Tag Archives: Bakelite or Redmanol Stems

From Chicago in 1920’s a Reiss-Premier System Pipe with a Clay Bowl Insert

Blog by Steve Laug

In the fall I received an email from a reader of the blog about a pipe she had questions about. She sent me photos of the pipe and the Diamond P logo on the metal rim cap and shank band. The band and the cap were polished brass. I did some looking and could not find anything that narrowed down the maker of the pipe. I wrote her back and offered to purchase the pipe from her. She sold it to me and shipped it to my brother Jeff. The base of the bowl is made out of Redmanol or Bakelite. The liner of the bowl held in by the brass rim cap is clay. The airway is in the bottom of the bowl and there is a chamber below that that feeds the smoke into the airway in the stem. The stem is also Bakelite and has tooth chatter on both sides ahead of the stem. Here are the photos she sent me of the pipe. The next two photos show the Diamond P stamp on the band and the rim cap. Jeff took photos of the pipe when he received it in the mail. This was another dirty pipe with a lot of wear and tear. I love seeing those old uniques smoked so much. It is a good sign that it was a good smoker. The pipe has no stamping on the Bakelite shank or the bowl. The Brass rim top had a Diamond P on the front of the cap and on the right side of the brass band on the shank. I would need to check that out. The brass was oxidized is spot on both the rim and the band. The band had been bent somewhere along the way and would need to be flattened. The golden yellow Bakelite base was dirty and the you could see the grime in nicks on the surface. The bowl had a thick cake that flowed over the top of the smooth rim in a lava coat in spots around the bowl. The inner edge was also heavily coated in those spots that it was hard to assess its condition. The rim top seemed to be dented on the top surface and edges. The stem was a golden yellow Bakelite saddle stem that had oils that darkened and obscured the airway from the place where the stem hits the band through the airway in the button. It had some light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. Jeff took photos of the pipes before he started his clean up work. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of both. The tars/lava coat on the rim top is thick and needs to be removed. The cake in the bowl is quite thick and the airway in the bottom of the bowl seems to be plugged. He also captured the tooth marks in the surface of the stem on both sides ahead of the button. He took photos of the bowl sides and heel of the bowl to capture the colour and the shape. You can also see the oxidation and wear on the brass rim cap and band. Jeff sent photos of the logo on the right side of the band as well as a Patent stamp on the shank side that I had not seen in my earlier correspondence on this pipe. I did a Google search and came upon this summary of the patent along with Patent application including descriptions in detail and drawings of the bowl and the insert inside as well as how it is held in place (https://patents.google.com/patent/US1542838A/en?oq=US+Patent+1542838). It is an interesting piece that seems to come from the period of 1921-1942. It appears that the application was granted in 1925. Here is the summary in full.

Inventor

Robert M Prophet

Current Assignee

REISS PREMIER PIPE Co

REISS-PREMIER PIPE Co

Worldwide applications

1921 US

Application US434480A events

1921-01-03

Application filed by REISS PREMIER PIPE Co

1921-01-03

Priority to US434480A

1925-06-23

Application granted

1925-06-23

Publication of US1542838A

1942-06-23

Anticipated expiration

Status

Expired – Lifetime

There was also a note on the summary that I have included below.

A24F1/22 – Tobacco pipes with arrangements for cleaning or cooling the smoke with arrangements for cooling by air, e.g. pipes with double walls. With that new information, thanks to the patent number, I know what I am dealing with. It is an old timer – potential from the 1920s. The outer bowl is Redmanol or Bakelite and the inner bowl is clay. The rim cap has a cork gasket and is slid or pressed on to the top of the bowl. It was definitely a part of the ongoing search for a cooler and drier smoke. Now it was time to work on it.

From that information I had a couple of other things to check out. I wanted to see if there was a link for the Diamond P logo on the metal on the pipe and I wanted to learn more about Reiss-Premier Corp. I turned to Pipephil (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-r3.html) and looked for the logo. Interestingly it took me to a listing under the Redmanol name and a link to Reiss-Premier Corp as well. I have done a screen capture of the section on the site and have included it and the side bar information below.Redmanol is not exactly a pipe brand but the name of a synthetic material, a phenol-formaldehyde resin very close to Bakelite, first developed in 1907 by Leo Hendrik Baekeland. Redmanol and also Condensite were competitors to Bakelite. The courts found that Redmanol and Condensite both infringed on Baekeland’s patents, and in 1922 the three companies merged as the “Bakelite Company”.

