Tag Archives: Bjarne pipes

Life for a Bjarne Hand Made in Denmark rose variegated acrylic stem Freehand

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by Steve Laug

This afternoon I decided to work on the pipe that Jeff picked up from a seller in Nampa, Idaho, USA on 11/09/2023. It is a beautifully grained Freehand with a Plateau rim and shank end. The right and left side of the bowl are panels with the left side fluted. The bottom is flattened and the pipe stands well on the heel. It has a fancy variegated rose coloured acrylic saddle stem. It is a beautiful grained piece of briar that I can appreciate why he chose it. The pipe is stamped on the underside of the shank and reads Bjarne [over] Handmade [over] In Denmark. The briar is dirty from use with a moderate cake in the bowl and a light overflow of lava on the bevelled inner edge and rim top filling in some of the plateau around the edge. The plateau shank end was dusty and dirty. The stem fit well against the shank end. The variegated rose coloured acrylic saddle stem had some tooth chatter and scratches on the top and underside of the stem ahead of the button. There was a Bjarne bj logo on the stem. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work on it. I have included them below. Jeff took photos of the rim top and the stem to show the condition of the pipe when we received it. You can see the cake in the bowl and the build up of lava and debris in the plateau of the rim top and shank end. I really is a dirty pipe. The variegated rose acrylic stem and has chatter and a few deep tooth marks on both sides near the button. He took photos of the sides of the bowl and the heel to give an idea of the shape and the condition of the briar around the bowl. It really is a nicely shaped pipe that has a great finish under the grime on the briar. The next photos Jeff took show the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is faint in spots but still readable as noted above. He also took a photo to show the stem logo. In a previous blog I had researched the brand quite a bit. I have included it in full below for information on this pipe (https://rebornpipes.com/2020/03/07/another-pipe-from-the-eastern-canada-lot-a-hand-carved-bjarne-freehand/). I quote:

I turned my favourite go to sites on background of brands. The first is Pipephil’s site (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-b5.html). There I looked up the Bjarne brand. I have copied the pertinent information below.

Bjarne Nielsen (1941 – † 2008) distributed his own “Bjarne” brand and pipes carved by Danish pipemakers (Mogens Johansen, Tonni Nielsen or Ph. Vigen). High grade pipes were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” without any logo on the mouthpiece and graded A, B, C and D. Bjarne second brand: Viking.

I have included a screen capture of the section on the brand below. I turned to Pipedia and looked up the brand for a bit more information on the pipes that were stamped like the one that I am working on (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne). Toward the end of the article I found what I was looking for. I quote:

Among the pipemakers that worked for Bjarne were Johs (for the lower priced high volume pieces), and makers like Ph. Vigen, Ole Bandholm and Tonni Nielsen for high grade pieces. The cheaper line was stamped “Bjarne” while the highest grades were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” (never with the pipemakers’ name) and graded, from highest to lowest, by the letters: AX, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J.

Now I knew that I was dealing with the cheaper line of pipe made by the company. It was stamped Bjarne while the higher grade pipes were stamped Bjarne Nielsen with a grade stamp.

Jeff did a great job cleaning off the debris and grime on this old. He reamed it with a PipNet reamer and smoothed the walls of the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim and shank with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to the oils and tars on the bowl, rim and shank. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. Once the grime was removed the finish underneath was in stellar condition. There is a scratch on the right side toward the top that is visible. The rich patina of the older briar was a variegated finish of smooth and plateau looked great. He scrubbed the exterior of the stem with Soft Scrub then soaked it in a bath of Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer. He rinsed off the deoxidizer with warm water and wiped the bowl and stem down with a light coat of olive oil to rehydrate both. The pipe really was quite stunning. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it. I took close up photos of the stem and the rim top to show both how clean they were. The rim top and bowl were in good condition with some darkening on the inner bevel of the bowl edge and some lightening of the grooves of the plateau rim top. The stem looked better but the deep tooth marks and chatter were still present. I would need to remove those to bring the stem back.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. You can see from the photo that it is readable. It is clearer on the top half of the stamp than the lower but it is still readable. I removed the stem from the bowl and took a photo of the parts to give a sense of the beauty of the pipe.I started my work on this pipe by addressing the darkening on the high spots on the rim top and the bevelled bowl edge. I sanded the edge bevel with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the edge and to smooth it and to reduce the darkening. I touched up the valleys in the plateau with a black Sharpie pen. It looked better when I had finished.As I examined the exterior of the bowl before polishing it I noticed some flaws or nicks (potential small cracks) in the briar on both side of the bowl where it joined the shank. I filled them in with clear CA glue. Once cured I sanded them smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface. I touched up the sanded area with a Cherry stain pen. They came out looking very good. There was also a deep scratch on the right top edge that looked like a crack but on examination I affirmed it was a scratch. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cotton cloth. The briar took on a shine by the last pads. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my finger tips and a horse hair shoe brush to get into the crevices of the plateau rim top and shank end. The product is incredible and the way it brings the grain to the fore is unique. It works to clean, protect and invigorate the wood. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded tooth chatter and marks smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the acrylic. I continued sanding the stem surface with 320-3500 grit 2×2 inch sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a damp pad to remove the debris. By the end it was quite shiny and ready for polishing.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it 1500-12000 pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each pad to protect it and preserve it. I polished it with Before After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I am really happy with the way that this Bjarne Hand Carved Freehand turned out. It really is a beautiful looking pipe with a unique shape and smooth and plateau finishes. The fancy original acrylic saddle stem is really nice. The briar really came alive with the buffing. The rich brown and black stains of the finish gave the pipe a sense of depth with the polishing and waxing. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Bjarne Freehand really is a beauty and feels great in the hand and looks very good. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches long x 1 ¾ inches wide, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 57 grams/2.01 ounces. The pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store soon. It will be in the Danish Pipe Makers Section if you would like to add it to your collection. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. It was a fun one to work on!

