Tag Archives: bite marks

Restoring a Beautiful Karl Erik Freehand “Rhodesianish” Short Churchwarden

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Blog by Steve Laug

This afternoon I decided to work on a pipe from the lot that I have still to work on from a variety of places. This pipe was purchased from a friend on 06/05/21 in Brazil, Indiana, USA. It is an interesting pipe with a bowl that combines the twin rings of a Bulldog or Rhodesian with a Plateau rim top and a Freehand Flair. The pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads Karl [arched over] Erik. The pipe was a well used pipe when Jeff received it. There was dust and grime ground into the finish. The mixture of brown stains highlights some beautiful grain under the dirt. The bowl was heavily caked and there was an overflow of lava on the plateau rim top. The inner edge appeared to be in good condition. The stem is acrylic and therefore was not oxidized. It was dirty with light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button and on the button itself. There is a fancy E stamp in the top of the stem that is in good condition. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show what they looked like before his clean up. He also took some of the stem to show the condition of both sides. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show the uniquely stained grain around the bowl and shank. The mixture of black and brown stains adds depth finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty. The stamping on the left side the shank is shown in the photos below. It is clear and readable as noted above. He also took a photo of the fancy E logo on the top of the acrylic stem.Before I started my work on the pipe I wanted to see if I could find any information that would help me date this pipe and get a sense of the line. I turned to Pipephil to get a quick review of the brand (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-k1.html). The stamp on the stem shown in the photo below is different than the one I am working on. It includeds a K and an E while this one is just an E stamp. I have included a screen capture of the brand info there as well as a note in the side bar about Karl Erik Ottendahl along with a small picture.Brand created in 1965-66 by Karl Erik Ottendahl (1942 – 2004 †). In the best years he employed up to 15 craftsmen among which Bent Nielsen (see Benner) and Peder Christian Jeppesen. Former grading (ascending): from 4 to 1, and “Ekstravagant” (entirely hand made)

I then turned to Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Erik) for more information. I am including just the opening remarks but would encourage you to give the link a read for a very interesting history of the brand. I quote:

Karl Erik Ottendahl (1942 – 2004) was born in Aalborg (Jutland), just a few miles from the very northernmost tip of Denmark. He began smoking a pipe when he was 14 and upon leaving school he started an apprenticeship in the craft as a lithographer at the age of 16.

While working as an apprentice he began hand carving pipes as a hobby. Many were given as gifts to his more senior colleagues. Upon completion of his apprenticeship he moved to Nairobi, Kenya to work as a lithographer during the 1962 war. While in that war torn country, he was unable to procure pipes for himself. In the face of such a predicament, he chose to continue to make pipes for his own use rather than go without.

Returning to Denmark after three years he couldn’t find a well paid occupation in his job, and so he began making a few pipes on the side to boost his income choosing his prenames “Karl Erik” – logo “KE” – for his label. When he managed to find some major Copenhagen pipe stores willing to sell his pieces his reputation grew little by little and he was finally able to purchase more and better machinery and began working full time as a pipe maker.

With that information in hand I knew what I was dealing with in terms of the stamping and the age of this pipe. I knew from the information that the pipe was made sometime between 1965 and 2004. Now it was time to work on the pipe.

Jeff had thoroughly cleaned up the pipe. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet Pipe Reamer and cleaned up the remnants with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife.  He scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a tooth brush. He rinsed it under running warm water to remove the soap and grime. He cleaned out the inside of the sump in the shank and the airway in the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the stem with Soft Scrub to remove as much of the oxidation and calcification as possible. He soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer and rinsed it off with warm water. I took close up photos of the bowl, rim and the stem. You can see how clean the bowl and rim top and edges are. The stem is in good condition with light tooth marks and some chatter as noted above.I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. All are clear and readable as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo to give a sense of the proportions of the pipe. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each  pad to remove the grit. The bowl began to take on a rich shine. It is a beauty.   I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my finger tips. I worked it into the twin rings and the plateau rim top with a shoe brush. I let it sit for 10 minutes and the Balm did its magic. It enlivens, cleans and preserves the briar. It certainly brought this bowl back to life. I buffed it off with a clean cloth and took the following photos.  I set the bowl aside and turned to work on the stem. I was able to polish out the tooth marks and chatter 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 Karl Erik Ottendahl Rhodesian/Bulldog/Freehand with a long acrylic stem is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The beautiful finish really highlights the grain and the polished finish is stunning. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl 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 Karl Erik Freehand fits nicely in the hand and feels great. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 8 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 72 grams/ 2.54 ounces. I will be adding the pipe to the Danish Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. If you are interested in purchasing this pipe send me a message or an email. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

Restoring a Beautiful Republic Era Peterson’s De Luxe Silver Band 4S Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

This afternoon I decided to work on the another one of the Peterson’s Pipes that I have still to work on from a variety of places. This pipe was also purchased as part of an estate on 03/30/2022 from Plano, Texas, USA. It is a larger bent pipe that is stamped on the sides of the shank. On the left side it read Peterson’s [over] De Luxe. On the right side it is stamped Made in the Republic of Ireland (three lines) [over] the shape number 4S. There is a very tarnished Sterling Silver band on the shank. It is stamped Peterson’s [over]Dublin on the top of the shank band. Next to that it is stamped Sterling [over] Silver followed by three hallmarks. The first mark is the seated woman Hibernia, the second is a Harp, and the final one, the date stamp is buffed off and illegible. The pipe was a well used pipe when Jeff received it. There was dust and grime ground into the finish. The mixture of brown stains highlights some beautiful grain under the dirt. The bowl was heavily caked and there was an overflow of lava on the rim top. It is hard to know what the edges looked like at this point but time would tell. The vulcanite stem was oxidized and dirty with tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button and on the button itself. There is a faint “P” stamp in the vulcanite on the left side of the saddle P-lip stem. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show what they looked like before his clean up. He also took some of the stem to show the condition of both sides. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show the amazing grain around the bowl and shank. The mixture of brown stains adds depth finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty. The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. The are clear and readable as noted above. He also took a photo of the very tarnish shank band/ferrule. Jeff captured the detail in the photo below. I am including the information from Pipedia’s article on Peterson pipes. It is a great read in terms of the history of the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Peterson). I have included a bit of the pertinent history here.

1950 – 1989 The Republic Era – From 1950 to the present time, the stamp for this era is “Made in the Republic of Ireland” in a block format generally in three lines but two lines have been used with or without Republic being abbreviated.

During the 1950’s and 60’s the Kapp & Peterson company was still in the ownership of the Kapp family. However 1964 saw the retiral of the company Managing Director Frederick Henry(Harry) Kapp.

