purpose white glue on the inside of the silver rim cap. I pressed in place and set it upside to dry. I polished the scratches in the silver with micromesh sanding pads. I worked over the wind cap and all of the edges on the rim cap. I lightly polished them with the pads and wiped them down after each pad with a jeweller’s cloth. The cap and rim began to take on a very rich shine. The scratches were not all removed but they definitely looked much better when I finished with the last of the sanding pads. I rubbed the gourd and the maple shank extension down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface with my finger tips. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the wood and gourd surfaces. It gives a rich a glow. I let it sit on the surface for 10 minutes and then buffed it off with a soft cloth. The gourd began to take on a rich shine. Since I did not have a silver band that would fit the shank extension I decided to stain it. I gave it a coat of Maple stain and Cherry stain using stain pens. It brought out some nice grain patterns in the wood. I gave it another coat of Before & After Restoration Balm and buffed it off with a cloth. It really was looking great in contrast to the colour of the gourd.I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the amber stem. I used 320-3500 grit sanding pads to dry sand the tooth chatter on both sides near the button. It took a bit of sanding but I was able to remove them all and start the polishing with the pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with an Obsidian Oil impregnated cloth. It really looked very good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I did a final hand polish of the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a coat of Obsidian Pipe Stem Oil. It works to protect the stem from oxidizing. I set it aside to dry. The amber took on a rich glow by the end of the polishing. I put the stem back on the BBB Clay Gourd Calabash and took it to the buffer. I carefully buffed the gourd, the extension and the amber stem with Blue Diamond to polish the gourd and the amber. Blue Diamond does a great job raising more of the shine and smoothing out imperfections. I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. I am amazed at how well it turned out. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is beautiful smooth finished 1912 BBB Gourd Calabash and the amber taper stem combine to give the pipe a great look. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The approximate dimensions of the pipe are Length: 7 inches, Height: 4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. This beauty will be heading back to Paul in Halifax, Nova Scotia soon. I hope he will enjoy the pipe and enjoy smoking it. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this beauty!

As always, I encourage your questions and comments as you read the blog. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog. Remember we are not pipe owners; we are pipe men and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on into the trust of those who follow us.

Restoring on an Old Meerschaum Cutty with Amber Stem

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Blog by Greg Wolford

I own two meerschaum pipes: an old African block estate pipe and a Turkish bulldog shape my son bought me for Christmas two years ago. Both of these pipes smoke well but they are also both quite large, for my evolving taste anyway, as a result, I don’t smoke either of them very often. So of late I have been on the lookout for a smaller ‘meer that was both affordable and appealing to my eye in local flea markets and antique shops. Most of what I find locally is priced too high, either in general or for my budget, and often they are in poor condition. But a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a little pipe that met all of my conditions and it became mine. I took it (and an old Kaywoodie that I’ve yet to touch) home and it waited in my “to do” basket until yesterday.

At first glance I saw that the pipe was dirty and likely had never been waxed. The screw in stinger was also out of time. But these were small things considering the price and my intended use: As a smoker not a show piece. The pipe also appeared to have a Bakelite stem that looked dirty but in good shape. Here are a few photos of it before I began:

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I knew that I wanted to re-clock the stem and also to even out the bigger chips on the bowl and rim. For the chips I remembered Steve’s post on the meerschaum bowl he modified to fit a Kirsten pipe. So I got out some wet/dry paper in about 400 grit and also some well-worn 1000 grit to sand/polish the bowl and rim. after setting the needed paper out, I removed the stem to clean it and the shank well before anything else.

The first thing I noticed was that the stem looked and felt different from I expected; at the antique mall I didn’t look too closely since I was hoping to score a better deal on the pari of pipes. The stem seemed heavier and just, well, different from the Bakelite stem on my African meer. Not owning a pipe with an amber stem I had nothing to compare it to so I messaged Steve and sent these photos:

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After a few exchanges, he directed me to a link to test to see if I had real amber. I started with the alcohol test: pass. Then I moved to the acetone test: pass again. In fact, after the tests and then cleaning the stem well with alcohol it was much shinier and better looking! The final test, which was inconsequential, was the taste test: Not only a pass but I could really feel a different in the mouthfeel of this stem versus any other I have. Now I was excited to get her cleaned up and tried out! As sort of a last test, I heated the stinger with my heat gun to see if I could loosen and straighten it; there were no bite marks to remove, thankfully. After a bit of heat the stinger did loosen but the stem didn’t soften like Bakelite or acrylic would. I began to adjust the stinger to find that the metal apparatus was a screw in tenon, threaded into the amber. So I removed it and dropped it (the tenon) into a bit os alcohol to loosen and dissolve the grime in the threads. While it soaked I began to clean the shank and stem with cotton swabs and pipe cleaners and alcohol. To my great surprise the shank and stem were very clean. I only used two pipe cleaners and two cotton swabs and they were not at all grimy:
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After cleaning and drying everything I reassembled the pipe. I wasn’t able to get it 100% straight but it is better. I tested the draw now and it was open and clean tasting, though the air hole in the stem is not very large. There were, after the cleaning of the stem, some scratches and dings, all small, present. But the shine was pretty good and since I don’t feel comfortable with it I opted to not try to sand/remove them. I may at some point go back and wax it but I’m in no hurry for that. Time to move to the bowl.

I began by gently sanding at the deep chips, especially on the bowl.

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This took some time with the 400 grit paper because I didn’t want to remove too much material. When it was close to what I wanted, I topped the bowl slightly to clean up and even the rim. I then moved to the well-worn 1000 grit to polish off the entire stummel, removing some stuck on pieces of tobacco and most of the dirt/grime. Then I tore off a piece of the 1000 grit paper and polished the bowl out a bit. There was some grime, some scratches and some “digging” marks in the bottom of the bowl. I wanted only to smooth it a bit as I thought it would remove too much material to attempt to fully even it out. Lastly I wiped the entire pipe down with a barely dampened with alcohol cotton pad to remove any dust that might have been remaining. This is the result:

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I let it dry out for a few hours and loaded it up with a rubbed out bowl of Peterson Irish flake last night and rubbed beeswax on it as I smoked it. I must say it smokes as well or better than either of my other ‘meers! Unfortunately, I accidentally grabbed up a non-lint free rag to polish it after it had cooled and now have some lint specks in the wax. But I’ll be re-waxing it soon anyway and will fix it then. I also may sand it a bit smoother with 800 grit paper; there are a few scratches still visible but not too irritating to me. This morning I triad a little Rattray’s Accountant’s Mixture in her as I was writing this article and she smoked equally well. This is a look at her after the first wax application.

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All in all, I’m very pleased with my new no-name ‘meer. She is exactly the size I was hoping for, smokes great, looks pretty good and will look better with time and I got an amber stem that I’d not bargained for! The joys of the hunt and the rewards of the work: That’s why I love bringing these old pipes back to a useful, if not beautiful, state.