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!

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by Kenneth Lieblich

Hold on to your hats, folks – you’re in for a wild ride of pipe restoration. This amazing pipe has had quite a life, and its latest chapter includes coming into my possession. This is a Bjarne Hand-Carved freehand sitter from one of the great characters of the Danish pipe industry, Bjarne Nielsen. This pipe found its way to me through an auction and I was immediately besotted. It is a wonderful piece of briar, with a spacious bowl, and a charming, bent vulcanite stem. It’s a beauty and really makes an impression. Underneath the shank, the following words are engraved: Bjarne [over] Hand-Carved [over] Made in Denmark. There is no logo on the stem. Given the absence of a logo, I suspect that this is an older Bjarne pipe.Pipedia has a good article on Bjarne Nielsen and I recommend reading it here. For now, here is a part of that biography:

Bjarne Nielsen was born in 1941, and started smoking a pipe when he was 16 years old, and he also made some pipes for his own use at that time. He liked the pipes and made some more, giving some away as presents to friends. At the University of Copenhagen he obtained an MBA degree and found work at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he helped Danish companies that were exporting their products establish contacts in foreign countries. That was in the 1960’s when the high demand for Danish freehand pipes started, so Bjarne was often asked if he knew of any companies that could sell those types of pipes. But all those companies had their order-books filled, so Bjarne always had to give a negative answer. One day he decided to send some pictures of his own pipes, and the response was overwhelming. He was asked how many pipes he could make and how quickly he could deliver them, and at once Bjarne had order for more pipes than he could make. What had been a relaxing hobby now became much more than that.

With a demanding job it was hard to find time to make pipes in that quantity, and Bjarne had to choose. His dream had always been to have a company of his own, and if he wanted fo fulfill that dream, now was the time to do it. But to leave a promising career, in which he probably would have become a Danish ambassador in some foreign country, was indeed a big step to take. “Many thought I was crazy”, Bjarne says, “and one of them was my wife. But she supported my decision anyway.”

He made that decision in 1973, and became a fulltime pipemaker. But he soon realized that it was impossible for one person to handle all of it–he could not make a lot of pipes, sell them and collect money for them all by himself. So he decided to find some pipemakers to help him. In those days Preben Holm was one of the biggest makers of fancy pipes, and he employed a great number of pipemakers. But not all of them were happy to work for Preben,m so Bjarne recruited a few of those.

