Tag Archives: BBB **

A New Life for a Beautiful BBB 2 Star Sandblast 414 Bulldog from Bob Kerr’s Estate

Blog by Steve Laug

I have only 13 more of Bob’s pipes to finish before I have completed the restoration of his estate so I am continuing to work on them. The next one from Bob Kerr’s Estate is one of two BBB pipes in his collection. It is a nice looking 2 Star sandblast Bulldog. (Bob’s photo is to the left). If you have not “met” the man and would like to read a bit of the history of the pipeman, his daughter has written a great tribute that is worth a read. Because I have included it in most of the restorations of the estate to date I thought that I would leave it out this time. Check out some of the recent Dunhill restoration blogs that include the biographical notes about Bob. Here is a link to one of them (https://rebornpipes.com/2020/01/01/restoring-the-last-of-bob-kerrs-dunhills-a-1962-dunhill-bruyere-656-f-t-bent-billiard/).

The BBB 2 Start Sandblast 414 Bulldog has a saddle vulcanite stem. It is a shallow sandblast finish around the bowl and shank that has a lot of dust and debris ground into the finish of the briar. It was stamped on left underside of the diamond shank. It is stamped BBB in a Diamond box (logo) [over] two stars **. Next to that it reads London, England [over] the shape number 414. There was a thick cake in the bowl and lava overflow on the rim top. There was tobacco debris stuck on the bottom and sides of the bowl. The vulcanite stem was calcified, oxidized and had tooth marks and chatter ahead of the button on both sides. Jeff took photos of the pipe to show its general condition before he did his cleanup. As I mentioned above the exterior of the pipe was very dirty – grime and grit ground in from years of use and sitting. The rim top was covered with a coat of thick lava that overflowed from the thick cake in the bowl. It was hard to know what the rim edges looked like because of the lava. Jeff took photos of the sides and the heel of the bowl to give a better feel for the condition of the briar around the bowl. The next photo show the stamping on the left underside of the diamond shank and it is very readable. It reads as noted above. The second photo shows the inlaid BBB Diamond logo on the upper left side of the diamond stem. The stem was dirty, calcified and oxidized with tooth chatter and marks on the top and underside of the stem at the button. With over 125 pipes to clean from Bob’s estate I took a batch of them to the states with me when I visited and left them with Jeff so he could help me out. Jeff cleaned the pipes with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. Once he finished he shipped them back to me. Bob’s pipes were generally real mess and I did not know what to expect when I unwrapped it from his box. I was surprised to see how well it turned out. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the rim top. The finish looks very good with good looking grain around the bowl and shank. Jeff scrubbed it with Soft Scrub and soaked it in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. When the pipe arrived here in Vancouver for the second stop of its restoration tour it looked a lot better. I took photos before I started my part of the work. I took some close up photos of the rim top and the stem surface. I wanted to show what cleaned bowl and rim top looked like. The rim top had some darkening but the inner and outer edges of the bowl were in excellent condition. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the tooth marks and the remaining oxidation on the stem surface. I took photos of the stamping on the left and underside of the shank and it is clear and readable. It is stamped as noted above. I removed the stem for the shank and took a photo of the bowl and stem to give a picture of what it looked like. The oxidation is very visible.I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips and a horse hair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth and shoe brush to raise the shine. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I scrubbed the deep oxidation with Soft Scrub. It took a lot of elbow grease but I finally broke through to the shiny surface beneath the brown oxidation. I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This gorgeous BBB two star Sandblast Bulldog from Bob Kerr’s estate cleaned up really well and looks very good. The mixed stain brown finish on the pipe is in great condition and works well with the polished vulcanite taper stem. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the sandblast bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished BBB Bulldog fits nicely in the hand and I think it will feel great as it heats up with a good tobacco. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¼ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. If you are interested in carrying on Bob’s legacy with this pipe send me a message or an email. I have more to work on of various brands. Perhaps one of those will catch your attention. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. This is an interesting estate to bring back to life.