I then turned to The Peterson Pipe – The Story of Kapp & Peterson to look up information on the DeLuxe line. There on page 297 I found this information:

De Luxe (1915-) Introduced in newspaper advertising in 1916, production of this high grade smooth finish model may have been stalled by the Great War and domestic disturbances. It will not appear in Peterson’s catalogs until ’37. Specimens documented from 1915 to the 30s are extremely rare and confined to extra-large house pipes and occasionally medium sized pipes with unconventional shapes. Specimens from 1930-50 in a wide selection of Classic Range shapes, often as Canadians. Catalogs from 1937-50 list it as “the finest possible quality obtainable.” After ’50 the Supreme would supplant the De Luxe as the top of the line model, and to this day the De Luxe is a high quality pipe but not the highest. Early models often have no COM. Models from the twenties until the sixties will be stamped Irish over Free State, Eire, London Made over England, Made in over Ireland (forming a circle) or Made in the over Republic over Ireland. The last three COM stamps, used from’38 through ’68 when no hallmarks were stamped on the Peterson mountings can never be precisely dated. If a De Luxe was made in ’69 or later it will be hallmarked with the date designator and always have a Republic COM.

With that information in hand I knew what I was dealing with in terms of the stamping and the age of this pipe. I knew from the information that the pipe was made during the Republic Era between 1950 and the present day. The COM stamp on the shank and the hallmarks (even though unreadable in terms of the date stamp) help me to know that the pipe came out after 1969. Now it was time to work on the pipe.

Jeff had thoroughly cleaned up the pipe. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet Pipe Reamer and cleaned up the remnants with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife.  He scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a tooth brush. He rinsed it under running warm water to remove the soap and grime. He cleaned out the inside of the sump in the shank and the airway in the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the stem with Soft Scrub to remove as much of the oxidation and calcification as possible. He soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer and rinsed it off with warm water. I took close up photos of the bowl, rim and the stem. You can see how clean the bowl and rim top and edges are. There is some slight damage on the inner edge and scratches on the rim top. The stem is in good condition with tooth marks and some chatter as noted above.I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. All are clear and readable as noted above. You can see the faint P stamp on the left side of the stem in the first photo below.I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo to give a sense of the proportions of the pipe. The chunky shank and stem together make for a classic Peterson’s Pipe.I decided to work on the damage on the top and the inner beveled edge of the bowl first. I started the work with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the rim top and the inner edge of the rim. Once I had finished I think that it looked much better. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each  pad to remove the grit. The bowl began to take on a rich shine. It is going to be a beauty.   I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my finger tips. I let it sit for 10 minutes and the Balm did its magic. It enlivens, cleans and preserves the briar. It certainly brought this bowl back to life. I buffed it off with a clean cloth and took the following photos.  I set the bowl aside and turned to work on the stem. I worked on the deep oxidation with Soft Scrub and cotton pads to remove more of the deep oxidation. It worked very well.I “painted” the tooth marks on the stem with the flame of a Bic Lighter to lift them. I was able to lift them all to some degree. I filled in those that remained with clear CA glue. I used a small file to flatten the repairs. I sanded stem surface repairs smooth with 220 grit sandpaper. I started polishing the stem with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I soaked it again in Briarville’s Deoxidizer for several hours to further remove the deep oxidation. I removed it, rinsed it and dried it with a coarse cloth. I polished the vulcanite stem 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 Republic Era Peterson’s De Luxe 4S Bent Billiard and a vulcanite, saddle P-lip stem is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The beautiful finish really highlights the grain and the polished finish is stunning. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl 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 Peterson’s De Luxe 4S Bent Billiard fits nicely in the hand and feels great. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 57 grams/2.01 ounces. I will be adding the pipe to the Irish Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. If you are interested in purchasing this pipe send me a message or an email. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

Cleaning up a Patent No. Dunhill Root Briar London 53 Made in England 0 3R Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is another one that came to us from a group of pipes that Jeff and I purchased on 11/10/2022 from Copenhagen, Denmark. It is another Dunhill smooth finish pipe that is in rough but workable condition. On the left side it is stamped with the shape number 4R followed by Dunhill [over] London. On the right side it is stamped Made in [over] England followed by the date number superscript 0 after the D in England. Underneath that it reads Pat. No. 417574/34. After that it is stamped with a 3 in a circle [followed by] R for Root Briar.  The stamping is faint but readable as noted above. The pipe has an brown coloured stain with some amazing grain that the shape follows well. The finish extremely was dirty. The bowl had a moderate cake and there was an overflow lava and darkening and damage on the rim top and both the inner and outer edges. The taper stem was in decent condition and was oxidized, calcified and had tooth marks and chatter ahead of the button. The stem was also missing a white spot so it is a replacement stem. Jeff took photos of the pipe to show what it looked like before he started working on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show their condition and of the stem to show the condition of both sides of the stem. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show beautiful cross and birdseye grain and the Root Briar coloured finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty. The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. It is faint but readable. It reads as noted and explained above. Jeff captured the detail in the photos below. One of the first things I like to do is to unpack the stamping and understand each element in it. I turned to Pipephil’s helpful site (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/bruyere1.html). There was no pipe with the same Dunhill [over] London stamping on the Root Briar page but I can still work with the stamping. It can be interpreted as follows: The 53 stamp is the shape for a Billiard. The London stamp appears at times under Dunhill on older Root Briar and Bruyere pipes. The 0 following the D of England gives the date the pipe. The Circle 3 R refers to the size of the pipe being a Group 3 and the R is for the Root Briar designation.

Pipephil also has some helpful dating keys on the site that are basically flow charts that you can walk through to date your pipe (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1.html). I turned to Part 1 of the Dating Key and followed the chart. This pipe has a 0 following the D in England. It is a superscript above the D so that took me to the section on the chart below (column one) which instructed me that the pipe could be dated as being “crafted between 1921 and 1954 Narrow down your dating”. I followed the link following the “Your Dunhill pipe has been crafted between 1921 and 1954”. That took me to Page 2 of the dating key (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1b.html). The first column (suffix 0) led me to the section with a 0 after the D in England. There was a directive for dating the pipe to 1950.I then turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Root Briar to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I have highlighted the section below where the Dunhill [over] London stamp is explained. I quote:

Root Briar – Introduced in 1931 and highly prized because the grain is more pronounced in this finish (usually made using Corsican briar – was made exclusively from that briar into the 60s). The Root Briar finish requires a perfectly clean bowl with excellent graining. Therefore, it is the most expensive of the Dunhill pipes. Corsican briar was most often used for the Root finish since it was generally more finely grained. This is a rare finish, due to the scarcity of briar suitable to achieve it. These pipes are normally only available at Company stores, or at Principle Pipe Dealers. Straight grained pipes were formerly graded A through H, but are now only “Dr’s” and graded with one to six stars, with the letters G and H still used for the very finest pieces.

