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The B(ew)itchin‘ Pipe – A Lost Episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’

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

“Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.”
― Rodman Edward “Rod” Serling (1924-1975), U.S. TV/film writer, narrator, anti-war and –racism activist, in “Vogue” magazine [April 1957]

INTRODUCTION
Good evening. Imagine, if you will, a rather large college town in the heart of the American Southwest, population estimated at a little more than half a million. This sprawling urban area does not appear on any globe of the Earth, nor do its lights draw the attention of a satellite passing far overhead at night in the vacuum of outer space. Nevertheless, due to the proximity of two of the country’s three top nuclear weapons developers to this liberal college and arts metropolis, it is likely the target of hundreds if not thousands of such warheads from other, potentially hostile nations or terrorists, foreign and domestic.

In today’s episode, we are about to meet a 53-year-old man named Robert Boughton, who as a matter of record resides in this sprawling burg. Mr. Boughton knows the twin peaks that are, atop the one, success and hope, and the other, defeat and futility. At the moment, he is at the very zenith of the heap of that more and more common social malaise that people glibly call the harried man. He is finding his way through one of the more interesting times of his life, in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse. Honest, hard-working and trustworthy, he has had more jobs than he could ever recall to put down on a government security clearance application, from maintenance man to assistant manager in hotels; neighborhood delivery boy to photojournalist for newspapers, and, most recently, both caregiver and pipe restorer – tobacco pipes, he always adds to prospective new customers he doesn’t know as he offers them his card.

During the past seven years, Mr. Boughton has postponed his lifelong pursuit of a literary career to dedicate almost every waking hour as caregiver to a mentally unstable roommate with a slightly shorter list of physical disorders, one of them fatal; a shrewish man a few years over the hill who carries his misfortunes the way some brag about drug abuse or petty thievery, but in his case molded into the very form and execution of his tragic worldview by the madness of living day-to-day knowing he is deteriorating from the core of marrow of his brittle bones to the disappearing sheath around every nerve fiber and the corresponding loss of sight and voluntary movement, and finally to the thin skin of his failing frame.

Mr. Boughton’s roommate has no idea how close he has come to being granted his repeated if insincere request to be put out of his misery; to a drive far out onto a back road of the desert for a very long stay. He has pushed Mr. Boughton to the limits of his self-control – to the end of his wits and the edge of his sanity. But the downward spiral is about to change, as you will soon understand. For not long ago, Mr. Boughton caught sight of a pinhole of light in the abyss; a hobby that helped him survive the slings and arrows that another writer once called outrageous fortune.

And now all of Mr. Boughton’s troubles are about to change for the better from the simple purchase of an estate lot of seven tobacco pipes in time to write off as an expense on last year’s business income taxes. All of them would have been finds for more than the $25 he paid for the lot – but at a glance, the real gem, in the eye of the restorer at any rate, first went unnoticed. See if you can spot it in the following picture from our gallery, which we call “Lot #7: Tobacco Pipes.” If you correctly identified the L&H Stern Straight Billiard, on the right in the middle, as the object of Mr. Boughton’s growing obsession, shall we say, then you either have what is commonly referred to as the Sixth Sense or you are an astute collector of fine pipes.

The Park Lane, an invention of the company’s primary founder, is stamped with U.S. Patent № 1908630, issued May 9, 1933. Mr. Boughton has always appreciated the elegant – in expressions of poetry, law, logic and art, to name a few – and as for Patents, he considers this one, being only two pages including the obligatory illustration of parts, to be as brief and comprehensive as they come.

L&H Stern Inc. was officially organized in 1911 by one Ludwig Stern (the L in the initials, which in the early days were fashioned L. & H. S.), with his older brother, Hugo (the H). Ludwig emigrated from Germany as a young man, after his brother, who was five years older.

(And now, if the audience will permit a brief side-bar, a point of interest: Ludwig worked for the largest supplier of tobacco products to the entire state of New York – somehow providing an estimated 90% of cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and other related items to manufacturers and retailers in the area – as early as 1899, the year the behemoth tobacco supplier was spawned. Called the Metropolitan Tobacco Company, a corporation born of a cartel of others in the same business known to everyone who was anyone within the industry as the “Tobacco Trust,” became the object of a drawn-out restraint of trade civil complaint. The original trial and both appeals of said cause were decided, not surprisingly, in favor of the tobacco industry defendants. The small shops, banded together as plaintiffs, now collectively relegated to historical obscurity by a single last name and “et al.,” were forced to close. I submit for your consideration one question: could the wheels of justice have been greased in this case by the main product of the second of the Seven Deadly Sins? This is offered as food for thought – only available at your local diner in the Twilight Zone.) [See Link 2.)

The brothers moved the re-formed business in 1920 to Brooklyn. The new location, in a seven-story building, was – for the then-ubiquitous craft – in a convenient part of town now known by its acronym, D.U.M.B.O. (Down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). It remained there until closing in the mid-1960s. [See Link 3.] LHS was already so well respected in the business at the time that the company reorganization and move were news in those bygone days. [See Link 4.]

The LHS Park Lane Billiard included a brown and orange swirled Cumberland bit, handmade from Ebonite and fashioned in this case to look like wood. Mr. Boughton considered the task of restoring this pipe to be distinctly good fortune and a pleasure of restoring, in particular because of a certain aspect of the repair that was new to him. The line was made only in the 1930s. [See Link 5.]

At the present moment, Mr. Boughton is busy at work attempting to restore the WDC Park Lane to its original state. As noble as the endeavor may be, the only problem, with this peculiar specimen, is the invisible transformation the pipe has undergone during years of smoking by a single prior owner who had the good grace to love it. As Mr. William Shakespeare so aptly put it in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”: “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,/And therefore is wingèd Cupid painted blind.” Now, meet Mr. Boughton in his favorite activity – restoring tobacco pipes with every ounce of his love.

RESTORATION

The last shot of the Park Lane prior to restoration, above, makes the most serious problem I encountered apparent. The bit was off by about an eighth of a turn, which may seem negligible to one who has never enjoyed the ruminating quality of a fine pipe, but is in fact a microcosmic chasm along the lines of the Grand Canyon to the general viewer.

The flaw was masked by the seller of these estate pipes, who, with no small amount of duplicity, placed a piece of paper around the metal tenon screw built into the opening of the shank.

The wily culpability of this particular ilk of seller is obvious from the freshness of the paper. Hence the conspicuous starting point for my restoration.

At this point of experience restoring pipes, I consider myself a journeyman in the craft. Although familiar with various ways to tighten Vulcanite, Ebonite, Lucite and other tenon materials, I was unable to locate any useful information on the Internet – the modern day Library of Alexandria, which was dedicated to the Muses, or nine gods and goddesses of the Arts – concerning the re-alignment of metal tenons fixed either to the bit or shank.

Nevertheless, finding myself without a clue how to proceed, I sent an email to Steve Laug, who soon replied with the suggestion that I read his recent online blog on the restoration of an LHS Purex Bulldog. This amused me, as the many notices of comments on the blog in question were forwarded to me, I wondered what all the hoopla was about and had intended to check it out.