I next turned to Pipedia to look up information on the Reiss-Premier Corp and see what I could learn there (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Reiss-Premier_Co.). I have included a photo of their building in New York and the brief article from Pipedia below. The interesting point for me is that the original company was in Chicago and founded in 1922 by the merger of two companies. It is in that time frame that this Redmanol pipe was made.The Reiss-Premier Corporation was founded on June 22, 1940 in New York as the successor to the Reiss-Premier Pipe Company of Chicago. That company was in turn founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1922 by Jacob D. Burger, again as a successor company to two former pipemaking concerns, Reiss Brothers of Chicago and Premier Briar Pipe Company. The company was located in the south half of the fifth floor at 32 to 40 South Clinton Street in Chicago. Four years later, in 1926 Reiss-Premier Pipe Co. was issued a trademark for the term “Drinkless”, made famous on so many Kaywoodie pipes, and for which they used the slogan “You can’t get a drink from a drinkless pipe”.

In August of 1926, Reiss-Premier Pipe Co. purchased Kaufmann Bros. & Bondy and a year later the Kaywoodie pipes began to sport the Drinkless stinger. By 1928 Reiss-Premier had moved their production to Union City, New Jersey, and in December of that year were granted a patent for a cigarette and cigar holder. The following month the company moved again, purchasing the factory building of Paul G. Mehlin & Sons, piano manufacturers and taking over a part of that four story building.

After Reiss-Premier Pipe Co. became Reiss-Premier Corporation they continued to innovate, and in 1947 trademarked the “Synchro Stem” system used on decades of Kaywoodie pipes.

The Reiss-Premier Corporation was purchased in March of 1955 by S.M. Frank but remains an active corporation in the state of New York.

Now it was time to work on the pipe. Jeff carefully reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to clean off the grime off the finish and the overflow of lava on the brass rim cap. The cleaning had removed the grime on the rim top. He mentioned he could not remove the stem but he cleaned up the internals of the pipe as best he could with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove all of the oils and tars in the pipe. The inside of the stem was very clean. He scrubbed the stem surface with Soft Scrub to remove the grime and oils that were on it. The fit of the stem to the shank was very good, snug enough that Jeff was uncomfortable trying to remove it. It was hard to know if the tenon was friction fit or threaded with a pipe this old. When it arrived here in Vancouver it was a clean pipe and I knew what I had to work with. I took photos of it before I started my part of the restoration. I took a photo of the rim top and the stem to show their condition. Jeff was able to clean up the cake and the lava overflow that was shown in the rim and bowl photos above. The rim top very clean with the oxidation and lava gone. There were a lot of dents and nicks in the surface and the outer edge of the bowl that told a story of its journey. The stem looked much better with a clean airway in the stem. The tars and oils that had been there are gone. There were tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. I took photos of the patent number stamp and the Diamond P logos on the metal of the band and the rim cap. They are all in good condition and readable as noted above.I carefully wiggled the stem and figured out it was not threaded. I slowly turned it free of the shank to find that the tenon was metal. The shank and the tenon were very clean so Jeff had been successful in his clean up even without removing the stem. I ran several pipe cleaners through the mortise and the tenon and they came out spotless other than removing dust from those areas. I took a photo of the pipe with the stem removed to show the tenon and the look of the parts. It is a great looking little pipe.I started my work on the pipe by addressing the nicks and scratches in the brass rim cap and shank band. I polished them with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping them down after each sanding pad. While I could not remove them all I was able to smooth them out significantly. Jeff’s clean up on the bowl and base had been excellent and I gave it a quick buff with a soft cloth and it was finished. I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem at this point in the process. I filled in the tooth marks on the surface with clear CA glue. Once the repairs cured I smoothed them out with 2 inch sanding pads – dry sanding with 320-3500 grit pads and wiping it down after each pad. I polished light tooth marks and chatter out of 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 polished 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. I put the stem back on the Redmanol System Pipe with a Clay insert bowl and a Redmanol stem Made for Reiss-Premier and took it to the buffer. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish the briar and the acrylic. Blue Diamond does a great job on the smaller scratches that remain in both. 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 a beautiful Redmanol System Pipe – the Redmanol saddle stem and smooth finish combine to give the pipe a great look. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.08 ounces/59 grams. This is a pipe that I will be hanging onto for my own collection of odd old timers. 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.

