Tag Archives: Before & After Pipe Polish

A Light Restore of a NOS Danish Made Bjarne Handmade 15 Churchwarden

Blog by Steve Laug

Courtesy Doug Valitchka on Pipedia

My brother found this beautifully grained Bjarne Hand Made Churchwarden pipe on EBay listed by a seller in Kentucky. The seller said that the pipe looked as if it was unsmoked. Those of you who buy pipes on EBay have heard that before only to find that you bought a dog of a pipe that was smoked to death. But this one actually looked good and even if it was smoked it was worth a risk.

The pipe is a six sided sitter with the long churchwarden stem. The top is rusticated while the panels are all smooth. The flat bottom of the bowl is also smooth. The shank is almost pencil like, thin and round with a slight taper back to the stem. The grain on the smooth sides was beautiful and a mix of straight and birdseye. The grain on the shank was birdseye and was amazing. The stain colour was perfect for the highlighting the grain. The rim was rusticated with divots but had been smoothed out slightly to give it a soft rusticated look. It was stained black and really contrasted with the smooth grain on the rest of the bowl. It is stamped on the underside of the shank next to the stem/shank junction. It reads Bjarne over Handmade Denmark over 15. The 15 is a shape number.

The finish is in perfect condition – no dents or nicks. The bowl was polished to a shine when my brother received it. The black rim top was in excellent condition. The bowl had a bowl coating that was put in to protect the pipe through the break-in period. It was indeed unsmoked! The seller had been correct contrary to many of my previous experiences on EBay. The stem was oxidized all the way around. It seemed like the right side and underside were less oxidized than the left which led me to conclude that the pipe had been kept on a display board and the light of the display and perhaps a window had led to the oxidation. I could not wait to receive it and clean up the oxidized stem.

I took a trip to Idaho to meet with my brothers and our aging parents to talk through some decisions that we had to make. In the process I loaded a suitcase with the pipes that my brother had purchased for us. This Bjarne was one of those pipes. It came with its own black leather pipe bag with a draw string top. I took the following photos of the pipe displayed on its leather bag to show the condition of the stem when I brought it to my worktable. I took this close up photo of the rustication on the rim top. I really like the look of the way Bjarne did the rustication and gave it an interesting texture.The next photos show the difference in the oxidation on the top and underside of the stem.The Bjarne logo was stamped in white on the left side of the stem and was in perfect condition. There was no wear or tear and it was crisp and legible.I wiped down the bowl with a bit of olive oil on a cotton pad to remove the slight grime on the bowl sides and bottom. I also wiped down the rim top with the oil as well. I let it absorb into the briar and buffed it with a microfiber cloth. While I worked on the bowl I put the stem in the Before & After Pipe Stem Deoxidizer that I have referred to in previous blogs – the one on the Borlum and the Hilson. I purchased the Deoxidizer from a guy on Facebook named Mark Hoover. He is on the Gentlemen’s Pipe Smoking Society Group there. Mark has a pen making site where his Before & After products are available. You can email and order the deoxidizer and the polishes directly from Mark on that site (http://www.lbepen.com/). After the initial two uses of the Deoxidizer I have become less skeptical. I let the stem soak overnight and the product does its work and leaves the stem oxidation free. I forgot to take a photo of the stem in the mixture. The photo below shows the oxidation floating in the container I let the stem soak in.The next morning I dried off the stem with a soft cloth and rubbed the stem clean of the remnants of oxidation that remained on the surface. The cotton pads that I used were dark brown with oxidation and the stem was quite clean. The next photos show the condition of the stem after wiping it down after removing it from the soak.I decided to use Mark’s entire system this time in the cleanup. I used his Before & After Pipe Polishes – both fine and extra fine to polish the vulcanite. I skipped the process of micromesh sanding pads on this stem. The soak did not damage the logo stamp on the side of the stem. It came out of the bath looking clean and fresh.I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to polish and begin to give it a richer shine. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine from the wax. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to complete the polishing. The dimensions of the pipe are length: 11 inches, height: 2 ¼ inches, outer diameter: 2 inches, chamber diameter: ¾ inches. This beautiful pipe will be on the rebornpipes store shortly. If it is something you would like to add to your collection send me an email at slaug@uniserve.com or a message on Facebook. Thanks for looking.

Restoring an Older KBB Yellow-Bole 2094 Churchwarden with absolutely stunning grain.