However, awaiting Steve’s reply did not hinder me from proceeding with certain steps I knew, such as the fact that the stinger extension of the tenon should come off. Thinking of that, I tried heating the entire aluminum tenon with the flame of a Bic, careful not to touch the shank opening beyond the part of the tenon Ludwig Stern referred to as the flange [see p. 1, Fig. 2, part 10 of the Patent]. Unfortunately, the tenon still would not budge. Even the stinger [illustrated as a whole as part 9, with parts 13, 14 and 15 forming its length and pushing into part 8] seemed to form a single piece. I was aware this would be odd, if not unprecedented, but after four attempts, I swear it would not come off. One lesson I did manage to learn from my dad in his countless frustrated endeavors to teach me about mechanics was that if a part of a mechanism or machine would not come free using reasonable pressure, don’t force it. But, always believing that not all of his maxims were absolute, I suspected he meant it as a guideline that was not immutable under controlled conditions I might someday, by some miracle, learn to recognize. Therefore, I found a small wash rag and a pump plier that I feared might be overkill, but it was all I owned that had not been stolen by previous apartment owners. I also possess a wicked sense of adventure at moments like these. Adjusting the rivet to match the job, I then wrapped the small towel around the base of the tenon/stinger by the flange and loosely clamped the end of the plier over the tenon. As I applied pressure, I could feel the two sides of the mouth turn and clamp firmly down on the rag-covered metal. Gripping the bit in one hand, I turned the plier with my other and immediately felt it begin to move. Slowly, it came free and undamaged. In the meantime, Steve replied with the suggestion that I read his recent online blog on the restoration of an LHS Purex Bulldog. This amused me, in a good way. As the many notices of comments on the blog in question were forwarded to me, I wondered what all the hoopla was about and had intended to check it out.

Reading through to the first mention of the difficulty encountered by Steve, my heartbeat quickened. Confident I was on the verge of making the discovery that would enlighten me, I continued, on the edge of my seat on the couch in my living room, as though I were reading a real page-turner of a book or watching an Alfred Hitchcock thriller or perhaps “The Twilight Zone.” Indeed, in my mind I envisioned the Canadian master at work in his studio, so vivid were the words and photographs flashing across his computer screen.

Nearing the expected moment of revelation, I was consumed with anticipation – only to come to a single photograph of Steve’s LHS shank that dashed my hopes in a nanosecond, as is the popular if peculiarly à propos phrase these days; for the illustration revealed the exact reverse of my predicament, one that could not be repaired in the same fashion.

Delayed but not daunted, I set out to do that which I knew I should have attempted in the first place: taking the Park Lane to my own friend and mentor, Chuck Richards, I humbly sought his advice.

Before doing that, I continued where I had left off, cleaning the tenon and stinger inside and out, including the corroded threads that screwed into the bit, using a small square piece of cotton cloth soaked with Everclear and bristly cleaners that passed through the airways. To be done with it, I also ran a pipe cleaner with alcohol through the air hole of the bit, and when it came out filthy, recalled Steve’s words in his blog that this sort of pipe often needs considerable cleaning of the shank and bit. Quite a few cleaners later, I had the mess under control for the time. Known to my dad for having “a mind like a steel trap” and to my friends as being on the stubborn – or, as I prefer to think, confident side – I was by whatever label loathe to surrender to any challenge.

When I arrived at the pipe shop and we exchanged pleasantries, I presented my distressed pipe. Chuck, pipe of the day in mouth, put on his eyeglasses and examined the LHS closely. Within a blurring handful of seconds, my older, more experienced mentor made his diagnosis, telling me with his typical certitude to heat the tenon before tightening it into the bit. A man who prefers to let people learn as much as they can on their own, Chuck then offered the rare treat of extra advice: “It will be counter-intuitive.”

Intrigued, I took a seat in the pipe shop and, starting a fresh bowl full of tobacco in a new pipe, mulled over the problem in my mind. In a flash, I thought of a comparison, and unfortunately blurted it to the complete perplexity of all of the cigar smokers present.

“Like turning into the skid on ice!”

Chuck, caught unawares by the outburst and not at first grasping the metaphor, at last smiled and said, “Yes, something like that.”

At home later, the first chance I had, I sat down with my movable feast of standard implements of construction, including quite a few that were improvised, to make my first attempt at the genuine repair of a loose bit. Following Chuck’s advice, and keeping the counter-intuitive dog treat in mind, I was set to apply heat to the tenon stinger when the idea struck me to try removing the stinger again. Of course, then it came out with a simple turn of my fingers, apparently loosened by the work I did earlier and the passage of time.

And so I flicked my Bic and held it under the small tenon with even more care not to burn the precious Cumberland bit. (A Cumberland, by the way, is made from a special sort of Ebonite that can be colored with limits, which in turn is a particular variation of Vulcanite. This subject, I understand from research, is a matter of some hot debate.) With the tenon blackened, I quickly tossed a small rag over it and grabbed my pump pliers, clamping them firmly and remembering not to turn the small metal insert opposite from the direction the bit was off but toward it – as one would, if one hoped to avoid losing control of a vehicle and crashing or rolling, turn into the skid on black ice. Thus one particularly memorable experience on a bridge late one night in Colorado Springs, when my training and reflexes saved me, proved useful in this new endeavor. Each of several increasingly difficult rounds of this process brought the bit closer until it was aligned snugly.

Reaming the chamber and sanding it with 150-grit paper before 200 and then 320 was an easy task, as was using super fine 0000 steel wool to remove the rim char and excess dark stain that was popular when the pipe was made somewhere around three-quarters of a century ago. The rim and bowl then only needed a progression of micromesh from 1500-4000.

At this late stage of the restore, I retorted the pipe, again, unfortunately, with the tenon in place. I at least left the stinger aside for that process, which required about five Pyrex tubes of Everclear boiled through the pipe’s innards to clear out decades of crud and juices soaked into the briar from considerable use by someone who loved this pipe.

I stained the briar with Lincoln Brown boot stain, as opposed to Medium Brown which appears lighter, and flamed it before removing the thin layer of char with gentle rubbing using 3600 micromesh.

At last I am at the end of this rather strange, I admit, blog. I buffed the stem with white and red Tripoli and White Diamond, using a soft cotton cloth and a clean wheel between each. Then I used white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba on the wood, with the same steps between each.

CONCLUSION
Mr. Boughton had intended to offer this fine LHS pipe for sale at his online store. But following an odd impulse he could neither resist nor explain, he found himself loading a bowl of one of his best tobacco blends and, before he knew it, striking a match and placing the flame to the firm top layer.

The magical qualities of the pipe immediately became apparent. Where he had been tense to the point of explosive results, he was consumed with a sense that all was right in the world. Continuing to puff the mysterious pipe that had somehow found its way to him, he pondered the possible reasons behind the overwhelming sense of attraction to the diminutive pipe. Nothing he could imagine provided a satisfactory explanation, and Mr. Boughton also found he no longer cared.

Mr. Shakespeare also wrote, on the same subject and in the same play: “And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.” Truer words may never have been written.

For at that very moment, although Mr. Boughton thought he was sitting on his sofa in his suddenly less dreary little apartment in the heart of the American Southwest, he was, in fact, still on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone.

SOURCES
1. “The Twilight Zone,” Introduction, Season 2, with thanks. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052520/quotes

2. Locker et al. v. American Tobacco Co. et al, NY Sup. Ct. (1907), pp. 115-124. https://books.google.com/books?id=34g7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=metropolitan+tobacco+company+brooklyn&source=bl&ots=hQ6aVa_tY8&sig=1uaY2AesgKT4mCKepaOyan9gB9I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MIiQVZGuHYizoQSxsouAAg&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=metropolitan%20tobacco%20company%20brooklyn&f=false

3. L&H Stern background, including D.U.M.B.O.
Featured Fade – L & H Stern – Smoking Pipes & Holders – DUMBO – Fred King

4. Magazine story on L&H Stern 1920 move.
https://books.google.com/books?id=rpc7AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA22&lpg=RA1-PA22&dq=l%26h+stern+inc&source=bl&ots=cDWCX4gIom&sig=eLu9PUkd8JzfNPCZDb7df71R4Ic&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M5-MVbi1FM7IogThw5ToDg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=l%26h%20stern%20inc&f=false

5. LHS Park Lane dating confirmation.
http://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/estate/united-states/moreinfo.cfm? Product_ID=100458

Conjuring a Makeover for a Carey Magic Inch

3 Replies

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

“Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.”
― Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), French Impressionist painter

INTRODUCTION
I suspect there is some aspect of my basic personality that is incapable, to a degree, of not admiring the tenacity alone required to survive 67-years – and still going – in the admirable pursuit of providing affordable smoking pipes. Remember, this is an industry that has seen all manner of fly-by-night systems for dissipating the high heat of the all-important tobacco that has an inherent tendency to become moist and therefore brackish in the process of flowing through the basic designs of all pipes.