During the first years all of Bjarne’s pipes were sold in the USA, but at the end of the 1970s he visited the pipe show in Frankfurt and found that there was a market for his there as well. However, he found that the Germans wanted a completely different style of pipes–pipes in traditional shapes. So if he wanted to be successful there, he had to add a completely new line to his production. “It was not easy, we learned it the hard way,” Bjarne says. But they certainly succeeded, and for a number of years Germany became the top-selling market for Bjarne’s pipes.Let’s take a closer look at this pipe’s condition. It was obvious right away that this was a terrific pipe – but, boy, was it dirty. The stem was heavily chewed, with some significant dents in the vulcanite. There was a lot of calcification and oxidation. The stem will be fine in the end – it’ll just take some hard work. Similarly, the stummel needed help. The briar was dirty and tired. The rim was coated in lava, and the bowl was full of cake. I just needed to uncover the beauty of this baby. Let’s get on with it. To begin, I used a disposable lighter and ‘painted’ the stem with its flame. The gentle heat of the flame can cause the dents in the vulcanite of the stem to expand back into shape. In this case, it worked quite well and I got some lift in the dents. Not perfect, but definitely some improvement. The stem’s calcification was quite substantial. I used an old butter knife and gently scraped some of the thicker accretion off. Doing this now helps later in removing the oxidation. I used oil soap on a few cotton rounds and wiped down the stem to provide an initial cleaning of filth before moving on to the next steps.The primary cleaning came next. I disinfected the inside of the stem with pipe cleaners dipped in lemon-infused 99% isopropyl alcohol. I scrubbed thoroughly to make sure the interior was very clean. I used a good numbers of pipe cleaners.The goal of the next step is the removal (or minimization) of oxidation. Going to my sink, I used cream cleanser, cotton rounds, and a toothbrush, and scoured the stem to remove as much surface oxidation as possible. As the photos show, the result was a hideous, brownish mess – but better off the stem than on it.Once the stem was reasonably clean, I soaked it overnight in some Briarville Stem Oxidation Remover. This solution works to draw oxidation in the stem to the surface of the vulcanite. This is a major aid and an important step in ensuring a clean stem. The following day, I drew out the stem from its bath and scrubbed the lingering fluid with a toothbrush. Due to the severity of the oxidation, I then repeated the scrubbing with the cream cleanser for maximum effect. This really helped a lot.As the stem was now clean and dry, I set about fixing the marks and dents in the vulcanite. This was done by filling those divots with black cyanoacrylate adhesive, impregnated with carbon and rubber. I left this to cure and moved on.The penultimate step for the stem is sanding. First, with my set of needle files, I reduced the bulk of the cyanoacrylate repairs. I removed the excess adhesive as near to the surface as possible, without cutting into the vulcanite. Following that, I used all nine of the micromesh sanding pads (1,500 through 12,000 grit) to sand out flaws, even out the vulcanite, and provide gentle polishing of the finished surface. I also applied pipe-stem oil while using the last five micromesh pads. There was a wonderful, deep black shine to the stem when I was done.As the stem was (nearly) complete, I moved on to the stummel. The first step was to ream out the bowl – that is to say, remove all the cake inside the bowl. This accomplished a couple of things. First (and most obviously), it cleaned the bowl and provided a refurbished chamber for future smoking. Second, when the old cake was removed, I could inspect the interior walls of the bowl and determine if there was damage or not. I used a reamer, a pipe knife, and a piece of sandpaper taped to a wooden dowel. Collectively, these ensured that all the debris was removed. However, it was clear that there were a few heat fissures inside the bowl that would need to be repaired. It’s difficult to tell from the photo below, but the quantity of debris removed was enormous. It must have been a well-loved pipe!Similar to the stem, I then cleaned the stummel with both pipe cleaners and cotton swabs dipped in lemon-infused 99% isopropyl alcohol. With a pipe this dirty, it took quite a while and much cotton to get clean.I then decided to ‘de-ghost’ the pipe – that is to say, exorcize the remaining filth from the briar. I filled the bowl and the shank with cotton balls, then saturated them with 99% isopropyl alcohol. I let the stummel sit overnight. This caused the remaining oils, tars and smells to leach out into the cotton.My next step was to remove the lava on the rim. For this, I normally take a piece of machine steel and gently scrape the lava away. However, a jackhammer would have been more appropriate in this case! Instead, I soaked the rim in some oil soap and this softened things up enough for me to scrub the debris off with a nylon-bristle brush. To tidy up the briar, I also wiped down the outside with some oil soap on cotton rounds and used a toothbrush in the crevices. This did a good job of cleaning any latent dirt on the surface of the briar. The last step of the cleaning process was to scour the inside of the stummel with some soap and tube brushes. This was the culmination of a lot of hard work in getting the pipe clean. Additionally, there was a minuscule line on the bottom of the stummel. It was so small, in fact, that I couldn’t really determine if this was a craze line in the briar or just a little scratch. Just to be on the safe side, I applied a tiny bit of clear cyanoacrylate adhesive and sanded it down.To address the heat fissures inside the bowl, I used an epoxy adhesive that is extremely hard, resistant to high temperatures, and completely inert when cured. It worked superbly. I gently filled the affected area with the epoxy and let it cure for a full 24 hours. The next day, I roughened up the epoxy’s surface with 220-grit sandpaper for the next step. I thinly coated the inside of the bowl with a mixture of my wife’s homemade yogurt and activated charcoal. Once hardened, this provides a good, faintly rough surface for a new cake to build.I used all nine micromesh pads (1,500 through 12,000 grit) to sand the outside of the stummel and finish it off. This sanding minimizes flaws in the briar and provides a beautiful smoothness to the wood. I rubbed some LBE Before & After Restoration Balm into the briar and let it sit for 30 minutes or so. The balm moisturizes the wood and gives a beautiful depth to the briar. I then buffed the stummel with a microfibre cloth. For the final step, I took the pipe to my bench polisher and carefully buffed it – first with a blue diamond compound, then with three coats of carnauba wax. This procedure makes the pipe look its best – the stummel sings and the stem glows. You can now see why I called this article ‘You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!’All done! This Bjarne Hand-Carved freehand sitter looks fantastic again and is ready to be enjoyed by its next owner. I am pleased to announce that this pipe is for sale! If you are interested in acquiring it for your collection, please have a look in the ‘Danish’ section of the store here on Steve’s website. You can also email me directly at kenneth@knightsofthepipe.com. The approximate dimensions of the pipe are as follows: length 6¾ in. (175 mm); height 3 in. (75 mm); bowl diameter 1¾ in. (44 mm); chamber diameter 1 in. (25 mm). The weight of the pipe is 2½ oz. (74 g). I hope you enjoyed reading the story of this pipe’s restoration as much as I enjoyed restoring it. If you are interested in more of my work, please follow me here on Steve’s website or send me an email. Thank you very much for reading and, as always, I welcome and encourage your comments.