Breathing life into a Superior Real Briar Bulldog

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Blog by Steve Laug

This older C.P.F. style bulldog with an ornate rim cap and shank end cap was another pipe that my brother and I found in our pipe hunt in Montana. That hunt yielded a lot of older C.P.F. and WDC pipes from between the late 1890s and the early 1900s. This one is certainly from that time period. The briar is very worn and the finish is gone. The metal rim cap and shank cap or ferrule are brass coloured but blackened with oxidation. The top of the rim is thickly caked with the lava overflow from the heavy cake in the bowl itself. The stem is either Redmanol or Bakelite and has some cracking near the shank/stem junction but nothing that affects the fit of the stem to the shank. There is some tooth chatter and tooth marks near the button on the top and underside of the stem. My brother took the photos that follow before he did his clean up.The pipe has some faint stamping on the left side of the shank. The photo below shows the condition of the stamping. It clearly reads SUPERIOR in a diamond. There seems to be other stamping that is faint underneath SUPERIOR in the diamond but I am unable to read it. On the outside of the diamond there is stamping on either side. It is faint but to the left under the edge of the diamond is faint stamping Real and under the right edge of the diamond it reads Briar. There appears to be something underneath the diamond going across the shank but it is not clear enough for me to be able to read.The next two photos show the pipe from two different angles to give an idea of what the pipe looked like in its entirety. There is some real promise with this old pipe.The rings around the cap on the bowl are in excellent condition. There is some debris lodged in them but there are no chips or cracks in the ring. The finish on the briar is spotty with small remnants of the original finish in place. The grain on the pipe is quite nice underneath the grime. The bowl has a thick cake in it and the lava has flowed over on top of the rim top. The metal rim top is blackened and has a thick cake of lava on it. It is hard to know what the inner edge of the rim will look like at this point because of the cake in the bowl. The carvings/castings in the metal rim cap and the shank end are dirty and have a lot of grime built up in the grooves and crannies. The Bakelite/Redmanol stem had tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem from the button forward about an inch. There were some small cracks in the shank end of the stem that would need to be addressed in the repair.Jeff did an amazing job of reaming out the bowl on this one and revealed that the metal cap was folded over and lined the inner edge of the rim thus protecting the rim from damage. He was able to ream the bowl back to bare briar without damaging this inner rim edge. He cleaned out the internals of the pipe with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol until they were clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl and the metal with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap. This removed the grime in the nooks and crannies of the metal work and also cleaned the briar. He was careful around the already damaged stamping so as not to damage it further. When the pipe arrived in Canada it was clean and ready for restoration. I took photos of the pipe before I began my work to show what it looked like cleaned and ready for me. I love working on clean pipes! He was able to get all of the buildup off the rim cap but the surface was pitted and worn from all of the years of grime sitting on the brass. The bowl looked really good and the brass folded over the inside edge was darkened but undamaged.The stem was cleaned of the tars that were on the inside of the airways. The photos show the cracking at the shank end near the band. While the cracks were not rough to touch they were present. There were also many tiny little spidering cracks on the inside of the airway.I polished the metal rim cap and inner edge with micromesh sanding pads, wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads. I was able to remove much of the pitting and scratching on the surface and the blackening of the inner edge of the cap. I dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads to further polish the cap and edge.I laid the bowl aside for the time being and turned my attention to the stem repairs. I cleaned the surface of the stem around the largest and roughest feeling crack with a water dampened cotton pad. I sanded it with 1500 micromesh and wiped it another time to remove the sanding residue. I filled in the cracked surface with clear super glue and let it cure. When it dried I sanded it smooth with 220 grit sandpaper and also sanded the tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem at the button.I cleaned out the interior of the stem with pipe cleaners and water to remove more of the debris from the airway.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after sanding with each micromesh sanding pad, gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I turned back to the bowl to finish my work on it. I wiped the briar down with a cotton pad and alcohol being careful around the faint stamping on the shank. I was hoping that when it was wet it would be more readable. Sadly it was not. The SUPERIOR stamp was all that I could read. The briar has some nice grain. I decided to leave the nicks and scratches alone as they were well earned character marks on this 100+ year old pipe. I really like the look of the raw briar on this one so I decided to rub it down with olive oil to make the grain stand out and give the briar some life. The next photos show the grain on the oiled bowl. It looks really good to my eye. I gave the bowl a coat of Conservator’s Wax to protect the briar and when the wax dried I buffed it with a flannel cloth to give it a shine. I put the stem back on the shank and in doing so remembered that it was slightly overturned. The lines of the shank and the diamond stem did not align. I have found that on these old bone tenon and threaded mortises that they wear down slightly over time. A little trick I use to address the wear is to paint the tenon with a thin coat of clear fingernail polish that I swiped from my daughters years ago. It dries clear and just one thin coat was enough to align the stem perfectly when I screwed it into the mortise.I lightly buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to remove the tiny scratches that remained on the brass and the briar. I gave the briar portion of the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and polished them with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I polished the brass with a jeweler’s cloth and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the entire pipe with a microfiber cloth to put on the finishing touches. The pipe is shown in the photos below in all of its beauty. I love the look of these older pipes with all of the bling and the Redmanol/Bakelite stems. They really look elegant and show their era well. Thanks for coming with me on this refurb.