Notwithstanding the relative quality of pipes that evolve based on the periodic new patents from the ever-pioneering designers at E.A. Carey, which also owns the Duncan Hill Aerosphere brand, the system’s section that comprises the so-called “Magic Inch” has changed little since 1948, when the first billiard version was created and marketed. The system involves five elements: 1-2) the first two in the double-pronged tenon, the thin, hollow end of which attaches to the plastic bit and the typical part that slides into the shank; 3) the thin bit insert with six small drilled holes, two each on the top and bottom (when properly inserted) and one each on either side; 4) the newer Papyrate II sleeve (two-ply) – made of very thin, wet slices, from the roots of an aquatic plant, that are pressed together and dried – that fits snugly over the holes of the bit insert, and 5) six horizontal slits in the shank end of the bit, three on the top and three on the bottom. The photos of the bit show the used, brownish papyrate sleeve that came with the original pipe.

Back some months when I was snatching up pipe lots online, I bought one with 10 sundry examples of the craft, including a few nice finds such as a Kaywoodie Filter Plus metal pipe from the late 1950s, a Jobey Extra, a nice glazed clay pipe and others, with this Magic Inch among them. I put all of these in a small box “for later,” except for the beautiful unknown clay billiard that I cleaned up and added new cork in the shank with a hole drilled to fit the screw-in tenon attached to the acrylic stem, for my own collection.

By the way, not everyone knows that Carey does not only make Magic Inch pipes. Here are a few of the company’s representative standard briar pipes. But this blog concerns the vintage Magic Inch billiard, U.S. Patent №. 3,267,941 granted in 1966, shown in the lot above three rows down on the right. A few years ago, I owned, and for a while enjoyed, another Magic Inch, and it wasn’t – well, bad. But first, I have a few comments regarding Carey’s rather imaginative advertising.

Numerical data and the manifold methods of collection, arrangement and interpretation of them for publication as fact by the complex use of statistics in almost every facet of society – including but by no means limited to governmental and other political concerns, businesses and the news media – can be misleading at best and downright manipulative at worst.

Take, for example, the E.A. Carey Smokeshop claim [http://www.eacarey.com/ pipes.html] that it has sold more than one million of its Magic Inch pipes since 1948. That sounds impressive, and suggests that Carey’s pipes are superior to others. But that total averages to 15,152 pipes (rounded up, through 2014) per year. Then again, Carey changes the number of Magic Inch pipes sold in the same period to a vague “hundreds of thousands” [http://www.eacarey .com/magicinchinfo.html]. Allowing for hundreds of thousands to be a maximum of 200,000 pipes, which quite likely is stretching it, the average drops to 3,030. Somehow, I doubt that either annual sales figure engenders any impulse among the world’s other pipe makers to compete with the folks at the venerable Carey Smokeshop online, both in the U.K. [http://www.eacarey. co.uk/] and U.S.

Now, to return to the real subject matter, the purpose of this particular blog is to show how a pipe with a singular lack of attractive qualities can be transformed into something nicer.

RESTORATION
After removing and separating the bit and two-sided tenon, throwing away the old brown papyrate sleeve, on an impulse, I decided to give the old rusticated briar girl an Everclear soak. For some reason, this process took quite a while – say six hours. At any rate, when the old finish was stripped and the wood dried, I began a hand-buff with super fine steel wool followed by a progression of micromesh pads from 1500-3600.

I turned a reamer a few times in the chamber, followed by sanding with 200-grit and 320, and the chamber was almost good to go. Then I attached a suitable stem and retorted the shank and chamber.

Thinking the pipe, which was dreary in the beginning, deserved something more distinctive and in keeping with its natural reddish color, I chose maroon boot stain. After the quick application and flaming, I rubbed the wood gently with 3200 micromesh.

To clean the hollow plastic bit and tenon, I diluted – and I mean heavily – a little Everclear with a lot of water. I like to think of this as the Reverse Julia Childs Approach. The popular cook once said, “I like to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.” From what I recall of watching Julia in the studio kitchen on TV, I am not surprised that she seemed to have forgotten the apparent equal measures of wine expended in the food and down the hatch. Anyway, I bent a soft pipe cleaner in half and dipped it in the comparatively wimpy solution, which is like comparing wine to Moonshine, and inserted the folded end in the stem, turning it several times and finding it needed replacing. And so I repeated the action, but giving the inner bit the old in-and-out, scrubbing its sides. Only the slightest amount of grime came out on the second run, and I used the same cleaner to work through the slits on the top and bottom. I used a third, dry cleaner to finish.

The outer bit required very little work with one micromesh pad, although I forget the grade, to make it shine. Using a white china marker, I filled in the small, long-empty square with a three-sided C in the middle, forming all but one line of a second square. Thanks to a generous gift of a handful of papyrate sleeves from my good friend and mentor, Chuck Richards, I was able to complete the tenon for ultimate placement into the shank.

All that was left to do was buff the wood on the electric wheels, using white Tripoli and White Diamond, with quick runs on the clean wheel after each. At last, with a finger, I applied a thin, even coat of Halcyon II, and after letting the briar sit for 10-15 minutes, buffed it with the clean wheel.

CONCLUSION
Love ’em, hate ’em or really don’t give a hoot either way, the Carey Magic Inch has secured its place in tobacco pipe history, as well as giving many a smoker a start in the pleasures derived from fine tobaccos. And as far as I’m concerned, the Carey system works better than most far more complicated attempts.

Imagine, if you will, a special place in the Twilight Zone – an area so horrific only the most heinous attempts at pipe cooling ever make it there. Take, for example, the following specimen, a Jenkins, which, with its screw designed to hang while smoking like a broken appendage from the underbelly of the shank at a point just before the bowl, may never find its way back.

Concerning the Rising Popularity of Churchwardens in General, a Little about Their History and the Cleanup of a Barely Smoked Savinelli Rustic Aged Briar

2 Replies

Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton

Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author, except as noted

“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.”
― Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975), British historian

INTRODUCTION
If ever a pipe found its way into my possession and was sheer play and no work to clean up, this black Savinelli Rustic Aged Briar Dublin Churchwarden is it. I bought the long, sleek, exquisite example of the fine Italian pipe crafter’s genuine labor as a perfect addition, not to my own collection but to the growing and diversifying line of brands and styles I sell. Based on the requests I have received for churchwardens in general, as well as my eavesdropping at the local tobacconist I favor, this classic old style appears to be experiencing a comeback in popularity.

Perhaps the shift in supply and demand – as well as the corresponding rise in average churchwarden prices, at my preferred tobacconist and online, compared to the not so distant past – are due in part to the timeless popularity of the classic fantasy novels of J.R.R. Tolkien, starting with “The Hobbit” [1937] and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy [1954-1955]. This year, in fact, marks the sixtieth anniversary of “LOTR,” and the recent releases of movie versions of both of these can only have spurred interest in the centuries-old pipe shape thanks to the churchwarden-puffing Hobbits, wizards, elves, dwarves and – yes – men. Or maybe the increase in sales and prices is just a sign of greater discernment among pipe enjoyers, and those new to the pleasure in particular, who seek the smoother, cooler satisfaction of a good tobacco’s flavor that the longer shank and bit can provide.