Restoring a Bjarne Handmade in Denmark War Club Billiard

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by Steve Laug

This large rusticated bowl, smooth rimtop briar pipe was purchased from an eBay seller on 08/27/2-24 from Memphis, Tennesse, USA. It is stamped on the underside of the shank and clearly reads Bjarne [over] Handmade [over] In Denmark. The bowl had a thick cake on the walls and a heavy overflow of lava onto the rim top and edges. The smooth rim top and inner edges also had burn damage leaving the bowl out of round. It obviously had been lit repeatedly with a torch lighter and the damage told the story. The rusticated finish is very tactile but dirty with debris and oils. The previous pipeman had cut a piece of wine cork to make a cork spacer on the stem. It still had the makers marks on the cork. His drilling to fit the tenon was off and not centred. It was not the same thickness from the outside to the center drilling. With it in place the tenon was quite short. The vulcanite taper stem has a bj stamped on the left side of the taper. The stem was lightly oxidized, calcified and had light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. I really like the rustication on the bowl and shank even through the grime in the finish. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started cleaning it up. Have a look. Jeff took close up photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of the bowl and the rim top. You can also see the lava on the rim top, inner edge and the cake in the bowl. The burn damage on the top is very visible and has left the bowl is out of round. He also took close up photos of the stem to show its condition as mentioned above. He also took photos of the tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem. He took photos of the bowl sides and heel to show the details of the rustication around the bowl. The rustication is deep and has interesting characteristics that show up in the photos around the bowl and shank. He took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. There is a bj logo on the left side of the stem that looks deeper enough to touch up. You can also see the wine cork and some of the writing on it in the second photo. It is also poorly cut. The next two photos show the look of the cork spacer on the stem. It is an obvious home made addition and one that I plan on removing. I have had many Bjarne pipes cross my work table over the years but all had been stamped only Bjarne or Bjarne Handmade. None of them had his full name stamped on it and none had a letter stamp which I assumed indicated the grade of the pipe. I did some research on Pipedia.com and found some helpful information on both the stamping of my pipe and the history of Bjarne Nielsen himself. I am including the link to the full article on Pipedia and also some pertinent sections of the article that I have edited for quick reference. https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne

From the early 1990s Bjarne had seven pipemakers employed and the pipes were sold in no fewer than 32 countries. For more than six months each year, Bjarne traveled around the world to promote his pipes by meeting with dealers and customers. But sadly, it all ended in February 2008 when Bjarne, then 66 years old suffered a fatal heart attack. An unexpected blow first of all to his family, but also to the pipemakers who had been working for him, and to all lovers of his pipes from around the world. And as no one was willing to take over, the Bjarne pipe died together with its creator.

Among the pipemakers that worked for Bjarne were Johs (for the lower priced high volume pieces), and makers like Ph. Vigen, Ole Bandholm and Tonni Nielsen for high grade pieces. The cheaper line was stamped “Bjarne” while the highest grades were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” (never with the pipemakers’ name) and graded, from highest to lowest, by the letters: AX, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J.

Now I knew that the pipe I had was made before 2008 and was one of his cheaper line stamped Bjarne.

Armed with the information above, I turned my attention to the pipe itself. Jeff had cleaned the pipe with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners, shank brushes and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the rim top. The finish looks very good with good looking grain around the bowl and shank. Jeff soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. When the pipe arrived here in Vancouver for the second stop of its restoration tour it looked very good. I took photos before I started my part of the work. While I appreciated and understood the idea behind the cork spacer it bothered me. I looked at the tenon and could see that the length was the same as the depth of the mortise in the shank. I also noticed that there was hard glue on the stem that formed a ridge that held the cork in place. I used a flat file and a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to get rid of the glue and smooth out the surface of the tenon. It still needed to be polished but I wanted to see if it would fit. I turned it into the mortise and took photos of the look of the pipe without the cork. It was back to what it must have looked like when it left the factory. I like it and would proceed sans cork space. Have a look at the pipe without the cork spacer. What do you think? I took close up photos of the bowl, rim top and stem to show how clean the pipe was. The bowl was clean and the rim top and the inner edge had significant burn damage and was slightly out of round. The stem was clean and showed light tooth marks and chatter.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is readable and read as noted above. I also removed the stem from the shank and took photos of the pipe to show the look of the parts.The rim top and inner edge of the bowl was in rough condition. I flattened out the damaged rim top by lightly topping it on a topping board with a new piece of 220 grit sandpaper. Once it was flat again I used a wooded sphere and half sphere to work over the inner edge of the bowl and give it a slight bevel to try and bring the bowl back to round. (NOTE: the second photo is staged as I had already put a coat of stain on the polished rim top before realizing I forgot this photo.) The third photo shows the rim top and edges after the sanding process. The burn marks are gone and it looks well. I sanded the rim top with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the top down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad and by the end the rim top had a shine and definitely looked better.I polished the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each pad with the cloth. The bowl continued to develop a deeper shine. I restained the rim top with a Cherry and Mahogany stain pen to match the shank end and panel on the underside of the shank. It would matched well once waxed and buffed.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the briar with my finger tips and a shoe brush to get into the nooks and crannies. I let it sit on the bowl for 10 minutes and then buffed it off with a paper towel and soft cloth. 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 restore. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a lighter to lift the tooth marks and had success. I sanded the light marks that remained with 220 grit sandpaper. It looked better. Polishing would finish the work. I continued the sanding process with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. After each pad I wiped the stem down with some Obsidian Oil to clearly show me the scratches and areas that still needed work. It was really looking good.I touched up the bj logo on the left side of the taper stem with white acrylic nail polish. Once it cured I scraped off the excess and used a 1500 grit micromesh pad to clean it up further.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Once again, I wiped it down between each pad with Obsidian Oil. I further polished it with Before and After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. It looked very good. I am really happy with the way that rim top and edge reworking turned out on this Bjarne Hand Made Large Rusticated Billiard turned out. It really is a beautiful looking pipe with a unique shape and combining a sandblast bowl with a smooth rim and shank end. The vulcanite taper stem is really nice. The briar really came alive with the buffing. The rich brown and black stains of the finish gave the pipe a sense of depth with the polishing and waxing. I carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Bjarne Rusticated War Club Billiard really is a beauty and feels great in the hand and looks very good. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 7 inches, Height: 2 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 inches, Chamber diameter: 1 inch. The weight of the pipe is 102 grams/3.63 ounces. The pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store in the Danish Pipe Makers Section if you would like to add it to your collection. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. It was a fun one to work on!