A WDC Bakelite/Briar Pipe like none I have seen before

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

When my brother sent me this pipe I have to say I was surprised and enamored with it. I have cleaned up a lot of WDC pipes over the years and have come to really like them. There is something about them that always gets my attention. The workmanship is generally well done. The materials used are good quality. The briar always tends to have some flaws and is never perfect. But there is something about the brand that I like. Well this pipe is an oddity to me. It is a shape that is similar to some of the CPF pipes I have cleaned up and the combination of briar, brass and Bakelite it really nicely done. The first difference is that this one has a flat rectangular shank and saddle stem. The Bakelite base is rounded and flows into the flattened shank and stem. The stem is also Bakelite or Redmanol as the case may be. It is a rich reddish colour that is translucent and the light really plays with. The second difference is that in a lot of this style pipe the threaded connector and bottom of the bowl is metal. On this one it is white porcelain. When the bowl is removed the threaded connector is also porcelain – a single porcelain unit from the cupped bottom of the bowl to the connector. Those two differences intrigued me.There is a brass spacer between the base and the briar bowl and at some time in its life the spacer had been reversed and the sharper edges scarred the bowl. The Bakelite is actually notched to receive the sharp turned down edges of the spacer. The bowl had lots of dents and scars – character marks that I wish could talk and tell the story of the travels of this old pipe. The brass rim had long since come loose and was easily removed but for some reason never disappeared as it clung to the rim of the pipe. In the next photo you can see the rim top and the porcelain bottom of the bowl… it almost looks like the old milk glass that my grandmother collected.After looking at the two pictures above that came from my brother I was looking forward to seeing the pipe in person. When it arrived and I finally took it out to work on it was all that I had expected. The stem was over clocked so that would need to be addressed but I lined things up and took the next set of photos to show what the pipe looked like after my brother did an amazing job cleaning it. (It is great to have him work with me – it really speeds up the process on the restoration. He reams and cleans the pipes and does the dirty work of reaming and removing the debris of the years.) I looked it over to see if there were identifying marks. What I thought was brass may all be what is stamped on the right side of the band – 14K Gold Plated. The left side of the band bears the inverted WDC triangle logo. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the dents, scratches and scars on the surface. The photo also shows the porcelain cup in the bottom of the bowl. It has three round air holes for directing the smoke into the bottom chamber and into the stem.I dismantled the pipe to show the many parts that went into its construction. The photo below shows the broken down pipe.The next photos show the over clocked stem. (I had removed the loose band at this point in the process.) Once the base was screwed onto the stem it was grossly overturned. The metal tenon was set in the stem so it would need to be heated to be able to repair this.I heated the metal tenon with a lighter and once the glue softened I was able to align the stem and shank very easily. Underneath the band the number 43 had been scratched into the Bakelite shank. I am not sure if that is the shape number or if it is the “autograph” of the assembler of the pipe. Either way it is something that remained hidden for many years. I set the base aside and worked on the bowl. I removed the rim cap and cleaned off the glue that remained behind on the top of the bowl. It was rough and I was thinking that it was reason that the cap was no longer smooth. I scrubbed out the glue residue in the inside of the rim cap as well with alcohol and cotton swabs. I used a flat blade screw driver to smooth out the interior flat surface of the cap. I wiped down the bowl with acetone to remove the remnants of the finish and then glued the rim cap back in place with an all-purpose glue. I polish the rim with some micromesh and metal polish. I decided to leave some of the dents and dings as to me it gave the pipe character. I cleaned the surface of the Bakelite base and sanded the whole base with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12000 grit. I rubbed the base down with Obsidian Oil several times throughout the process to give the micromesh some bite as I polished the base. I gave the internals a quick clean with alcohol and cotton swabs to remove any of the sanding dust that might have found its way into the bowl base and shank. I also cleaned the airway in the stem at the same time with alcohol and pipe cleaners.I roughened the area on the base that would be underneath the band to give the glue something to bind to. I used an all-purpose glue and applied it sparingly to the shank. I had previously polished the band with metal polish to remove any tarnish and give it a shine. I pressed it in place and laid the base aside for the glue to set.I cleaned the inside of the space plate with alcohol and cotton swabs to remove the debris of the years. The spacer appeared not to have been glued in place so I left it that way. I polished it with micromesh sanding pads 1500-4000 grit until it gleamed. I laid it aside until I was ready to put the pipe back together.I turned my attention to the stem. There were some light tooth marks on the underside of the stem near the button. I sanded these out with 220 grit sandpaper. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cotton pad and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I gave the stem a final wipe down with the damp pad. With the stem finished and the glued band dried I put the base and stem back together. I would still need to buff the entirety with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel.I used a medium brown stain pen to stain the bowl. I heated the briar and then applied the stain with the pen. I repeated the staining until the coverage was smooth and even.I gave the bowl several coats of Conservator’s Wax and hand buffed it to raise the shine with a microfibre cloth.With all the parts finished I took a final photo of the bowl and the base before putting it back together.I buffed the completed pipe with Blue Diamond to polish out some of the scratches in the base and the stem. I was not able to remove all of them so I left a few behind to tell the story. I gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I am really pleased with the finished pipe and how it looks. Thanks for looking.