Whatever the cause of this apparent resurgence, I am doing my best to follow the tide by locating and restoring more of this venerable style’s many examples at affordable prices. I already went so far as to clean up a beloved but no longer often enjoyed Clark’s Favorite from my own collection. I bought the lovely pipe several years ago, restored, for about $40 (at which time a quick check online showed the same but new pipe on sale at $69) and sold it to a prospective customer who was bent on a medium-length church or nothing. I still miss the Clark’s Favorite, which I supposed I could always replace for the new price noted above. Today, the same smooth version, with its orange-black acrylic bit, is on sale for $112 compared to the MSRP of $140.

Savinelli for one, seeming to recognize the inconvenience of carrying a long, fixed-bit church about town to enjoy on the go, now offers a nice selection of “Tandem” versions that can be enjoyed at home in their full glory and, when traveling anywhere, with a second short bit. The model shown below, the Tandem Rusticated #112, comes with two completely separate bits – the longer Vulcanite and the shorter acrylic. This particular Tandem, by the way, is now on sale for $108 as opposed to its regular price of $130.

There are, however, still other “churchwardens” with the two bits combined as one, where the entire bit can be twisted off at the shank and the shorter part at the top, with the button, replaced in the shank. Of course, these models carry a higher price tag. Take, for example, this adjustable Cassano smooth billiard, which I bought last night at my tobacconist’s shop for $175. The full churchwarden large poker is 13” in length, and the smaller option is 8½”.

A BIT OF HISTORY
The churchwarden is one of the oldest of pipe shapes. The earliest use was in the Orient, where the bowls were likely made (for the most part to smoke opium) not only of known materials – including amber, ivory, various metals such as brass, different kinds of wood, bone and clay – but also jade and other exotic minerals. The bits (without buttons) often matched the bowls, although combinations of brass, wood, bone and/or ivory were not uncommon.

However, the clay bowl and long wooden shank without a bit was the design adopted and quickly adapted in late 18th or early 19th century Europe. So popular were the original Western World churchwardens that many Eastern European taverns kept supplies on hand for their customers’ use, and the habit of biting off the end of the wood shank for a fresh smoke developed. Until the mid- to late-1800s, clay bowls with wood shanks, open where the bit would now be found, remained the prevailing materials of construction.

As for the origin of the name churchwarden, there are three main theories, given here in reverse order of likelihood: the first, that smoking was permitted almost everywhere, including churches, in those dear lost days, and the long length and design of the pipe allowed it to rest on the pews; the second, that certain individuals, erroneously called churchwardens and trusted with guarding England’s churches in the 1800s, very much enjoyed their pipes and fancied the popular style, and the third, that real churchwardens (who by every official definition were not guards but honorary officers of local parishes or district churches entrusted with administrative and other minor duties) became known for their love of the pipe later named for them.

And contrary to popular myth created by various actors who have performed the role of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant mystery solving character, Sherlock Holmes, using fancy Gourd Calabashes or sundry churchwardens as props – which falsehood was adored and perpetuated by generations of Sherlockian fans – these are the facts: the shape or material of pipe most often cited by Holmes’ fictional chronicler, Dr. John H. Watson, was cherry wood (six references), followed by several mentions of standard-sized clay pipes and some appearances of briars. You can read the entire “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1661/1661-h/1661-h.htm and locate all of them yourselves.

THE CLEANING

To start on an honest note, I only show the few following steps needed to clean this almost-new Savinelli Rustic Dublin Churchwarden beauty for the sake of showing the pipe itself and the ease with which it was spruced up. The bit had no signs whatsoever of having been touched by any hands, much less placed in a mouth and smoked. In other words, its outside was buffed to the highest sheen, as if it came fresh from the factory in Barasso, Italy, in the Varese province. And so I began by running a long, soft cleaner dipped in alcohol once through the 7½” bit, which was all but 3” of the total length, removing the smallest amount of tobacco residue, and again for good measure.

The rim had minor blackening, not part of the stain. I removed that with a quick brush using 1800 micromesh and proceeded to the chamber. Two easy turns of a reamer followed by about 30 seconds of sanding with 200-grit paper and then 320 made the chamber as smooth as it ever was.

For the sake of thoroughness, I attached an otherwise useless small bit with a tenon that fit the shank and retorted the inner shank and chamber. To my amazement, one Pyrex test tube of boiled Everclear came back from the first passage with the lightest shade of brown, and despite about six more tries to make the alcohol darker, the barely tested briar was clean.

Then I noticed a spot on the outer edge of the shank opening that appeared to be smooth and dark red. With a small scrap of super fine steel wool, I probed the narrow strip of briar around the opening and watched it come clean. Below are before and after photos.

I could have left the briar in the excellent shape it already was, but as chance happened, I had just received my order of a new jar of Halcyon II wax, and had to try it out. Therefore, I gave the wood a spin on the clean buffer and with one finger applied a dab of the Halcyon as far as it would spread before adding a smidge more to finish coating the bowl, shank and rim. Setting the wood on a cotton rag, I waited about 10 minutes and again took the duller-looking briar for a fast spin on the clean wheel. Whether or not these steps were necessary, here are the final results.

CONCLUSION
That is all.

SOURCES
(in haphazard order)

http://www.onlineoriental.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=1&Category_Code=14
http://www.quora.com/What-kinds-of-pipes-did-Sherlock-Holmes-smoke-according-to-Sir-Arthur-Conan-Doyles-writings
http://www.sherlockian-sherlock.com/jeremy-brett-churchwarden-pipe.php
http://www.pipedia.org/wiki/Churchwarden_Pipes

Guide to Tobacco Pipes & Pipe Smoking

http://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/savinelli/index.cfm?tag=Clark’s%20Favorite
http://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/savinelli/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=160492

A Bachelor’s Soliloquy for a Lovely French Camelia Bulldog

A Savinelli Catalogue Smuggled from Argentina by a Pipe Patriot

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos Provided by Gustavo Capozzi

“The original is unfaithful to the translation.” ― Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges, KBE(1889-1986), Argentine short story writer, essayist, poet, translator and Knight of the British Empire, regarding Henley’s translation of Beckford’s “Vathek” [1943]

I noticed fairly frequent comments from a certain Argentine member of the Smokers Forums on various threads of mine as well as others, but his note on my most recent post about the restoration of a Savinelli Panama Bent Bulldog #111 KS was – in particular because of the broken English that seemed to me even more apropos to his meaning – eloquent and moving. The member, whose real name I now know is Gustavo Capozzi, referred to a comment I made, that I never bought a Savinelli I didn’t like, when he wrote:

“Robert I agree with you. When I´m a young boy, looked through the window the Savinelli pipes, and as people with money buy.In my student days had only national pipes and an Albanian as ‘imported’.I have a catalog Savinelli of that time where I enjoyed. Even today I could not get some. Congratulations!”

Concluding from the message that he has never owned a Savinelli, I experienced a series of vivid mental images of the young Gustavo growing into manhood, saving the cherished Savinelli catalogue and never being able to afford one or, now, to find the fine Italian brand anywhere in his native country because of governmental commercial import regulations. To be open to the point of risking sounding mushy, I was very touched. And the final word of congratulations to my good fortune added a sense of downright guilt.