Dunhill introduced its third major finish, the Root finish, in 1931. Corsican mountain briar is characteristically beautifully grained and the Root was made exclusively from that briar into the 1960s. The pipe was finished with a light natural stain to allow the beauty of the graining to show through. Although always available with a traditional black vulcanite bit, the Root was introduced in either 1930 or more likely 1931 and fitted with a marble brown dark and light grained vulcanite bit that has since become known as the ‘bowling ball’ bit because of the similarity in appearance between the bit’s finish and that of some bowling balls of the time. With the war, however, the bowling ball bit was dropped from production. Through 1954 (and after) the Root pipe nomenclature (including shape numbers) was identical to that of the Bruyere except that instead of the “A” of the Bruyere, the Root was stamped with an “R”. In 1952 when the finish rather then LONDON was placed under DUNHILL, ROOT BRIAR rather then BRUYERE was used for the Root. Loring, J. C., The Dunhill Briar Pipe, The Patent Years and After (self-published, Chicago, 1998).

I have also included a chart from the site from Dunhill spelling out the Standard Pipe Finishes and giving short information and a timeline. I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the cake with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up that with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals of the bowl and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe stem Deoxidizer and once it had soaked rinsed it off with warm water to remove the residual solution. He dried it off and rubbed it down to remove any oxidation that was still on the stem. The pipe looked very good when I received it. I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition. You can see the clean bowl and the damage on the rim top and inner and outer edges. The replacement stem came out looking quite good. There are some scratches, tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.   I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. The stamping is faint in spots but still very readable. It reads as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe parts to show what I was working with. It is a nice looking pipe. I worked on both the inside and outside edge and top of the rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the damage. It would take some work but it looked much better.I polished the cleaned up rim top and edges with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the dust. The rim top came out looking very good. I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem issues. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter. The heat lifted the tooth marks significantly. I filled in the small remaining marks with clear CA glue. I flattened them out with a small file once they cured. I sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the stem. I started the polishing with a 600 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This 1950 Dunhill London Root Briar 53 Bent Billiard with a replacement taper stem has a smooth Dunhill finish that has some great grain. The polished mix of brown stains highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. The polished replacement vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished 1950 Dunhill London 3R 53 Bent Billiard is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.45 ounces/41 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. If you are interested in adding it to your collection I will be adding it to the British Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. Thanks for your time.

Cleaning up a Patent No. Dunhill Bruyere 113 F/T Made in England 2 2A Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is another one that came to us from a group of pipes that Jeff and I purchased on 11/10/2022 from Copenhagen, Denmark. It is another Dunhill smooth finish pipe that is in rough but workable condition. On the left side it is stamped with the shape number 113 F/T followed by Dunhill [over] Bruyere. On the right side it is stamped Made in [over] England followed by the date number superscript 2 after the D in England. Underneath that it reads Pat. No. 417574/34. After that it is stamped with a 2 in a circle [followed by] A for Bruyere.  The stamping is faint but readable as noted above. The pipe has an oxblood coloured stain with some amazing grain that the shape follows well. The finish extremely was dirty. The bowl had a thin cake and there was a light overflow lava and darkening and scratches on the rim top and both the inner and outer edges. The fishtail, taper stem was in decent condition and was oxidized, calcified and had tooth marks and chatter ahead of the button. Jeff took photos of the pipe to show what it looked like before he started working on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show their condition and of the stem to show the condition of both sides of the stem. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show beautiful cross and birdseye grain and the Bruyere coloured finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty. The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. It is faint but readable. It reads as noted and explained above. Jeff captured the detail in the photos below. One of the first things I like to do is to unpack the stamping and understand each element in it. I turned to Pipephil’s helpful site (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/bruyere1.html). The stamping is interpreted as follows: The 113 stamp is the shape for a Billiard. The F/T stamp refers to the fishtail stem. The Bruyere stamp refers to the finish. The 2 following the D of England gives the date the pipe. The Circle 2 A refers to the size of the pipe being a Group 2 and the A confirms the Bruyere designation.Pipephil also has some helpful dating keys on the site that are basically flow charts that you can walk through to date your pipe (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1.html). I turned to Part 1 of the Dating Key and followed the chart. This pipe has a 2 following the D in England. It is a superscript above the D so that took me to the section on the chart below (column one) which instructed me that the pipe could be dated as being “crafted between 1921 and 1954 Narrow down your dating”. I followed the link following the “Your Dunhill pipe has been crafted between 1921 and 1954”. That took me to Page 2 of the dating key (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1b.html).   The first column (suffix 1…4) led me to the section with a 2 after the D in England. There was a directive for dating the pipe spelled out as follows: 1950 + suffix which dates the pipe to 1952.I then turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Root Briar to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Bruyère – The original finish produced (usually made using Calabrian briar), and a big part of developing and marketing the brand. It was the only finish from 1910 until 1917. A dark reddish-brown stain. Before the 1950s, there were three possible finishes for Dunhill pipes. The Bruyere was a smooth finish with a deep red stain, obtained through two coats, a brown understain followed by a deep red.

See more about here: Dunhill Bruyere

I clicked on the “See more about here:” link above (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill_Bruyere) and it took me to more specific information on the brand.

Initially, made from over century-old briar burls, classified by a “B” (denoted highest quality pipe); “DR” (denoted straight-grained) and an “A” (denoted first quality), until early 1915. After that, they became a high-end subset to the Dunhill ‘Bruyere’. The DR and B pipes, a limited production, they should be distinguished as hand-cut in London from burls as opposed to the Bruyere line which was generally finished from French turned bowls until 1917, when the Calabrian briar started to be used, but not completely. Only in 1920 Dunhill took the final step in its pipe making operation and began sourcing and cutting all of its own bowls, proudly announcing thereafter that “no French briar was employed”.

Bruyere pipes were usually made using Calabrian briar, a very dense and hardy briar that has a modest grain but does very well with the deep red stain.