Restoring a Weary, Worn Bjarne Hand Made in Denmark Sandblast Brandy

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by Steve Laug

This well-proportioned, well used and worn sandblast briar pipe was purchased on 05/21/2021 from an antique shop in Astoria, Oregon, USA. It was obviously the previous pipeman’s favourite. It is stamped on the underside of the shank and clearly reads Bjarne [over] Hand Made [over] In Denmark. The bowl had a thick cake on the walls and a heavy overflow of lava onto the rim top and edges. The top of the bowl seems to be smooth matching the shank end and smooth band for the stamping. It is hard to know for sure because of the thick lava but it seems highly likely. The rim edge appears to be possibly worn and slightly out of round. The sandblast finish is dirty with debris and oils. The vulcanite taper stem has a faint Bj stamped on the left side of the taper. It looks like it had a Softee Bit on the stem and it was oxidized, calcified and has light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. It was a beautiful sandblast pipe even through the grime in the finish. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started cleaning it up. Have a look. Jeff took close up photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of the bowl and the rim top. You can also see the lava on the rim top, inner edge and the cake in the bowl. It appears that there is some burn damage and the bowl is out of round. He also took close up photos of the stem to show its condition as mentioned above. He also took photos of the tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem. He took photos of the bowl sides and heel to show the sandblast grain around the bowl. The blast has some deep grooves around the bowl and shank. He took photos of the stamping. It is faint but still readable as noted above. The stamp on the looks better than it is. The stamping is almost smooth so I doubt it will survive the clean up.
I have had many Bjarne pipes cross my work table over the years but all had been stamped only Bjarne or Bjarne Handmade. None of them had his full name stamped on it and none had a letter stamp which I assumed indicated the grade of the pipe. I did some research on Pipedia.com and found some helpful information on both the stamping of my pipe and the history of Bjarne Nielsen himself. I am including the link to the full article on Pipedia and also some pertinent sections of the article that I have edited for quick reference. https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne

From the early 1990s Bjarne had seven pipemakers employed and the pipes were sold in no fewer than 32 countries. For more than six months each year, Bjarne traveled around the world to promote his pipes by meeting with dealers and customers. But sadly, it all ended in February 2008 when Bjarne, then 66 years old suffered a fatal heart attack. An unexpected blow first of all to his family, but also to the pipemakers who had been working for him, and to all lovers of his pipes from around the world. And as no one was willing to take over, the Bjarne pipe died together with its creator.

Among the pipemakers that worked for Bjarne were Johs (for the lower priced high volume pieces), and makers like Ph. Vigen, Ole Bandholm and Tonni Nielsen for high grade pieces. The cheaper line was stamped “Bjarne” while the highest grades were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” (never with the pipemakers’ name) and graded, from highest to lowest, by the letters: AX, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J.

Now I knew that the pipe I had was made before 2008 and was one of his cheaper line stamped Bjarne.