In a private message to him on the Forums, I suggested that our host, Steve, would likely be quite interested in the catalogue, which Sr. Capozzi agreed to photograph and email. In fact, he replied that he had already done so, with such speed that I was further struck by his deep love of Savinellis. However, in a case of miscommunication, I believed he had sent the photos to Steve. Eager to know that they were received, Sr. Capozzi wrote to me again, and I contacted Steve, who responded that he had no such email. When I relayed this news to him, he dashed back the frantic note, “emails were sent to you!!!!!!”

With a rising sickness in my stomach, I searched my email, not finding anything. Then I found all but the first batch in the WRONG Junk Mail folder (only with MS Office, I know) and hastened to alleviate Sr. Capozzi’s clear agitation. He shot back the first eight photos.

As a final note before posting the catalogue, I will just add that Sr. Capozzi and I turned out to be mutual fans of the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, whose quote above seemed fitting to the means of my new friend’s photo translation of the catalogue for our enjoyment and learning…and how much there is to learn from this marvelous catalogue is astonishing: pipe lines, shape charts, dry system pipes, filter dry systems, accessories and even “suggestions.” There happens to be one particular Savinelli in my possession that I have good reason to suspect would make an excellent first for him, if I can find a way to clear Argentina’s red tape. And, of course, provided Sr. Capozzi will give me his address.

A New Lesson Graces an Albertson Sandblasted Bent Bulldog Restore

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

“Every failure is a lesson well learned, every success is a battle well fought, and every friend is a jewel well-kept in one’s heart.”
― Unknown

INTRODUCTION
As a valued friend and mentor, Chuck Richards can be counted on to tell me the truth, always. No matter how special are the occasions when his comments are clear thumbs-up, being thick-skinned, I can say with all honesty that I value more the constructive tips, outright lessons and even contributions (whether requested or not) that this gem of a friend has shared with me during the fleeting past three years since I made my first pipe restoration of a Czech-made La Grande Bruyère mini bent billiard. This openness in my character is fortunate, considering the greater incidence of the latter compared to the former.

Chuck with Victor Rimkus in a rare peaceful moment.

The only aspect of Chuck’s always invaluable input that sometimes frustrates me, as can happen in particular when two people are friends and see each other often, is his erratic timing. While for the most part Chuck speaks his mind with blunt promptness, he has far more projects in his own shop, not counting the free work he performs for customers at the tobacconist where he works, than I can even imagine. Therefore, he has the odd habit of briefing me on certain pipe restoration intelligence data, pertinent to my Need to Know clearance, crucial to my reputation and consequent success in the business.

By way of example, there was the time early last December when Chuck, after being approached by an unspecified number of my local customers with reports of un-thorough cleaning of the inner stems and shanks of some pipes I had sold to that date, at last brought up the subject. I was not only unhappy to learn that any of my friends and associates who paid money for my pipes were too worried they might “hurt my feelings” by giving me the chance to correct the problem myself; I was still more irked that Chuck failed to warn me after the first instance. [See https://rebornpipes.com/2014/12/10/in-retort-to-claims-of-unclean-restored-pipes-robert-m-boughton/ for the full story.] Of course Chuck then emphasized the importance of retorting, and in one mad 18-hour marathon when my retort kit arrived in the mail soon after, I corrected the problem with every remaining pipe on my sales list, as I have done with each pipe I’ve restored since.

And so, last Friday night at our weekly pipe club get-together I showed Chuck my latest finished projects. He examined them before leaning toward me to tell me discretely of another fellow club member who saw my array of pipes for sale next to his at the monthly Moose Club meeting, where we are free to sell. It seems the gentleman in question, who is getting into the restoration practice, wondered why my pipes (and his own, it turned out) looked “so dull” compared to Chuck’s. I am pleased that I was apprised of the comment soon afterward, but had to wonder why Chuck – who no doubt noticed the same effect long ago – didn’t tell me of the importance of using an un-waxed buffer wheel after each application of the various waxes that can be used to finish pipes.

I had more than usual difficulty grasping the process as Chuck explained it to me, until his third description, when some light in my head snapped on. I understood he was not talking about removing the nice shiny layer of wax applied with such care; he was describing a way to take off the excess wax and firm up the rest so that it would shine even more, not smudge and last longer.

“You won’t believe the difference in the look of the pipe when you use a clean buffer after each wax you put on it,” Chuck told me, smiling in relief and the genuine pleasure he derives from explaining anything pipe-related, when he saw that my head had wrapped around the whole idea.

Again, of course, I remembered Chuck’s work-load and other difficulties, not to mention the bombardment of questions he receives every day from friends and customers. I identified with the high probability that every time he planned to say something it simply slipped his mind.

At any rate, this blog concerns a lovely rusticated bent bulldog made by the Belgian company known as Albertson, which, after World War II, was taken over by the Hilson factory. Since that crafter went bankrupt in 1980, the Albertson brand has been continued by the Royal Dutch Pipe Factory.

Considerable work went into this particular restoration, the first opportunity to use my new knowledge of proper pipe waxing. Thank you, Chuck, for being a real friend again. I officially challenge anyone to inspect this bulldog and find anything whatsoever lacking in its inner and outer shimmer.

THE RESTORATION

When my now customary first step of OxiCleaning the stem was complete, the well-shaped and gently curved stem was clean but covered with green, white and brownish spots. I solemnly affirm that I documented the result with a photo, but it seems to have been lost due to a malfunction of my camera. Likewise, the effects of 220-grit sandpaper on removing the serious tooth chatter that marred both sides of the top of the stem, almost an inch below the lip, are gone. Even the lip had been gnawed and required intense sanding, but at least I avoided Black Super Glue.

I stripped the rusticated briar in Everclear. Again, the photos of the bare briar after this process are not to be found, although rubbing with super fine steel wool, then sanding the top of the bowl above the traditional line to make it lighter in color, followed by a thorough micro-meshing of the whole with five grades from 1500-4000 made the wood ready for buffing. The only way I can even begin to explain the absence of these particular photos is to note that all of them were taken in order during a short period of peculiar behavior by the DSLR.

After sanding the chamber with 320-grit paper followed by 200, I retorted the pipe. For the first time, that step required only one test tube of boiled alcohol, thanks to the excellent care by the previous owner and the Everclear soak. I had stained all of it but the top and rim with burgundy boot dye, which I flamed and hand-buffed with 4000 micromesh before resorting to 3600 to heighten the new red tone. Here is the briar when I was almost done prepping it for the final buffs. At the last moment, I decided to give the upper part of the bowl and the rim a final sanding with 320-grit paper and re-using the same micromesh progression as before to take it all the way down to its natural light brown color. All was in order to try out my newly-learned wheel buffing technique.

The stem took a little extra work with its extra lines, using the regular red Tripoli followed by White Diamond. I happened to have an extra, new buffer which I then attached to the electric wheel that had held the red Tripoli cloth. Beginning on the briar with a regular white Tripoli buff, I held it up in the light for a better look before I moved to the clean buffer and turned the wood with extra care. Again I held it up to see the change, which, as Chuck had promised, was prominent. Repeating these steps with White Diamond and at last carnauba (since I still need to replace my spent supply of Halcyon II), when the work was done I was truly impressed with the far finer and more solid shine.

CONCLUSION
I was fortunate to start with an estate pipe that was well-tended by it prior owner, and I like to think that he would be pleased with its new, sharper two-tone look. My only regret is that now I have to re-polish my entire growing collection of pipes for sale. But I am looking forward to the next monthly Moose Lodge meeting of the pipe club on the third Thursday of April. You can bet I’ll be there, with all of my pipes arranged proudly beside Chuck’s.

Still I wonder…what future comments might make their way to me via my good friend and mentor? Perhaps now my potential local customers might find the good grace and trust to approach me instead.