“Before the 1950s, there were three possible finishes for Dunhill pipes. The Bruyere was a smooth finish with a deep red stain, obtained through two coats, a brown understain followed by a deep red. The Shell finish was the original sandblast with a near-black stain (though the degree to which it is truly black has varied over the years). Lastly, the Root finish was smooth also but with a light brown finish. Early Dunhill used different briars with different stains, resulting in more distinct and identifiable creations… Over the years, to these traditional styles were added four new finishes: Cumberland, Dress, Chestnut and Amber Root, plus some now-defunct finishes, such as County, Russet and Red Bark.”[1]

I have also included a chart from the site from Dunhill spelling out the Standard Pipe Finishes and giving short information and a timeline. I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the light cake with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up that with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals of the bowl and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe stem Deoxidizer and once it had soaked rinsed it off with warm water to remove the residual solution. He dried it off and rubbed it down to remove any oxidation that was still on the stem. The pipe looked very good when I received it. I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition. You can see the clean bowl and the damage on the rim top and inner edge. The stem came out looking quite good. There are some scratches, tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.   I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. The stamping is faint in spots but still very readable. It reads as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe parts to show what I was working with. It is a nice looking pipe. I worked on both the inside and outside edge and top of the rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the damage. It would take some work but it looked much better.I polished the cleaned up rim top and edges with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the dust. The rim top came out looking very good. I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem issues. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter. The heat lifted the tooth marks significantly. I filled in the small remaining marks with clear CA glue. I flattened them out with a small file once they cured. I sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the stem. I started the polishing with a 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This 1952 Dunhill Bruyere 113 F/T Billiard with a Taper Stem has a smooth Dunhill finish that has some great grain. The polished oxblood reddish stain highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Bruyere 113 F/T Billiard is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is .99 ounces/28 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. If you are interested in adding it to your collection I will be adding it to the British Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. Thanks for your time.

Restoring a Unique Savinelli Autograph 4 Freehand

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is one that was sent to me for a restoration. I am not taking on too many more pipes from outside Canada but the shape and finish of this one caught my eye. It is a Savinelli Autograph 4 with an unusual shape and a great sandblast finish. It is dirty but still very eye catching. It is stamped on the underside of the shank and reads Savinelli [over] Autograph [over] 4. The shank is round but has a flat bottom that allows the pipe to be a sitter. The bowl had been partially reamed and the top half had scraped away some briar on the inner edge of the bowl. The bottom half was very full of a thick cake that had not been touched with the reamer. The pipe smelled of old tobacco but did not seem to be a heavy aromatic. The shank was dirty with oils and tars. The acrylic stem is almost certain a replacement. It does not have the characteristic autograph/signature on the side of the saddle though it is very well made and the fit to the shank is perfect. There were light tooth marks and chatter in the surface on both sides. The button surface was clean but the slot had been filled in with debris leaving a very small airway. I am including the photos of the pipe that were sent by the person who is the steward of the pipe below. I think that you can see what attracted me to this one. The email also included photos of the rim top to show its condition. There was some damage to the finish on the rim top and some damage to the inner edge of the rim. The acrylic stem photos show the scratches, chatter and tooth marks. Overall the pipe looked impressive even in its unrestored state. I wanted to remind myself a bit about the Autograph line from Savinelli so I reread a blog I had written on a previous Autograph restoration (https://rebornpipes.com/2019/01/05/restoring-a-savinelli-autograph-3-rhodesian-dublin-long-shank/). I quote that portion of the blog now:

I turned first to the Pipephil website (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-savinelli1.html) to get a brief overview of the Autograph line. There I found out that the Autographs were hand made and unique. The Autograph Grading system is ascending: 3, 4, … 8, 0, 00, 000.

I turned then to Pipedia to get a more background on the Autograph line. I had the outline I needed from pipephil for the pipe but wanted more (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Savinelli). I quote in part from the article on that site.

While Savinelli’s serially produced pipes account for around 98% of annual production, the marque also creates a number of artisanal, handmade pieces as well. The Autographs, the Creativity line, and the Mr. A. line are all the result of Savinelli’s unique handmade process, with the Autographs reflecting the larger Freehand aesthetic, the Creativity line delving into more complex hand carving, and the Mr. A. line sidestepping the standard shape chart for remarkable and unusual pipes.

All of the briar for Savinelli’s Autographs and other freehand pipes is sourced specifically for those pieces. While the majority of the marque’s serial production is made from extra grade ebauchon blocks, Savinelli keeps a separate supply of Extra Extra plateau blocks for Freehands. This variety of briar is much larger, and of a higher quality, which explains why so many Autographs and Savinelli handmades are naturally larger designs.

These handmade pieces are shaped much like traditional Danish Freehands: they are shaped first and drilled second. Using this method, Savinelli’s team of artisans is able to showcase their own creativity, as it maximizes flexibility and facilitates a more grain-centric approach to shaping. The resulting Freehand designs are at once both a departure from the marque’s classical standard shapes, yet very much still “Savinelli” in their nature—i.e. proportioned so that the bowl is the visual focus when viewed from the profile, juxtaposed by the comparatively trim lines of the shank and stem. To provide a little more insight into the differences between Savinelli’s standard production and freehand lines, Luisa Bozzetti comments:

“When we choose to make Freehand pipes we must stop production on the standard shapes. The process for Freehands is much more involved and takes much more time. Finding the best people from the production line and pulling them to make Freehands is challenging since it’s not an assembly line, but rather a one or two man operation.

After the rough shaping of the stummel, we must get together and brainstorm which style of stem will be paired before the pipe can be finished since we do not use pre-shaped stems. All accents and stems for the Freehands are cut from rod here in the factory. A lot of care goes into the few pieces lucky enough to make the cut; to end up with a certain number of Autographs, for instance, means that many, many more will be made, and only the few will be selected.”

The quality control process for Savinelli handmades is even more rigorous than that employed in the standard lineup. Many blocks are started and later discarded because of pits or defects. While Savinelli’s briar sourcing is a constant process, working with some of Italy’s top cutters to ensure only the finest and most suitable blocks make their way to the factory, it’s impossible to source plateau briar that’s completely free from flaws. That’s just nature. Savinelli creates the standard for quality by working through the rough (a very high-quality rough, mind you) to find that shining diamond with the potential to become a Savinelli handmade.

It looks like the Autograph 4 I am working is pretty high in the hierarchy of the line. Like other autographs I have worked on in the past this one has a unique twist to the stem.