New Life for an Old and Tired BBB Own Make 701 Rhodesian

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Blog by Steve Laug

I saw a foursome on Ebay and the one pipe in the lot that caught my eye was of course this older Rhodesian. At first glance I figured it was a GBD 9348. Then I looked more closely at the photos and could see that it was not a GBD at all. It was clearly a BBB with the brass inset on the top of the stem. I bid and won the lot. While the other three pipes are probably fine in terms of additions to the pipes for sale this one was the one I wanted for my collection. It had two things going for it that caught me – it was Rhodesian and it was a BBB. Both fit the one of the focuses of my collection. Needless to say but the one in the roughest shape was the BBB. In the photo below you can see the hole in the stem and the roughening around the inner edge of the rim on the left side of the bowl. It was going to take a bit of work to bring this one back from the brink and keep the original stem.

When the package arrived I took out the BBB and unwrapped it from the bubble wrap. The stem was stuck in the shank and the damage to the bowl was quite extensive. The stamping on the left side of the shank read BBB in a Diamond and under that was Own Make. On the right side it read London England in a straight line over the shape number 701. On the right side of the bowl and on several spots on the shank it had dark stains from sitting in water or juice. It had discoloured the briar and damaged the finish. There were also some dents and dings under the dark discolouration from the bowl having been dropped on concrete or something that left the side of the bowl dimpled with dents and marks. The stem was quite gnawed on – the hole on the top was solid around the edges and the button was chewed and worn on the top side. The underside of the stem had bite marks and was worn from clenching.

I put the pipe in the freezer for 30 minutes and when I took it out I was able to easily remove the stem. I cleaned the edges around the hole in the top of the stem with alcohol and a dental pick to remove the buildup and the detritus that was caught in the edges. The good thing was the edges were solid and not crumbling. I put Vaseline on a nail file that I have here and use for more wide repairs on the stem and inserted it into the slot. It provided a solid base for me to drip superglue onto the hole. I built up the edges and worked my way to the centre of the stem bite. You will note that I grossly over filled the hole with the superglue. I have been having trouble with the accelerant that I am using. It tends to dry out the surface of the patch and the centre never sets correctly. I decided to set the stem aside overnight and let the patch cure overnight. I dropped the badly stained bowl into my alcohol bath and called it a night. The bowl soaked for over 12 hours and the stem cured while I slept soundly. In the morning I took a look at the stem and saw that it was pretty hard. I removed the bowl from the alcohol bath and dried it off. You can see the dark stains on the right side of the bowl and on other spots on the bowl. It was almost black in colour and the alcohol had not lightened it at all.

The top view of the bowl below shows the extent of the damage to the bowl. It was out of round and the gouge out of the left inner edge was rough. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish and see if it would lighten the stains on the bowl. While it indeed lightened them it did not remove them. It was encouraging to see the grain through the stains however, so I knew that sanding the damaged areas would remove much of the darkening.

I lightly topped the bowl on my topping board to remove some of the damage to the rim surface.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to bare wood. I wanted to remove as much as possible and see if I could also clean up the inner edge of the rim. I used a retort as has become a habit lately and boiled alcohol through the stem and shank to remove the tars and build up. After the retort I cleaned out the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol.

I worked on the stem using needle files to recut the button and clean up the sharp edge. I sanded with 180 grit sandpaper to smooth out the repair to the topside and underside of the stem. I followed that by sanding with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out some of the scratches left behind by the lower grit paper.

While I had the 220 grit sandpaper out I sanded the bowl as well to remove the stains on the sides of the bowl and the cap. I also used a folded piece of sandpaper to work on the inner edge of the rim and give it a slight bevel to minimize the damage there. I wiped the bowl down with alcohol and then sanded it with a medium grit and a fine grit sanding sponge followed by 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. In the photos below you can see how it worked to remove the majority of the stain on the bowl. I very carefully sanded around the stamping on the right shank as I did not want to damage the stamping.

I used a hot knife and wet cloth to steam out the dents on the bowl sides, cap and rim. When I had lifted them as much as possible I sanded the bowl further with the 400 grit wet dry paper and also with the fine grit sanding sponge. I wanted to clean up the damaged areas on the sides and top as well as the stem repairs.