The French Girl with the Fuzzy Identity

Anonimo, or the Modern Westminster Cathedral*

1 Reply

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

“…once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), English novelist, in “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,” 1818

PREFACE
I was, as my ancestors, a native of Redondo Beach and its environs, and most of my family born in that temperate South Bay region of the California Republic was by any appraisal undistinguished, indeed, a study in dysfunction. Whilst every genealogy has its heritage of eccentricity and neurosis, mine is cursed with a spasmodic line of schizophrenia.

My grandfather, the one shining beacon, remains known the world round for his pioneering and influential photography of the sport that is known as surfing, owing to the vernacular origin peculiar to the American colonies. The good gentleman was a lifelong champion and active participant, with vigor, flair and skill, both in the sport and his avid documentation of its participants, famous and obscure, and the attendant culture. Who knew, in its inception, that his physician’s prescription, ordered in the middle part of the late twentieth century, for a hobby to aid the old man in recovering from a particularly tenacious bout with peptic ulcers, would spawn a latent talent and lead to eternal glory?

Indeed, one beguiled writer at a magazine that showcased most of the great photographers of the previous century – which renowned publication, alas, has now passed almost as thoroughly as my grandfather, remaining for the living and breathing inhabitants of this wayfarer’s station, before the Great Unknown, to appreciate only in the ether realm known as the World Wide Web – was so beside himself with giddiness as to dub the much beloved old man “the godfather of surf photography.”

My mother, being the first offspring of the great man, was the only one of her siblings to pursue a noted career, as a nurse now retired. Together the patriarch and eldest daughter formed the bulwark of the otherwise mostly listless, melancholy clan.

On the subject of my own eclectic interests, I have, since childhood, had a consuming hunger for the study of diverse subjects. This omniology put me on my present path, that is, to understand every facet of human knowledge concerning everything, particularly, in my case, the often seemingly unfathomableness of information relating to the genesis, history, science, study, culture, enjoyment and preservation of smoking pipes. One could call me an omnitabacariusphile, although in my zeal for this inclination, however well-meaning and innocent its beginning, the pursuit lead me to a monster I shudder to recall and doubt in my constitution to do so.

Some months have passed since I set upon the fearsome, God-like determination of restoring life to the creature that this narration shall endeavor to describe in the entirety of its awful nature, the frightful apparition of which you shall observe in its original form as I first perceived it in the mists of the cold, barren, lifeless wasteland that is called the Internet in these peculiar times we are fated to spend our lives. Nothing of that initial sighting, the image of the monster blurred by the swirling incorporation of sundry others similar in basic form yet far fairer in the details of their corporeal makeup, could prepare me for the spectre I beheld when the entire host of them arrived by poste.

Good God! Readers, had you been in my company at the instant when first I disrobed the fiendish animation that was hurled through space and time to alight in my quivering hands, then only would you comprehend truly the horror that consumed my entire humanity. Yet, think not for an instant that the visage I discerned was the genuine inception of my natural sense of loathing. The full nature of my revulsion sprang, as fast as the Trees of Truth and Knowledge, from the immediate and overwhelming understanding of the cruelty that was inflicted by Man upon this poor brute.

FIRST SIGHTING
Now, at last, I have regained enough of my stamina – which, for all of my life prior to the advent of the incident which forms the central theme of this account, was as vigorous as that of any young man who plays cricket almost every day – to reveal the thing as I found it, through the following crude illustrations.

I implore you, in the name of all that is Holy, to scrutinize the abominable disfigurements of the beast’s original form. Perceive with more than just your eyes, and especially with pity in your hearts, I further beseech you, the jagged wound inflicted just below its forehead, or rim; the dreadful rending of its skin from the right side of its torso – shank, rather – beside the artificial extension of the same, and lastly, the woeful bleeding of black stain, as blood, from this extension onto the very wood that was to be its natural makeup. At first I took the freak of nature, nay, far worse, the creation of a man, to be the first attempt of a novice at crafting a briar pipe of the freehand variety. Only later was I corrected by one whose opinion and experience in such matters I hold inviolate, my mentor and good friend Chuck Richards, who informed me to my astonishment and dismay that the egregious work was in fact of Italian descent with no name.

Read on at your own peril.

RESTORATION OF LIFE
Seeking no more than to breathe new life into the ruined corpse of a smoking pipe, one I envisioned in my mind’s eye as it could have been, had it been born into the good society so many take for granted, I proceeded with the course of action which I perhaps foolishly believed was pre-determined. Regardless of my motives, I felt a pull that led me inexorably to the conclusion I shall in good time reveal.

Having triaged the wounds to the unknown pipe, I found myself in the gravest sense of urgency whilst I resolved to expunge the haphazard spatter of bloodlike blackness betwixt the briar shank and its extension.

With the utmost surgical care, employing 220-grit paper, I erased the accursed stains.

Regarding the ridge of the odd, beak-like figure on the front of the bowl, the un-level aspect of the prominently scabrous feature was positively unnerving to behold. Though a full frontal view is not available before its correction, these left and right images reveal the disparity. The cruel hideousness of the misdeed inflicted upon a central feature of the freehand was so ghastly to behold, reminding one of the nose of an old man spotted and mangled by the advanced stages of alcoholism, that its repair was my second priority. With the aid of a flat filing tool, I corrected the flaw whilst also removing a gash above it. A cursory smoothing of the abraded surface resulted in the beginning of an almost intoxicating, God-like improvement, though minor work to finish the makeover I had begun was still necessary. Scarcely able to control my escalating excitement that was directed with all-consuming mania toward the ultimate re-animation of the pipe, I turned my gaze again to the frightful laceration to the cranium – that is to say, the rim. Devoid of even a dash of hope for correcting the near fatal head wound, and directly upon the heels of the greatest battle between my ever-intensifying lust to restore the spark that is life to this wretched pipe versus my thoughts of utter failure and ruin, I could envision no measure short of inflicting a deliberate pattern of the very same gouges round the rim and the immediate area of the bowl beneath it. Toward this remarkably heady end, I embarked upon a slippery path of utter destruction of the rim with naught but prayers that I could complete and then reverse, as it were, the radical procedure. The only implement available being a spring-loaded round hole-puncher with a small but sturdy grip, I commenced the initial task of creating matching and equidistant blemishes round the top of the bowl.

And then, with mounting glee at the sheer recklessness of the notion, onto the top of the skull – or rim – I repeated the same process with tighter punches. Oh, to formulate in words the wonder and terror that overwhelmed my senses is beyond the power of the greatest poet! In my crazed mind I entertained a vision of beauty like a newborn phoenix rising from the ashes! The mental snapshot was breathtaking in its audacity and execution! I was all but hopelessly mad in the ecstasy of the moment! I daresay some would now postulate that I had already surpassed that precipitant threshold.

Therefore it is without any sense of sin whatsoever that I confess my elation at the removal of the few remaining but festering sores that upon first sight of the beleaguered pipe put me in such a state of apprehension.

I performed a retort for a thorough purging of the accreted waste and other filth that continued to leech the innards of the reanimated Italian pipe with no name, though I retained hope that the poor thing would regain some of its more pleasant previous memories, if indeed it ever possessed any, as its recovery progressed.

Wishing to be done forever with the coarse, disheveled appearance of the still recuperating pipe, I applied a progressive regimen of micromesh from 1500 to 4000 upon the unfinished pocks covering the rusticated dome and the pale, sickly spots at various intervals of the pipe’s wooden body where once had flourished cuts, scrapes and crevasses.

The quick application of a double-coat of medium brown leather stain to the areas of the wood effected by the various degrees of sanding and more aggressive restorative measures, and the immediate removal of the dye’s alcohol by ritual of fire left a meager residue of ash that was banished with ease using the 4000 micromesh pad.