I started my work on the pipe by reaming it with a PipNet pipe reamer and got rid of the cake. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife. I then sanded the walls smooth and wiped it down with a cotton pad so that I could see the walls of the bowl and assess for damage. I scraped the mortise walls with a pen knife and was able to remove a lot of tarry/oily buildup. Once I had scraped it clean, I scrubbed the internals of the shank, mortise and the airway in the shank and stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and alcohol. It smelled considerably cleaner at this point in the process. I scrubbed the exterior with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to get into the grooves and valleys of the sandblast. I worked on the rim top and edges of the bowl to remove some of the tars and darkening there. I rinsed the pipe under warm water. He dried it off with a cloth and then let it air dry. I decided to address the damage to the inner edge of the rim. I used a wooden ball and a piece of 220 grit sand paper to give the inner edge a slight bevel to take care of the damage and burn marks. I cleaned it up lightly with a folded piece of 220 grit to smooth out the notches from the reaming work done before it arrived here. I was able to minimize the damaged area. Before I called it a night I stuffed the bowl with some cotton bolls, plugged the shank end and filled it with 99% isopropyl alcohol to leach out the oils and tars in the bowl and shank that gave it a bit of a funky smell. I set it aside for the night to do its magic. When I came back to the work table in the morning the cotton had darkened all the way down the bowl and the plug. The pipe smelled considerably better.I ran some pipe cleaners through the shank and dried the bowl edges. I used a black stain pen to stain the inner edge of the bowl to blend it into the bowl and give definition to the rim top. I like the way this looks on a cleaned pipe.I polished the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. The grain really began to pop and stand out on the polished briar. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the briar with my finger tips and a horsehair shoe brush. The product is a great addition to the restoration work. It enlivens, enriches and protects the briar while giving it a deep glow. It is a product I use on every pipe I work on. I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem issues. I sanded out the tooth marks and chatter on the acrylic stem with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the stem. I polished out the scratching and marks left behind from the 220 grit sandpaper by wet sanding it with a 600 grit wet dry sandpaper.I polished the acrylic with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This Savinelli Autograph 4 Sitter with a Fancy Acrylic Stem has a beautiful sandblast finish around the bowl and shank and a smooth rim top that has some great grain. The polished light briar highlights some great grain around the pipe. The polished black acrylic fancy stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Savinelli Autograph 4 Sitter is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 ½ inches, Height: 2 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches x 1 ¾ inches, Chamber diameter: 1 inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.43 ounces/70 grams. I will be boxing it up and shipping it to its current steward to enjoy and care for. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe.

Cleaning up a 1968 Dunhill Root Briar 251 F/T Made in England 8 Taper Stem Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is another one that came to us from the group of pipes that Jeff and I purchased on October 16, 2021 from a fellow in Redmond, Oregon who was selling his father’s estate pipes. It is another Dunhill smooth finish pipe that is in rough but workable condition. It is stamped on the left side of the shank with the shape number 251 F/T followed by Dunhill [over] Root Briar. On the right side it is stamped Made in [over] England by the date number 8. Next to the bowl on the right side it is stamped with a 3 in a circle followed by R. The stamping is clear and readable as noted above. The pipe has a mix of brown stains with some amazing grain that the shape follows well. The finish was dusty and oily and the pipe was dirty. The bowl had a thick cake and there was a thick overflow lava and darkening and scratches on the rim top and both the inner and outer edges. The taper stem was in decent condition and was oxidized, calcified and had tooth marks and chatter ahead of the worn button. Jeff took photos of the pipe to show what it looked like before he started working on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show their condition and of the stem to show the condition of both sides of the stem. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show beautiful cross and birdseye grain and the Root Briar coloured finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty. The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. It is faint but readable. It reads as noted and explained above. Jeff captured the detail in the photos below. One of the first things I like to do is to unpack the stamping and understand each element in it. I turned to Pipephil’s helpful site (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/root-briar1.html). The stamping is interpreted as follows: The 251 stamp is the shape for a Billiard. The F/T stamp refers to the fishtail stem. The Root Briar stamp refers to the finish. The 8 following the D of England gives the date the pipe. The Circle 3 R refers to the size of the pipe being a Group 3 and the R confirms the Root Briar designation.Pipephil also has some helpful dating keys on the site that are basically flow charts that you can walk through to date your pipe (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1.html). I turned to Part 1 of the Dating Key and followed the chart. This pipe has a 8 following the D in England. It is the same size as the D so that took me to the section on the chart below (column one) which instructed me that the pipe could be dated as being made posterior to 1954. I followed the link following the “Your pipe is posterior to 1954. Narrow down your dating”. That took me to Page 2 of the dating key (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html).   The third column (suffix 5…9) led me to the section with a 8 after the D in England. There was a directive for dating the pipe spelled out as follows: 1960 + suffix which gives the pipe a date of 1968. I then turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Root Briar to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Root Briar – Introduced in 1931 and highly prized because the grain is more pronounced in this finish (usually made using Corsican briar – was made exclusively from that briar into the 60s). The Root Briar finish requires a perfectly clean bowl with excellent graining. Therefore, it is the most expensive of the Dunhill pipes. Corsican briar was most often used for the Root finish since it was generally more finely grained. This is a rare finish, due to the scarcity of briar suitable to achieve it. These pipes are normally only available at Company stores, or at Principle Pipe Dealers. Straight grained pipes were formerly graded A through H, but are now only “Dr’s” and graded with one to six stars, with the letters G and H still used for the very finest pieces.

Dunhill introduced its third major finish, the Root finish, in 1931. Corsican mountain briar is characteristically beautifully grained and the Root was made exclusively from that briar into the 1960s. The pipe was finished with a light natural stain to allow the beauty of the graining to show through. Although always available with a traditional black vulcanite bit, the Root was introduced in either 1930 or more likely 1931 and fitted with a marble brown dark and light grained vulcanite bit that has since become known as the ‘bowling ball’ bit because of the similarity in appearance between the bit’s finish and that of some bowling balls of the time. With the war, however, the bowling ball bit was dropped from production. Through 1954 (and after) the Root pipe nomenclature (including shape numbers) was identical to that of the Bruyere except that instead of the “A” of the Bruyere, the Root was stamped with an “R”. In 1952 when the finish rather then LONDON was placed under DUNHILL, ROOT BRIAR rather then BRUYERE was used for the Root. Loring, J. C., The Dunhill Briar Pipe, The Patent Years and After (self-published, Chicago, 1998).

I have also included a chart from the site from Dunhill spelling out the Standard Pipe Finishes and giving short information and a timeline. I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the light cake with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up that with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals of the bowl and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe stem Deoxidizer and once it had soaked rinsed it off with warm water to remove the residual solution. He dried it off and rubbed it down to remove any oxidation that was still on the stem. The pipe looked very good when I received it. I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition. You can see the clean bowl and the damage on the rim top and inner edge. The stem came out looking quite good. There are some scratches, tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.   I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. The stamping is faint in spots but still very readable. It reads as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe parts to show what I was working with. It is a nice looking pipe.I worked on both the inside and outside edge and top of the rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the damage. It would take some work but it looked much better.I polished the cleaned up rim top and edges with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the dust. The rim top came out looking very good. I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem issues. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter. The heat lifted the tooth marks significantly. I filled in the remaining spots with clear CA glue. Once the repairs cured I flattened the with a small file then sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the stem. I started the polishing with a 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This 1968 Dunhill Root Briar 251 F/T Billiard with a Taper Stem has a smooth Dunhill finish that has some great grain. The polished light brown stain highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Root Briar 251 F/T Billiard is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¾ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.09 ounces/31 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. If you are interested in adding it to your collection I will be adding it to the British Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. Thanks for your time.