Armed with the information above, I turned my attention to the pipe itself. Jeff had cleaned the pipe with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners, shank brushes and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the rim top. The finish looks very good with good looking grain around the bowl and shank. Jeff soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. When the pipe arrived here in Vancouver for the second stop of its restoration tour it looked very good. I took photos before I started my part of the work. I took close up photos of the bowl, rim top and stem to show how clean the pipe was. The bowl was clean and the rim top and the inner edge were worn and slightly out of round. It does indeed appear to be a smooth rim top. The stem was clean and showed light tooth marks and chatter.I took a phots of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is faint but readable and read as noted above. I also removed the stem from the shank and took photos of the pipe to show the look of the parts.The rim top and inner edge of the bowl was in rough condition. There were spots that seemed like the rim top was smooth matching the shank end and other spots looked rough and made me wonder if it had not been sandblast. Because of the condition I went with the smooth top as I have worked on several like that. I used a wooded sphere and half sphere to work over the inner edge of the bowl and give it a slight bevel to try and bring the bowl back to round. By the end the inner edge looked much better and also reveal that outside of the bowl was also not made round. Ah well, I work with what I have and it is definite improvement. I sanded the rim top with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the top down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad and by the end the rim top had a shine and definitely looked better.I polished the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each pad with the cloth. The bowl continued to develop a deeper shine. I restained the rim top with a Cherry stain pen to match the shank end and panel on the underside of the shank. It matched very well.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the briar with my finger tips and a shoe brush to get into the nooks and crannies. I let it sit on the bowl for 10 minutes and then buffed it off with a paper towel and soft cloth. 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 restore. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a lighter to lift the tooth marks and had mixed success. Many lifted and the remaining ones I filled with some rubberized black CA glue. Once the repairs cured I used a flat file to blend them into the surface and followed that with some 220 grit sandpaper. It looked better. Polishing would finish the work. I continued the sanding process with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. After each pad I wiped the stem down with some Obsidian Oil to clearly show me the scratches and areas that still needed work. It was really looking good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Once again, I wiped it down between each pad with Obsidian Oil. I further polished it with Before and After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. It looked very good. I am really happy with the way that this Bjarne Hand Made Sandblast Brandy turned out. It really is a beautiful looking pipe with a unique shape and combining a sandblast bowl with a smooth rim and shank end. The vulcanite taper stem is really nice. The briar really came alive with the buffing. The rich brown and black stains of the finish gave the pipe a sense of depth with the polishing and waxing. I carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Bjarne Brandy Sandblast really is a beauty and feels great in the hand and looks very good. 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 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 36 grams/1.27 ounces. The pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store in the Danish Pipe Makers Section if you would like to add it to your collection. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. It was a fun one to work on!

Restoring a Beautiful Panel Bjarne

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by Steve Laug

The next pipe I chose to work on was one that we purchased on 10/20/2022 from and Antique Store in Vancouver, Washington, USA. This one is stamped Bjarne [over] Handmade [over] In Denmark. I have worked on quite a few Bjarne pipes over the years and found them to be well made pipes following the grain on the smooth and unique sandblast on the others. So, when I saw this one I was excited to work on it. The pipe is kind of a shape I would call a combination of a Freehand and a Panel Brandy. The briar bowl and shank were smooth and well grained. The rim top had a plateau finish. The exterior of the pipe is dirty from use with oils and grime on the bowl sides. It has a thick cake in the bowl and an overflow of lava on the plateau rim top and inner edge of the bowl. The stem is a oval taper stem that is comfortable. It is oxidized but free of tooth marks and chatter on the surface. Jeff took photos of the rim top and stem to show the general condition of the pipe. The bowl is thickly caked and seems to have a thick dottle in the bottom of the bowl. There was some thick lava on the rim top and inner edge. I am hoping that once the lava is removed the edge will be okay. The stem looked surprisingly good under the dirt and grime. There was oxidation, calcification on the surface of the vulcanite. It looked like it had a rubber Softee Bit on the stem. There did not appear to be any tooth marks or chatter. It should cleanup very well.Jeff took photos of the bowl sides and heel to show the beautiful grain that was around this bowl event though it was lost in the grime the finish. The pipe had obviously been well loved and enjoyed by the previous pipeman. He took a photo of the underside of the shank to show the stamping. The stamping is clear and readable in the photos below as noted above. The stem had a faint Bjarne logo on the topside. In a previous blog I had researched the brand quite a bit. I have included it in full below for information on this pipe (https://rebornpipes.com/2020/03/07/another-pipe-from-the-eastern-canada-lot-a-hand-carved-bjarne-freehand/). I quote:

I turned my favourite go to sites on background of brands. The first is Pipephil’s site (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-b5.html). There I looked up the Bjarne brand. I have copied the pertinent information below.

Bjarne Nielsen (1941 – † 2008) distributed his own “Bjarne” brand and pipes carved by Danish pipemakers (Mogens Johansen, Tonni Nielsen or Ph. Vigen). High grade pipes were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” without any logo on the mouthpiece and graded A, B, C and D. Bjarne second brand: Viking.

I have included a screen capture of the section on the brand below.I turned to Pipedia and looked up the brand for a bit more information on the pipes that were stamped like the one that I am working on (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne). Toward the end of the article I found what I was looking for. I quote:

Among the pipemakers that worked for Bjarne were Johs (for the lower priced high volume pieces), and makers like Ph. Vigen, Ole Bandholm and Tonni Nielsen for high grade pieces. The cheaper line was stamped “Bjarne” while the highest grades were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” (never with the pipemakers’ name) and graded, from highest to lowest, by the letters: AX, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J.

Now I knew that I was dealing with the cheaper line of pipe made by the company. It was stamped Bjarne while the higher grade pipes were stamped Bjarne Nielsen with a grade stamp.

