Blog by Troy Wilburn
I have read about some of Troy’s refurbs on Pipe Smokers Unlimited and on the Dr. Grabow Collector’s Forum so when I saw his work on this old Doc Watson and the unique stamping it had I wrote and asked him if he would be willing to post it on rebornpipes. It is a pleasure to have some of Troy’s work here. He did an amazing job on this particular old timer with the distinct purpose of trying to keep the original finish as much as possible as he worked on it. Thanks Troy for taking the time to send me this blog. I am glad you were willing to post it here. Welcome to rebornpipes as one of the contributors. It is great to have you here. You have shared not only a great restorfurb but some tricks that I will have to use in the future. We would love to read about and look at more of your work. Thank you. – Steve
Hi everyone, my name is Troy Wilburn and I live in rural Virginia near Roanoke. I have been a dedicated pipe smoker for a little over a year now and refurbishing my own pipes for about 8 months. I mostly hang out on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum. My collection is mostly American made pipes. My favorite shapes are pokers, billiards and Canadians. Pokers are my most favorite with nearly 40 of them last count. I have kind of a tight budget to work with on my pipe smoking, pipe purchasing and pipe refurbishing. That’s why I got into refurbishing my own pipes. I’m always trying to find a bargain on pre 50s pipes as they are my favorite. Linkmans and Yello Boles are my most common pre 50s pipes with three Marxman’s thrown in. I do have a hard to find Marxman poker that is one of the prides of my pipe collection and is 100 % original finish.
I have browsed Reborn pipes for information and refurbishing info for a while.
This is my latest one and the pipe that got me here. It’s a Doc Watson pipe shape #51. I know from researching this pipe that Steve had restored a couple so I thought he might know some info on the odd stamping’s mine has. He invited me here to post my work on this pipe.
I got this one and an early Yello Bole apple from a woman who got them at the same estate sale. They both came from the same owner. The Doc Watson’s were made by KBB and though I have seen a few, mine has odd stamping of a P in a shield and mine has the name SR applied. The others I’ve seen are stamped just plain Doc Watson and with the KKB in a cloverleaf.
I know this is a KBB as it has the same shape number as KBB, YB and KW charts. The stem has the same logo as the KBBs. KBB stamped Watson’s are all marked Italian Bruyere not Algerian like this one is. I’m guessing this pipe is dated between 1936-1940 as it has the Bruyere stamp but lacks the four digit code.
Pipe as I got it… 
After a reaming and a good cleaning I noticed that it had some discoloration spots from heat and the finish was all but gone on these spots. Also there were lots of scratches on the surface and some were deeper. So instead of stripping the whole thing I decided to try and blend in the spots with the original finish, to keep it as original as possible.
So after sanding the bowl down with some 600 grit sandpaper very lightly, being careful of the stampings and the stem with 1000 grit, I applied a matching dye that I mixed up to the spots.
The dye pretty much only stuck to the bare finish parts and the excess rubbed off after I wiped it with a rag. After three coats I applied some mineral oil. I had to file out some tooth marks on the stem and button and then wet sanded the stem.
Below is a picture of the bowl and stem back together and ready for some base wax.
After waxing the pipe late last night I saw some file marks still visible and the spots were not quite as well blended in as I would have liked. It was more visible in person that it is in the pic shown here.
So I decided to back up and punt. After some sleep, morning caffeine and some Vitamin N from some Haunted Bookshop I was ready to go at it again. I sanded the whole pipe and stem with mineral oil and 1000, 1400 and 2000 grit sandpaper. Then I applied a thin coat of red sharpie as toner and buffed off the excess with a loose pad. It left just a red tint and helped blend the dye with the original finish.
I lightly waxed the bowl to seal it in. The pipe is about 70-75 percent original finish with some slight blending and tone work. It still has some minor dings around the stampings but I didn’t want to damage them or buff them out any more than I could help. I guess you would call it a Restorfurb.
After several more coats and buffing…
Sadly the stinger is missing on this one. The Doc Watson pipes have a pretty near stinger. Here is a pic of one that I got off the web.
I’ll try to find one for it but it may be difficult as these are not that common of a pipe and they were only made for a short time.
Well I sanded and refurbished it and even gave it a contrast stain. But the mold stains were still visible. It smoked fine and looked ok but I thought it was too nice a pipe to leave like it was.
I put it on the back burner until after the first of the year then I contacted another from a Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum about doing some blasting for me on a couple of pipes including this one. He does some very nice blast work. I figured that the blast would get rid of or obscure the mold stains. This is what the pipe looked like when I got it back. He did some fine blasting on it. He even threw in one of his custom-made tampers that is shown in the picture with the pipe.
I mixed up some brown Rit dye and added about 25% orange along with about 5% red as well. I wanted to match the colour of the amber stem in some way. I then coated it in mineral oil and took a scotch brite pad and went over the surface to lighten the high spots of the blast. I wanted the color of the pipe to match the dark brown of the stem at the shank so that it would look like the whole pipe fades from Brown to the amber yellow. After many coats of wax this is what I got.
I think it turned out real nice and it smokes wonderful. A gift from a friend and the blast work from another friend make this one of my prized pipes.
rebornpipes 