The stem, once oxidized to a uniform sickly green shade, glimmered again in its healthy black condition following a treatment with red and white Tripoli and White Diamond.

The wooden body, cured of every ailment that had at first glance so shocked me to the very core of my being, was ready for the final course of medicine, which included the same wholly natural elixirs and a gentle buff with carnauba.

CONCLUSION
Though mighty powers of science, craftsmanship and other forces beyond the comprehension of Man indeed coexist on some unseen dual plain of reality, the awesome dynamism behind them must be harnessed by the guardians of restoration before they can be utilized on a regular basis. I count myself among the fortunate to have survived this harrowing ordeal with my body, mind and soul intact.

I entreat all those who read this to consider it with open minds, but as a cautionary tale.

*Reconstruction of Westminster Cathedral, the mother church of English Catholicism, began in 1895, but due to the cost has never been completed – leaving much of the interior unfinished brickwork.

The Christmastime Joy of Refurbishing an Old Peterson

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

“Smoke your pipe and be silent; there’s only wind and smoke in the world.” – Irish Proverb

INTRODUCTION
Many of the pipe lots I purchased during the past few months were to spruce up and sell at my online restored pipe site, although I admit to liberating a few of the choicer finds here and there for my own collection. However,this fine example of a vintage classic Peterson and a number of other brands I bought as singles in more recent weeks were intended with lust a forethought for my own ultimate and lifelong use. As far as the Pete I just received is concerned, my decision to keep it was not based on the Peterson brand name, 22 of which I already owned.

In fact, I expected to add one of the Pete’s I ordered near the end of November to the trove, which seems to increase at an exponential rate and counts 23 now of this brand alone.I chose instead to list the fine pipe for sale for disparate reasons even I find difficult to explain. My penchant for anything Peterson is so well known that my announcement on the Smokers Forums of my plan to sell the K&P System Standard brought a humorous reply: “I thought you’d never say ‘Enough Petersons.’ ”

My decision to sell the basic K&P System Standard full bent which, when I at last held it in my hands, was similar to some I already have, was based in part on that factor but, more to the point, it somehow lacked the certain element of instant overwhelming attraction which is too complicated to describe in this forum, and besides, I am sure anyone who reads this already knows the butterfly effect all too well. I am also adding higher-end pipes to my site and concluded a shiny new-looking Peterson would provide a nice incentive to someone out there in Cyberland who possess the essential sense of captivation to give it the loving home it deserves and not enjoy it once or twice only to put it in the rack and almost never again give it a serious thought.

And I should add how any potential rarity or value of the engaging pipe shown here pre-restored is irrelevant to my sentiments for it. No, I reserved the Peterson Dublin Republic Era straight billiard for my own caring use even despite its mixed grain because it, well, possesses the right stuff as defined by my personal sensibilities. Who knows? Maybe the System Standard full bent is an extraordinary find. I just don’t have eyes for every pipe that comes my way as I do for the subject of this blog.

Perhaps the strongest tug at the curious side of me was the stem, which is perfect except for one tell-tale sign that it is not the original for this Made in the Republic of Ireland Peterson. Clear as day on the left side is the symbol that identifies it as a Peterson stem made for a pipe manufactured in France:

Now that’s one kind of oddity that always endears a pipe to me on first sight.

REFURBISH
First, as the word refurbish suggests, this was, for the most part, not a difficult task. The only actual problem was removing the cake buildup from the chamber, where I started.

For the most part, in my experience at least, even cake this bad comes free without a fight and leaves the chamber relatively smooth. The third photo above does not do service to the way the cake tapered downward from more to less. This turned out to be one of the ordeal varieties, not a piece of cake at all. (I know, and tender my apology now.) I started with the 19mm reamer since most of the carbon mess was at the top, and it fit about halfway down with snugness. Several laborious full turns later, applying just enough force to see the reamer moving a bit lower, I paused to dump the carbon dust. Seeing the huge amount that fell out, I took another close look into the chamber and was amazed to see not only that the upper bowl needed much more work, but that the bottom was unfazed.

And so I switched to the 21mm reamer that was barely able to clear the inner diameter and gave the entire area a go with several more intense turns, using pressure again to reach the real bottom. Another massive amount of carbon fled the chamber as I turned it upside-down over a proper receptacle. Then, sticking with the bigger reamer, I engaged the entire enemy for the first time. The biggest load of carbon so far emptied out, and after I blew through the shank, a thick dark cloud of dust flew through the air, reminiscent of Victorian Era London skies as described by Charles Dickens with much greater skill.

I soaked a couple of small squares of cotton cloth with Everclear and folded them around my middle finger to insert into the chamber and scrub away much of the residual grime. I did this with both sides of the cloths. Waste not, want not and all that. Of course the wet cotton came out soaked solid black along with part of my finger, but I allowed the alcohol to dry a little as I halfway cleaned my begrimed digit before sticking my clean index finger all the way in and feeling the walls. They were pocked all over.

Reattaching the 19mm blades, I angled them first against the upper half of the chamber before adjusting them to favor the lower half. Much more carbon was loosened, and more alcohol-soaked cotton cloths wiped away the excess. Again I inserted a clean finger and used it to dig out little chunks of carbon. The chamber was better but still needed work.

I turned to a small piece of 200-grit sandpaper long enough to reach the bottom of the chamber with a little above the rim and wide enough to cover half of the wall. With whatever finger fit inside the chamber leaving enough room to press down against the paper and turn it with roughness 360 degrees a few times, I heard that old familiar fingers-on-chalkboard screech the entire time. But I felt the wall smoothing. The paper came out black, and I wiped it over a rag to remove the dust. Still again, a small mountain of carbon fell from the inverted chamber. Feeling the wall with a bare finger, I knew I had to get rough at last.

A perfect old piece of 150-grit paper presented itself for my use, and I went at the chamber again with real gusto. The fact that another pile of carbon was removed dismayed and discouraged me. I repeated the process several times, cleaned the chamber with cotton cloths and Everclear, and believe it or not, got the reward I had awaited with a clean, smooth finger inspection. So that’s my page and a half on fixing the dang chamber.

Next up on my itinerary was beginning the cleaning process of the shank. After about ten minutes of running a wire-handled bristle cleaner dipped in alcohol over and over through the inner shank, I saw it was having an effect and stopped to prepare for the retort.

At this point I remembered the small stem was Lucite, which can be warped and ruined by alcohol. However, finding the task of attaching the rubber tube of the retort kit directly over the wide shank opening, and also locating no suitable temporary stem, I saw no choice but to take a chance. And so I connected the rubber over the lip of the stem and commenced the retort process.

Several test tubes of Everclear later, the shank at last came clean. Removing the stem as fast as I could and inserting a stem cleaner into it, where I let it stay long enough to dry, I found that it was intact. I completed the retort by removing the cotton balls from the chamber and using more cotton cloth to scour the chamber clean and dry and doing the same to the shank with a soft cleaner.

The stem, as nice as it was, still had a couple of minor bite marks and other blemishes I might have ignored with a pipe I was keeping, but I couldn’t do it.The ease of removing the bitemarks and other marks with 400-grit paper came as a happy surprise. While the sandpaper was handy, I cleaned the shank opening, as you will see below. After that all I needed to do was micromesh the bowl and shank with 1500, 2400 and 3200.

I was more reluctant than ever before to remove any of the original stain, but had no choice with the rim, which was blackened beyond the help of purified water, steel wool or micromesh. I chose 400-grit paper, which eliminated the blackening, before a three-step micromesh using 1500, 2400 and 3200. That done, I considered which of my modern day stains would best approximate the original, and decided to go with the medium brown. I flamed it and set it aside to cool. After a few minutes, I took out my 2400 micromesh pad and gently rubbed away the ash, followed by a quick wipe with a soft rag.