Jeff did a great job cleaning off the debris and grime on this old. He reamed it with a PipNet reamer and smoothed the walls of the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim and shank with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to the oils and tars on the bowl, rim and shank. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. Once the grime was removed the finish underneath was in stellar condition. The rich patina of the older briar was a variegated finish of smooth and sandblast looked great. He scrubbed the exterior of the stem with Soft Scrub then soaked it in a bath of Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer. He rinsed off the deoxidizer with warm water and wiped the bowl and stem down with a light coat of olive oil to rehydrate both. The pipe really was quite stunning. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it. I took a close up photo of the rim top and edges to show how well it had cleaned up and the edges around the bowl. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the light tooth chatter on the surface ahead of the button on both sides.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is faint but readable as noted above. I removed the stem and took a photo of the faint stamping on the top of the stem – BJ. There is not enough depth in the stamp to recolour it.I started my work on the pipe by going over the rim top with a wire brush to remove the remnants of debris and lava on the plateau of the rim top. I sanded the bowl with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove the scratches and marks on the sides of the bowl and heel. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad to remove the sanding debris. It began to really take on a shine.I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. The grain really began to sing. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I used a shoe brush to work the balm into the plateau on the rim top. I let the balm sit for 15 minutes and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded out the tooth marks and dents in the vulcanite with 220 grit sandpaper until it was smooth.  I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove the remnants of oxidation and the sanding marks in the vulcanite. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it another coat of Obsidian Oil. I am really happy with the way that this Bjarne Hand Made Freehand Brandy Panel turned out. It really is a beautiful looking pipe with a unique shape and smooth and plateau finishes. The vulcanite oval taper stem is really nice. The briar really came alive with the buffing. The rich brown and black stains of the finish gave the pipe a sense of depth with the polishing and waxing. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Bjarne Brandy Panel Freehand really is a beauty and feels great in the hand and looks very good. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 50 grams/1.66 ounces. The pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store in the Danish Pipe Makers Section if you would like to add it to your collection. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. It was a fun one to work on!

Breathing Life into a Tired Looking Bjarne Hand Carved Freehand

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Blog by Steve Laug

This particular Freehand pipe is another one that came in a lot that Jeff and I purchased on early in 2020 from a woman in Australia who had contacted us about selling her late husband’s collection. He had some beautiful pipes in his estate and this was another of them. It is stamped on the underside of the shank and reads Bjarne [over] Hand Carved [over] In Denmark. It is a smooth finish pipe with some interesting carved feathers (leaves) on the right side of the shank and the bowl. The rim top and shank end are finished in rugged plateau. The pipe had a thick cake in the bowl and there was a thick coat of lava on the smooth bevel of the rim and into the plateau. The rest of the plateau on the rim top and shank end was clogged with dust and debris in the valleys and crevices. The original orange variegated acrylic saddle stem had the Bjarne Bj logo on the top of the blade. It was dirty inside and out and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The pipe was dirty but still had a unique beauty. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his work on it. Jeff took photos of the rim top and the stem to show the condition of the pipe when we received it. You can see the cake in the bowl and the build up of lava and debris in the plateau of the rim top and shank end. I really is a dirty pipe. The variegated orange acrylic stem and has chatter and a few deep tooth marks on both sides near the button. He took photos of the sides of the bowl and the heel to give an idea of the shape and the condition of the briar around the bowl. It really is a nicely shaped pipe that has a great finish under the grime on the briar. The next photos Jeff took show the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. He also took a photo to show the stem logo. In a previous blog I had researched the brand quite a bit. I have included it in full below for information on this pipe (https://rebornpipes.com/2020/03/07/another-pipe-from-the-eastern-canada-lot-a-hand-carved-bjarne-freehand/). I quote:

I turned my favourite go to sites on background of brands. The first is Pipephil’s site (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-b5.html). There I looked up the Bjarne brand. I have copied the pertinent information below.

Bjarne Nielsen (1941 – † 2008) distributed his own “Bjarne” brand and pipes carved by Danish pipemakers (Mogens Johansen, Tonni Nielsen or Ph. Vigen). High grade pipes were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” without any logo on the mouthpiece and graded A, B, C and D. Bjarne second brand: Viking.

I have included a screen capture of the section on the brand below.I turned to Pipedia and looked up the brand for a bit more information on the pipes that were stamped like the one that I am working on (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne). Toward the end of the article I found what I was looking for. I quote:

Among the pipemakers that worked for Bjarne were Johs (for the lower priced high volume pieces), and makers like Ph. Vigen, Ole Bandholm and Tonni Nielsen for high grade pieces. The cheaper line was stamped “Bjarne” while the highest grades were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” (never with the pipemakers’ name) and graded, from highest to lowest, by the letters: AX, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J.

Now I knew that I was dealing with the cheaper line of pipe made by the company. It was stamped Bjarne while the higher grade pipes were stamped Bjarne Nielsen with a grade stamp.