Cleaning up a Dunhill Root Briar 21033 Made in England 18 Taper Stem Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is another one that came to us from the group of pipes that Jeff and I purchased from a fellow in Copenhagen, Denmark on November 14, 2022. It is another Dunhill smooth finish pipe that is in good condition. It is stamped on the left side of the shank with the shape number 21033 followed by Dunhill [over] Root Briar. On the right side it is stamped Made in [over] England by the date number 18. The stamping is clear and readable as noted above. The pipe has a mix of brown stains with some amazing grain that the shape follows well. The finish was dusty and oily and the pipe was dirty. The bowl had a thick cake and there was a thick overflow lava and darkening and scratches on the rim top and edges. The taper stem was in decent condition and was oxidized, scratched and had tooth marks and chatter ahead of the worn button. Jeff took photos of the pipe to show what it looked like before he started working on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show their condition and of the stem to show the condition of both sides of the stem. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show beautiful cross and birdseye grain and the Root Briar coloured finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty. The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. It is faint but readable. It reads as noted and explained above. Jeff captured the detail in the photos below. One of the first things I like to do is to unpack the stamping and understand each element in it. I turned to Pipephil’s helpful site (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/root-briar1.html). The stamping is interpreted as follows: The 21033 stamp is the shape for a Billiard. Interpreting that number is a matter of breaking down the numbers. The first number 2 is the bowl size (Group 2), The 1 is for a tapered stem. The 03 is the number for a Billiard. The fifth number 3 – indicates the style of the bowl within the group of a similar classification, each identified by the last digit, which could be any number between 1-9. The Root Briar stamp refers to the finish. The 18 following the D of England gives the date the pipe.Pipephil also has some helpful dating keys on the site that are basically flow charts that you can walk through to date your pipe (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1.html). I turned to Part 1 of the Dating Key and followed the chart. This pipe has a 18 following the D in England. It is the same size as the D so that took me to the section on the chart below (column one) which instructed me that the pipe could be dated as being made posterior to 1954. I followed the link following the “Your pipe is posterior to 1954. Narrow down your dating”. That took me to Page 2 of the dating key (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html).   The third column (suffix 5…9) led me to the section with a 18 after the D in England. There was a directive for dating the pipe spelled out as follows: 1960 + suffix which gives the pipe a date of 1978. I then turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Root Briar to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Root Briar – Introduced in 1931 and highly prized because the grain is more pronounced in this finish (usually made using Corsican briar – was made exclusively from that briar into the 60s). The Root Briar finish requires a perfectly clean bowl with excellent graining. Therefore, it is the most expensive of the Dunhill pipes. Corsican briar was most often used for the Root finish since it was generally more finely grained. This is a rare finish, due to the scarcity of briar suitable to achieve it. These pipes are normally only available at Company stores, or at Principle Pipe Dealers. Straight grained pipes were formerly graded A through H, but are now only “Dr’s” and graded with one to six stars, with the letters G and H still used for the very finest pieces.

Dunhill introduced its third major finish, the Root finish, in 1931. Corsican mountain briar is characteristically beautifully grained and the Root was made exclusively from that briar into the 1960s. The pipe was finished with a light natural stain to allow the beauty of the graining to show through. Although always available with a traditional black vulcanite bit, the Root was introduced in either 1930 or more likely 1931 and fitted with a marble brown dark and light grained vulcanite bit that has since become known as the ‘bowling ball’ bit because of the similarity in appearance between the bit’s finish and that of some bowling balls of the time. With the war, however, the bowling ball bit was dropped from production. Through 1954 (and after) the Root pipe nomenclature (including shape numbers) was identical to that of the Bruyere except that instead of the “A” of the Bruyere, the Root was stamped with an “R”. In 1952 when the finish rather then LONDON was placed under DUNHILL, ROOT BRIAR rather then BRUYERE was used for the Root. Loring, J. C., The Dunhill Briar Pipe, The Patent Years and After (self-published, Chicago, 1998).

I have also included a chart from the site from Dunhill spelling out the Standard Pipe Finishes and giving short information and a timeline. I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the light cake with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up that with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals of the bowl and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe stem Deoxidizer and once it had soaked rinsed it off with warm water to remove the residual solution. He dried it off and rubbed it down to remove any oxidation that was still on the stem. The pipe looked very good when I received it. I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition. You can see the clean bowl and the damage on the rim top and inner edge. The stem came out looking quite good. There are some scratches, tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.   I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. The stamping is faint in spots but still very readable. It reads as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe parts to show what I was working with. It is a nice looking pipe. I worked on the inside edge and top of the rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the damage. It would take some work but it looked much better.I polished the cleaned up rim top and edges with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the dust. The rim top came out looking very good. I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem issues. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter. The heat lifted the tooth marks significantly. I sanded what remained with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the stem. I started the polishing with a 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This 1978 Dunhill Root Briar 21033 Billiard with a Taper Stem has a smooth Dunhill finish that has some great grain. The polished light brown stain highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Root Briar 21033 Billiard is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½  inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.06 ounces/30 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. If you are interested in adding it to your collection I will be adding it to the British Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. Thanks for your time.

Cleaning up a Dunhill Root Briar 4R 587 F/T Stack Made in England 9

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is another one that came to us from the group of pipes that Jeff and I purchased from a fellow in Copenhagen, Denmark on October 3, 2022. It is another Dunhill smooth finish pipe that is in good condition. It is stamped on the left side of the shank with the shape number 587 F/T followed by Dunhill [over] Root Briar. On the right side it is stamped Made in [over] England by the date number 9. After that it is stamped with a 4 in a circle [followed by] R for Root Briar. The stamping is clear and readable as noted above. The pipe has a mix of brown stains with some amazing grain that the shape follows well. The finish was dusty and oily but the pipe was fairly clean. The bowl had a moderate cake and there was some light lava and darkening on the rim top and edges. The taper stem looked to be in decent condition and had tooth marks and chatter ahead of the worn button. Jeff took photos of the pipe to show what it looked like before he started working on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show their condition and of the stem to show the condition of both sides of the stem. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show beautiful cross and birdseye grain and the Root Briar coloured finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty.  The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. It is faint but readable. It reads as noted and explained above. Jeff captured the detail in the photos below. One of the first things I like to do is to unpack the stamping and understand each element in it. I turned to Pipephil’s helpful site (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/root-briar1.html). The stamping is interpreted as follows: The 587 stamp is the shape for a Stack. The F/T stamp refers to the Fishtail style stem. The Root Briar stamp refers to the finish which is corroborated the R at the end of the stamping. The size of the pipe 4 in a circle is a Group 4. The 9 following the D of England gives the date the pipe.Pipephil also has some helpful dating keys on the site that are basically flow charts that you can walk through to date your pipe (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1.html). I turned to Part 1 of the Dating Key and followed the chart. This pipe has a 9 following the D in England. It is the same size as the D so that took me to the section on the chart below (column one) which instructed me that the pipe could be dated as being made posterior to 1954. I followed the link following the “Your pipe is posterior to 1954. Narrow down your dating”. That took me to Page 2 of the dating key (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html).   The third column (suffix 5…9) led me to the section with a 9 after the D in England. There was a directive for dating the pipe spelled out as follows: 1960 + suffix which gives the pipe a date of 1969.I then turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Root Briar to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Root Briar – Introduced in 1931 and highly prized because the grain is more pronounced in this finish (usually made using Corsican briar – was made exclusively from that briar into the 60s). The Root Briar finish requires a perfectly clean bowl with excellent graining. Therefore, it is the most expensive of the Dunhill pipes. Corsican briar was most often used for the Root finish since it was generally more finely grained. This is a rare finish, due to the scarcity of briar suitable to achieve it. These pipes are normally only available at Company stores, or at Principle Pipe Dealers. Straight grained pipes were formerly graded A through H, but are now only “Dr’s” and graded with one to six stars, with the letters G and H still used for the very finest pieces.