I’d have to say the greatest surprise with this old pipe was the flawless condition of the bowl and shank, with the exception of the rim as described. Based on the general design, the less familiar shade of brown and the grain that is not as uniform as pipe enjoyers today expect, I estimate that this pipe dates to the 1940s or 1950s. At first I believed the pipe was never waxed until I gave it a good wash with purified water and cotton cloth and was able to make out a couple of thin, shiny streaks on the top of the shank, where it appears its long-time previous owner seldom if ever touched the faithful companion.

Still, to assure its readiness for a smooth buffing, I prepared the wood with micromesh progressing from 1500 to 2400 to 3200 and at last 4000.

Eager to try out this wondrous pipe that, as I noted, was created before I was, I found myself filled with more excitement than usual as the moment to buff the beauty with waxes arrived. Leaving the stem behind, having waxed it with red and white Tripoli followed by White Diamond while the new rim stain dried, I carried the smooth piece of old briar into my workroom. Wanting to bring out as much of the varied grain as possible, I decided to use the whole ball of wax. (I know, I know! Again, I apologize.) Starting with the red Tripoli wheel, I coated it with an easy, light touch before moving to the white Tripoli, followed by White Diamond, and to finish it off, carnauba.

CONCLUSION
I could never describe what it is about a pipe that attracts me to it. My tastes are too eclectic. But when I see it, it is always like love at first sight. I mean that in the literal sense, as with two or three times in my life when I took one look at someone and was instantly light-headed with my stomach full of butterflies and found myself tongue-twisted. Alas, none of those relationships worked out in the end. With pipes, at least, love is forever – and perhaps a bit lecherously, I have quite the stable of mistresses.

The author enjoying the pipe.

Comoy’s Satin Matte Bent Christmas Pipe, In Four-Part Harmony – Robert M. Boughton

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

This blog is dedicated to my older uncle, Frank Lee Grannis (1945-2014), who was maybe Arlo Guthrie’s biggest fan. Frank once snapped a black and white photo of a teenaged Arlo, at an outdoor music festival somewhere in the countryside, smiling and signing an autograph for another fan who was about Arlo’s age. I lost the photo in my younger, wilder days, or I would include it here, but the image will always be in my memory.

Let’s get Santa Clause ’cause:
Santa Clause has a red suit
He’s a communist
And a beard, and long hair
Must be a pacifist
What’s in the pipe that he’s smoking?—Arlo Guthrie, U.S. singer-songwriter-musician, in “The Pause of Mr. Claus” (1968)

INTRODUCTION
Now friends, tonight we’re gonna sing you a song, a Christmas carol in four-part harmony. The song…the Christmas carol is part of an album called “Arlo.” That’s my name. Some of you right about now might be thinking, thinking in your private thoughts there in your heads, well, this Arlo fella must have a pretty big ego. I mean, to go and name an album after himself, he must have let all that fame and fortune go to his head. I don’t know about the fame and fortune part, because all that doesn’t last long, but my head, my head is really sort of small. We’ve never actually met. All of you out there and me, that is.But that’s not what I came to talk about. Came to talk about a pipe. Remember the pipe? This is a story about a pipe.And I’ll get to it. In time, and four-part harmony.

So there I was, sitting on a bench, looking for a song to start with. I didn’t find it. I’m not proud…or tired.Out of all the songs I wrote, there I was, on the bench trying to pull just one verse from my head, but nothing would come.I knew right then and there I had to get ahold of Steve Laug, he’s a good friend of mine. We’ve never actually met. But we write emails back and forth to each other all the time. Now friends, if you ask me, that’s one hell of a way for folks to talk. Sort of like writing a story, in four-part harmony.

And then it hits me that it would be a friendly gesture to sing a Christmas carol about the guy who started it all. A guy in a red coat who has a beard, and all he does is give presents…for free…to all the rest of us. Must be something deranged about a guy like that.Living in Canada…living at the North Pole, it’ll do that to a guy.

Now, Steve and me, we never exactly said anything about any quote. All we talked about was the pipe. Remember the pipe? Anyway, I sent him a picture with the email, an eight-by-ten color glossy with all the details written down, and I said I thought it was what’s called a brandy shape, and Steve, he says it’s like a BBB he has that’s the same shape, only it’s a Christmas pipe. Well, I never heard of any Christmas pipe shape, but Steve knows more than I do. And later on he wrote back and sent a picture of his BBB, an eight-by-ten color glossy with all the details. And the two eight-by-ten color glossies with all the details were almost the same.

And the good news is, that’s when I remembered this Christmas carol I wrote, in four-part harmony, because it was about Santa Claus, even though it’s spelled with an “e” in the song. Don’t ask me why, you can figure it out. Now, everyone knows old Santa is all about Christmas. So that’s about how that story goes.

Now I’ll get on with the other story, about the pipe. Remember the pipe?

I got mixed up online with some poor fella who was selling seven pipes all together and didn’t have a clue what all was in there. ’Cause my eye went straight to one with a white C on the stem and even I knew what that meant. The listing, in micro-mini small print at the bottom of the page, that you’re not supposed to read, called it a “Como’s Bent Billiard,” but I took a closer look and made out the blurry Y after Como. So there I was, still sitting on the bench and having a good old time knowing how nobody else knew the Como pipe was in there with all the others, and that’s why the price was so low with time running out. I’d like to dedicate this Christmas carol to all the pipe-abusing S.O.B.s out there who have been bad little boys and girls and ought to keep that in mind this coming Christmas. It’s called “The Pause of Mr. Como.” Now here’s how the song goes.

RESTORATION
Meanwhile, back to myself again after a brief diversion, I will describe the pipe as I received it. Although there were bad cake buildup in the chamber, rim burning, ubiquitous scratches on all sides of the bowl and a stem in dire need of work and polishing, the allure of this excellent Comoy’s example was almost intoxicating, and I haven’t tasted alcohol in 26 years – not that you could tell after reading my Introduction.

I like to start on a rim with super fine steel wool, as I did with this pipe. In general, this approach takes off most or all of the char and leaves the wood beneath without a single new scratch and often even shiny. This time I got nowhere with the regular method, and so I switched to 400-grit paper, which removed the char as well as dings and scratches I uncovered. Of course, the sandpaper also took off the old stain.

With the rim clean and smooth, showing the fine grain, I found my old Senior Reamer in its box and took on the chamber.This time, the reamer worked as it should. Almost all of the buildup was reduced to dust. A little quick sanding with 120-grit paper was needed before smoothing with 400. Now, as I described earlier, the outer wood was scratched almost everywhere. I very much wanted to avoid ruining the good, light stain of the original. Having learned that micromesh can go a long way, from advice of my mentor, Chuck Richards, as well as our host and several previous readers, I put the theory to a tougher test than I had before.

And you know what? I think they’re on to something! Starting with 800-grade, I was able to eliminate all but the most insignificant scratches. I then worked my way up from 1000 to 1500 to 2400 and ending with 3200, leaving the briar– well, leaving the briar as smooth as it must have been the day it left the Comoy’s shop.

Taking on the stem only required heavy sanding and buffing with 1500, 2400 and 3200 micromesh.

Cleaning the pipe turned out to be the hardest part. I just kept dipping the bristly cleaners in Everclear one half at a time and scrubbing away until they came out of the shank and stem clear.

CONCLUSION
If I had kept this fine example of Comoy’s craftsmanship, I would prize it as the best as compared to the two I own. However, as fate would have it, the pipe sold almost as soon as I posted it on my restored pipes Website. My only consolation is that I have reason to believe it is in adoring hands.

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