After the steaming and sanding I spent some more time on the inner edge of the rim. I wanted the bevel to smooth out the damaged side of the rim and also wanted to bring the bowl back into round. It took quite a bit of time to handwork the rim damage but I am happy with the end result. When finished I rubbed the bowl down with a soft paper towel and olive oil. I rubbed the oil into the bowl, paying special attention to the areas that were previously damaged with the stain and the dents. Again, I set the bowl aside for the night to let the oil soak in and be absorbed into the briar.

The next morning I worked on the stem with fine grit sanding sponges and then with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. The higher grit pads allowed me to blend in the repair as much as possible and though still visible it looks very good. The patch is hard and solid with no give when pressed on.

I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when it had dried I buffed it on the wheel with White Diamond. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and then finished by buffing it with a soft flannel buffing pad to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. It is ready for loading up and enjoying a good smoke. It should serve me well for a long time.

A Quick Refurb on a BBB Straight Bulldog

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Blog by Steve Laug

I picked this little BBB ** Bulldog up yesterday at a flea market for $16. It is stamped BBB in a diamond over ** on the left side of the shank. The other side is stamped 401 (shape number) over Made in England. The first four pictures below show what it looked like when I found it. It was hidden under a group of worn old pipes and this one and a little Comoy’s Guildhall became mine. The bowl was in pretty clean shape. The finish is clean with only a small dark spot on the shank where it must have touch a coal in an ashtray. The wood is not burned only darkened. The rim was clean but for a little tar. The bowl did not need to be reamed though it was a little out of round. The inner edge of the rim on the front right is a bit damaged from lighting the pipe repeatedly in the same spot. The double rings around the bowl were filled with wax in many spots and would need to be cleaned out for them to really show well. The stem had tooth marks on the underside and topside near the button and the tooth chatter on the oxidized stem would need some work. The BBB diamond was full of gunk and was oxidized with a greenish hue. Inside the shank and stem were dirty but would not take much to clean it up.

I put the next picture in to show the little Comoy’s Guildhall that I picked up at the same time and give a feel for the size of the pair. Both will not need a lot of work to bring them up to being ready for a smoke.

I used silver polish to begin with and cleaned the brass BBB logo. I wanted to see what kind of shape it was in before I began work on the stem. It turned out to be in great shape under the grime and oxidation. The BBB stamp is clean and sharp and the lines in the background are still visible. Once I had the logo cleaned I worked on the tooth chatter and tooth marks in the stem. I used 320 grit sandpaper to work out the tooth chatter and a lighter to heat up the bite marks and lift them out. I then sanded them with 320 grit sandpaper to remove the remnants of them. The next series of three photos show the stem after sanding tooth chatter and bite marks out of the stem.

I cleaned the rim by lightly sanding it with 320 grit sandpaper and then wiping it down with saliva until the tars were removed. The photo below shows the rim after the sanding and cleaning.

I sanded the stem with a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left by the sandpaper and then polished it with Maguiar’s Scratch X2.0. The next series of three photos show the stem as I worked on it with the micromesh sanding pads 1500-12,000 grit. In this case I wet sanded with the 1500, 1800 and 2400 grit micromesh and then dry sanded with the remaining grits of micromesh.

I gave the bowl a quick buff with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax. The next four photos show the polished bowl.

The next three photos show the stem after it has been polished with the micromesh pads up through 12,000 grit. I then used the Maguiar’s polish to finish off the polishing. The oxidation around the stem medallion and on the top sides of the saddle came off with some serious scrubbing with the polish. I also used a dental pick to clean out the two rings around the bowl cap of the bulldog.

The next series of four photos show the finished pipe, cleaned and ready to smoke. I rubbed the stem with Obsidian Oil and then once dry gave the whole pipe several coats of carnauba wax. The dark burn mark on the shank is only surface but still shows clearly in the finished pipe – won’t affect the way it smokes though.