Dunhill introduced its third major finish, the Root finish, in 1931. Corsican mountain briar is characteristically beautifully grained and the Root was made exclusively from that briar into the 1960s. The pipe was finished with a light natural stain to allow the beauty of the graining to show through. Although always available with a traditional black vulcanite bit, the Root was introduced in either 1930 or more likely 1931 and fitted with a marble brown dark and light grained vulcanite bit that has since become known as the ‘bowling ball’ bit because of the similarity in appearance between the bit’s finish and that of some bowling balls of the time. With the war, however, the bowling ball bit was dropped from production. Through 1954 (and after) the Root pipe nomenclature (including shape numbers) was identical to that of the Bruyere except that instead of the “A” of the Bruyere, the Root was stamped with an “R”. In 1952 when the finish rather then LONDON was placed under DUNHILL, ROOT BRIAR rather then BRUYERE was used for the Root. Loring, J. C., The Dunhill Briar Pipe, The Patent Years and After (self-published, Chicago, 1998).

I have also included a chart from the site from Dunhill spelling out the Standard Pipe Finishes and giving short information and a timeline. I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the light cake with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up that with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals of the bowl and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe stem Deoxidizer and once it had soaked rinsed it off with warm water to remove the residual solution. He dried it off and rubbed it down to remove any oxidation that was still on the stem. The pipe looked very good when I received it. I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition. You can see the clean bowl and the damage on the rim top and inner edge. The stem came out looking quite good. There are some scratches, tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. The stamping is faint in spots but still very readable. It reads as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe parts to show what I was working with. It is a nice looking pipe. I worked on the inside edge and top of the rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the damage. It would take some work but it looked much better.I polished the cleaned up rim top and edges with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the dust. The rim top came out looking very good. I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem issues. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter. The heat lifted the tooth marks significantly. I filled in the marks that remained with clear CA glue. Once it cured I used a small file to flatten the repairs. I sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the stem. I started the polishing with a 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This 1969 Dunhill Root Briar 587 F/T Stack with a Taper Stem has a smooth Dunhill finish that has some great grain. The polished light brown stain highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Root Briar 587 F/T Stack is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¾ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 3/8 inch, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.31 ounces/37 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. If you are interested in adding it to your collection I will be adding it to the British Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. Thanks for your time.

Cleaning up a Dunhill Root Briar 4R OX F/T Bulldog Made in England 6

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is another one that came to us from the group of pipes that Jeff and I purchased from a fellow in Copenhagen, Denmark on October 3, 2022. It is another Dunhill smooth finish that is in good condition. It is stamped on sides of the shank. On the left side it is stamped with the shape number OX followed by F/T. Next to that it reads Dunhill [over] Root Briar. On the right side it is stamped Made in [over] England by the date number 6. After that it is stamped with a 4 in a circle [followed by] R for Root Briar. The stamping is clear and readable as noted above. The pipe has a mix of brown stains that highlight some amazing grain that the shape follows well. The finish was dusty and oily around bowl and shank sides. The bowl had a thick cake and there was heavy lava on the rim top or edges. The filter saddle stem was lightly oxidized and dirty with tooth marks and chatter ahead of the button on both sides. Jeff took photos of the pipe to show what it looked like before he started working on it. He took photos of the bowl, rim top and both sides of the stem to show their condition. The description above gives a clear sense of what we saw. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show the amazing grain around the bowl and the colour of the finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty.  The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. They are faint but readable. It reads as noted and explained above. Jeff captured the detail in the photos below. One of the first things I like to do is to unpack the stamping and understand each element in it. I turned to Pipephil’s helpful site (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/root-briar1.html). The stamping is interpreted as follows: The OX stamp is the shape for a Bulldog. The F/T stamp refers to the Fishtail style stem. The Root Briar stamp refers to the finish which is corroborated the R at the end of the stamping. The size of the pipe 4 in a circle is a Group 4. The 6 following the D of England gives the date the pipe.Pipephil also has some helpful dating keys on the site that are basically flow charts that you can walk through to date your pipe (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1.html). I turned to Part 1 of the Dating Key and followed the chart. This pipe has a 6 following the D in England. It is the same size as the D so that took me to the section on the chart below (column one) which instructed me that the pipe could be dated as being made posterior to 1954. I followed the link following the “Your pipe is posterior to 1954. Narrow down your dating”. That took me to Page 2 of the dating key (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html).   The third column (suffix 5…9) led me to the section with a 6 after the D in England. There was a directive for dating the pipe spelled out as follows: 1960 + suffix which gives the pipe a date of 1969.I then turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Root Briar to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Root Briar – Introduced in 1931 and highly prized because the grain is more pronounced in this finish (usually made using Corsican briar – was made exclusively from that briar into the 60s). The Root Briar finish requires a perfectly clean bowl with excellent graining. Therefore, it is the most expensive of the Dunhill pipes. Corsican briar was most often used for the Root finish since it was generally more finely grained. This is a rare finish, due to the scarcity of briar suitable to achieve it. These pipes are normally only available at Company stores, or at Principle Pipe Dealers. Straight grained pipes were formerly graded A through H, but are now only “Dr’s” and graded with one to six stars, with the letters G and H still used for the very finest pieces.

Dunhill introduced its third major finish, the Root finish, in 1931. Corsican mountain briar is characteristically beautifully grained and the Root was made exclusively from that briar into the 1960s. The pipe was finished with a light natural stain to allow the beauty of the graining to show through. Although always available with a traditional black vulcanite bit, the Root was introduced in either 1930 or more likely 1931 and fitted with a marble brown dark and light grained vulcanite bit that has since become known as the ‘bowling ball’ bit because of the similarity in appearance between the bit’s finish and that of some bowling balls of the time. With the war, however, the bowling ball bit was dropped from production. Through 1954 (and after) the Root pipe nomenclature (including shape numbers) was identical to that of the Bruyere except that instead of the “A” of the Bruyere, the Root was stamped with an “R”. In 1952 when the finish rather then LONDON was placed under DUNHILL, ROOT BRIAR rather then BRUYERE was used for the Root. Loring, J. C., The Dunhill Briar Pipe, The Patent Years and After (self-published, Chicago, 1998).