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Blog by Steve Laug

My most recent box of pipes that came from my brother had this Yello-Bole Churchwarden in it for restoration. It is a long pipe – 12 inches from bowl to button. The next seven photos were the ones provided by the eBay seller. They don’t really show the grain in the pipe or the peeling shellac coat on the bowl but they give a clear picture of the shape and carriage of the pipe. It really is a beauty in terms of overall appearance. It is graceful with a gentle bend to the stem ending in a button that is not flared from the end of the stem but is straight-edged with a small slot in the end. The stem also had the inset yellow circle on the top of the stem.The third and fourth photos provided in the seller’s photos show the damage to the finish and the build up and damage to the rim. You can also see some of the peeling of the finish and the way that it obscures the grain of the briar. The rim is dirty in the photo below and at first glance it looks like the bowl may have been meerschaum lined. I was pretty sure that this was not the case but would know better once it arrived in Vancouver. It appears that the bowl had a light cake but was not in bad shape. It would not take too much to ream the bowl. The stem was lightly oxidized and had tooth chatter on the top and underside near the button.The stamping on the shank is very clear. The shape number on the right side of the shank is 2094 and the brand stamp on the left KBB in a cloverleaf next to Yello-Bole over Honey Cured Briar.My brother scrubbed the externals of the pipe with Murphy’s Oil Soap and was able to loosen some of the flaking varnish or shellac. He reamed the light cake back to the yellow bowl coating. He cleaned out the shank and the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol. The next two close-up photos of the bowl sides shows what the finish looked like once he had done his work. You can see the interesting grain showing through the damaged finish. I took photos of the pipe when I received it in Vancouver. You can see the condition of the finish in the photos. In the cleaning process oxidation came to the surface of the stem. The internals of the pipe are interesting. The first photo below shows the yellow bowl coating that still remained in the bowl. This one was certainly lightly smoked to be in this condition. The second photo shows the standard Yello-Bole stinger apparatus that is screwed into the tenon.There was light tooth chatter and tooth marks on the top and underside of the stem but the button was in excellent shape with minimal tooth marks or bites.I removed the remaining varnish/shellac coat with acetone (fingernail polish remover) on cotton pads. It also removed some of the stain and brought the grain to the surface of the bowl. I liked the look of the pipe once the varnish was removed. The stamping looked even clearer once the top coat had been removed. In the first photo below there is a line under the number that looks like a crack or a fill. It is not but rather it is debris left behind by the cotton pad and acetone wash.I ran pipe cleaners, cottons swabs and alcohol through the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem remove any remaining oils. The red colour on the cotton swabs is actually some of the red stain that was inside of the shank. I was able to remove all of stain from the shank and mortise.I unscrewed the stinger from the tenon and cleaned it with 0000 steel wool. I am not sure whether I will put it in or not. I may do so and let the new owner decided whether to keep it in place or remove it.I lightly sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter and bite marks. I sanded it with 1500-2400 micromesh sanding pads then tried a new product that I picked up from Mark Hoover of La Belle Epoque Vintage & Modern Fountain Pens. I follow Mark on Facebook and have been reading about his restorations and cleanup or estate pipes. He developed a product for pens that deoxidizes and polishes vulcanite. He also uses it on vulcanite stem with great results. I have seen his before and after pictures of pipes that he has restored so I thought I would order some and try it out. The photo below shows what came with the kit.

Mark wrote on his site that the product was specifically designed for hard rubber and celluloid but that it does work well on other types of plastics. He also sells the same product relabeled for pipe stems. The line is called Before and After. He states on the website that “All of our polishes are made using the highest quality products. These products are designed to not only recondition your pen (or in this case stem) but also to provide a layer of protection. All of the products used in these polishes are none-toxic and environmentally friendly.”

“There are two different polishes. Fine and Extra Fine. We recommend both as some pens will show more wear then others. Often one will work on a pen using the Fine polish and finish with the Extra Fine. The polishes are sold in 2 oz jars. The cost is 12.00 per jar. The number of pens one can restore will of course vary depending on the wear that each pen shows. I have restored from 75-150 pens per jar.”

Here is the link to his site with the prices for the product: http://www.lbepen.com/apps/webstore/products/category/1185536?page=1. The product can be ordered onsite. It is shipped in a well wrapped package and I had no issues with it coming across the border through the post office.The Deoxidizer is a thick gel that I rubbed onto the stem with a cotton pad. I let it sit for a short time before rubbing it off with another pad. It removed the oxidation quite nicely. I repeated the process until the stem was once again black. After using the Deoxidizer I polished the stem with the Fine and the Extra Fine Pipe Polish. It quickly shined up the vulcanite. Both of the stem polishes are quite thick and sticky. The fine is grittier than the extra fine. It took some time to rub each of them onto the stem surface and then polish it with a soft cotton pad. The second photo below shows the stem after using the Extra Fine Polish.I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffer and then gave the bowl and stem several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I left the stinger out of the tenon for these photos but it is easily screwed into place. The grain shines through beautifully with the oxblood coloured stain. The polished stem is smooth and shiny with a lot less effort than other products I have used. Thanks for looking.