I have also included a chart from the site from Dunhill spelling out the Standard Pipe Finishes and giving short information and a timeline. I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the light cake with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up that with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals of the bowl and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe stem Deoxidizer and once it had soaked rinsed it off with warm water to remove the residual solution. He dried it off and rubbed it down to remove any oxidation that was still on the stem. The pipe looked very good when I received it. I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition. You can see the clean bowl and the damage on the rim top and inner edge. The stem came out looking quite good. There are some scratches, tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.I took a photo of the stamping on the sides of the shank. The stamping is faint in spots but still very readable. It reads as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe parts to show what I was working with. It is a nice looking pipe. I worked on the inside edge and top of the rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the damage. It would take some work but it looked much better.I polished the cleaned up rim top and edges with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the dust. The rim top came out looking very good. I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem issues. I filled in the deep tooth marks in the vulcanite with clear CA glue. Once it cured I used a small file to flatten the repairs. I sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the stem. I started the polishing with a 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This 1969 Dunhill Root Briar OX F/T Bulldog with a Saddle Stem has a smooth Dunhill finish that has some great grain. The polished light brown stain highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. The polished black vulcanite saddle stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Root Briar OX F/T Bulldog is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inch, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.55 ounces/44 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. If you are interested in adding it to your collection I will be adding it to the British Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. Thanks for your time.

Can this one be brought back to life? Dunhill Amber Root 3103 Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

Sometimes on a pipe hunt you have a surprising find. We look for pipes wherever we go so we go through a lot of shops and look at a lot of pipes. Many are just junk we leave behind but there are always some good ones. The next one was purchased on 10/20/22 from an antique store in Vancouver, Washington, USA. Jeff found it and excited when he saw it and more excited when he picked it up. It is a filthy looking Billiard with a Cumberland stem. It turned out to be a Dunhill pipe. It is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads Dunhill (in an oval). To the left of it the shape number 3103 is stamped. On the right side of the shank it is stamped AMBER ROOT [over] Made in England35. The 35 identifies the date of the pipe. The pipe was in rough shape. The outside of the bowl and shank were heavily coated in thick oils that were almost black. The bowl had a thick cake that overflowed as lava onto the rim top. The Cumberland stem was oxidized, calcified, coated in sludge but had little or no tooth damage on the stem top or underside. The shank was so coated with internal sludge that the stem did not fit the shank well. Jeff took photos of the pipe when he found it and before he started the clean up. Try to imagine how the pipe smelled and felt. Even your imagination cannot begin to capture the smells or feelings of the briar in your hand. The heavy cake in the bowl flows from the bottom up and all over the rim top and edges. It was impossible to know what the condition of the top and edges was underneath that thick, rock hard coating. The Cumberland stem was dirty, oxidized and calcified but had only light tooth chatter on both sides. Jeff took photos of the bowl, rim top and the stem to show the condition of both. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show the grain peeking through but it is almost impossible to see what the finish is underneath the thick sludge. I am hoping that underneath the thick grit it is a real beauty.  The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. It looks very good with portions of it faint but readable. It reads as noted and explained above. Jeff captured the detail in the photos below. I wanted to unpack the Dunhill stamping on the shank and work to understand each element of the stamp. I generally use the Pipephil site to gather as much initial information as possible (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/amber1.html). The stamping is interpreted as follows: The number 3103 is the shape number that unpacks as follows: the 3 is the bowl size, 1 is the normal identifier for a taper stem, 03 is the shape designation – a billiard. The Amber Root stamp refers to the finish. The superscript 35 following the D of England would give the date the pipe.Pipephil also has some helpful dating keys on the site that are basically flow charts that you can walk through to date your pipe (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1.html). I turned to Part 1 of the Dating Key and followed the chart. This pipe has a superscript 35  following the D in England. There was no patent number so that took me to the section on the chart below (column one) which instructed me that the pipe could be dated as being made “posterior to 1954”.I followed the link under “Your pipe is posterior to 1954. Narrow down your dating”. That took me to Page 2 of the dating key (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html). The second column (suffix 1…4) or (11…39) led me to the section with a 35 after the D in England. There was a directive for dating the pipe spelled out as follows: 1960 + suffix which gives the pipe a date of 1995. From that I knew that the pipe was made in 1995 but since the last digit was covered I could not identify the exact year. I then turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Cumberland to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Amber Root – Introduced in 1995. A warm yellow-orange stain, reminiscent of the original Root Briar finish. Cumberland stems were used, although recently, Amber Root pipes have appeared with black stems. This is also a limited production pipe that is found in mainly Company stores and Principle Pipe Dealers. Straight grained pipes are made available in this finish under the name Amber-flame and are graded from one to three flames.

Note: While the Amber Root finish existed in the past with Cumberland and black Vulcanite mouthpieces (now we use usually the black Vulcanite variety only)[32].

I have also included a chart from the site spelling out the Standard Pipe Finishes and giving a timeline. You can see that the Amber Root Finish (a smooth polished medium stain) was introduced in 1995 so this is definitely from the first year of the release of that finish from the factory. I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the light cake with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up that with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals of the bowl and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe stem Deoxidizer and once it had soaked rinsed it off with warm water to remove the residual solution. He dried it off and rubbed it down to remove any oxidation that was still on the stem. The pipe looked very good when I received it. I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition. You can see the clean bowl. The rim top and inner edge are damaged and the bowl is slightly out of round. The stem came out looking quite good. There are some scratches, light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.  I took a photo of the sides of the shank to show the stamping. The photo shows the stamping and is actually more readable in person.I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe parts to show what I was working with. It is a nice looking pipe.I worked on the inside and top of the rim with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper and a wooden ball to clean up the damage on the rim top and edges. I used a folded piece of 220 to clean up the inner edge even more. It would take some work but this was a good start. I polished the cleaned up rim top and edges with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the dust. The rim top came out looking very good.   I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem issues. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter to lift the tooth marks. I was able to lift them considerably. I filled in what remained with clear CA glue. Once the glue cured I flattened the repairs with a small flat file. I sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface and started polishing the stem with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This 1995 Dunhill Amber Root 3103 Billiard with a Cumberland taper stem has a beautiful, unique Dunhill smooth finish with great grain. The medium orange brown finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. It has a unique finish and the polished Cumberland taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Amber Root 3103 Billiard is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.20 ounces/33 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. I will be adding it to the rebornpipes store soon in the British Pipe Makers Section. If you want to add it to your collection let me know. Thanks for your time.