Jeff did a great job cleaning off the debris and grime on this old. He reamed it with a PipNet reamer and smoothed the walls of the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim and shank with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to the oils and tars on the bowl, rim and shank. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. Once the grime was removed the finish underneath was in stellar condition. The rich patina of the older briar was a variegated finish of smooth and sandblast looked great. He scrubbed the exterior of the stem with Soft Scrub then soaked it in a bath of Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer. He rinsed off the deoxidizer with warm water and wiped the bowl and stem down with a light coat of olive oil to rehydrate both. The pipe really was quite stunning. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it. I took close up photos of the stem and the rim top to show both how clean they were. The rim top and bowl were in good condition with some darkening on the inner bevel of the bowl edge and rim top. The stem looked better but the deep tooth marks and chatter were still present. I would need to remove those to bring the stem back.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. You can see from the photo that it is readable. It is clearer on the top half of the stamp than the lower but it is still readable.I removed the stem from the bowl and took a photo of the parts to give a sense of the beauty of the pipe. I started my work on this pipe by addressing the darkening on the rim top and bowl edge. I sanded the edge bevel with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the edge and to reduce the darkening. It looked better when I  had finished.I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cotton cloth. The briar took on a shine by the last pads.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my finger tips and a horse hair shoe brush to get into the crevices of the plateau rim top and shank end. The product is incredible and the way it brings the grain to the fore is unique. It works to clean, protect and invigorate the wood. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I filled in the deep tooth marks on the surface of both sides with clear CA glue. Once it cured, I sanded them smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the briar. I started the polishing of the stem with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it 1500-12000 pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each pad to protect it and preserve it. I polished it with Before After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I am really happy with the way that this Bjarne Hand Carved Freehand turned out. It really is a beautiful looking pipe with a unique shape and smooth, plateau and carved finishes. The fancy original acrylic saddle stem is really nice. The briar really came alive with the buffing. The rich brown and black stains of the finish gave the pipe a sense of depth with the polishing and waxing. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Bjarne Freehand really is a beauty and feels great in the hand and looks very good. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 7 inches, Height: 2 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 ½ inches long x 2 inches wide, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 88 grams/3.10 oz. The pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store soon. It will be in the section on Danish Pipe Makers if you would like to add it to your collection. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. It was a fun one to work on!

Another Pipe from the Eastern Canada Lot – A Hand Carved Bjarne Freehand

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Blog by Steve Laug

I decided to work on another pipe from the fellow in Kitchener, Ontario who sent me some pipes he needed cleaned up. He had been referred to me by my local pipe and cigar shop. While I am not currently adding more pipes to my queue of repairs I have made a commitment to the shop to work on pipes for their customers. Generally they have one or two pipes that need a bit of work. This fellow sent me the following email:

I just came across my smoking pipes that I’ve had in storage for about 40 years. I’m wondering what you’d charge to have them refurbished. There are 17 in total (11 are Brighams and 6 are various).

It turns out he said he had 17 pipes. That was certainly more than I expected but I communicated that there was a large queue ahead of him and I would have to fit them in as I could. He was fine with whatever time it took. He sent me the following photos of his collection that he wanted restored. The first photo shows his eleven Brigham pipes – all very interesting shapes. The second photo shows the six various pipes in the collection – A Republic Era Peterson’s System 1312 (Canadian Import), A Bjarne Hand Carved Freehand, a Comoy’s Everyman London smooth billiard, a GBD Popular Dublin 12, an English made Kaywoodie Rustica 72B, a Kriswill Bernadotte 60 with a broken tenon. When the box arrived there were two additional pipes included for a total of 19 – a Ropp 803 Deluxe Cherrywood Poker and a Comoy’s Sandblast Everyman Canadian 296. It was a lot of pipes! I have been randomly choosing the next pipe to work on and chose the Bjarne Hand Carved Freehand that is shown in the second photo below. I have drawn a red box around the Bjarne in the second photo. I have also put and X through all of the pipes that I have finished. The Bjarne came in a royal blue satin pipe bag with gold letters reading bjarne pipes, the exclusive ones handmade in denmark. The pipe it was a smooth finish freehand with plateau on the rim top and shank end. It was stamped on the underside of the shank and read Bjarne over Hand-Carved over Made in Denmark. The finish was dull and dirty looking but had some amazing grain under the grime. The plateau rim top had a thick coat of lava filling in the plateau around the bowl. There was also some darkening on the top and the inner edge. The bowl had a thick cake in it that was rock hard. The fancy turned stem was oxidized and had tooth marks and chatter near the button on both sides. There was also some calcification for about an inch up the stem.     I took close up photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of the bowl and thick lava on the top and the beveled rim edge as well. You can also see the cake in the bowl. It is hard and quite thick. I also took close up photos of the stem to show its condition as mentioned above.     I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank to show what I was speaking about above. It is very readable. It reads BJARNE Hand-Carved Made in Denmark. There is some nice grain around the bowl and shank.   I turned my favourite go to sites on background of brands. The first is Pipephil’s site (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-b5.html). There I looked up the Bjarne brand. I have copied the pertinent information below.

Bjarne Nielsen (1941 – † 2008) distributed his own “Bjarne” brand and pipes carved by Danish pipemakers (Mogens Johansen, Tonni Nielsen or Ph. Vigen). High grade pipes were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” without any logo on the mouthpiece and graded A, B, C and D. Bjarne second brand: Viking.

I have included a screen capture of the section on the brand below.I turned to Pipedia and looked up the brand for a bit more information on the pipes that were stamped like the one that I am working on (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne). Toward the end of the article I found what I was looking for. I quote:

Among the pipemakers that worked for Bjarne were Johs (for the lower priced high volume pieces), and makers like Ph. Vigen, Ole Bandholm and Tonni Nielsen for high grade pieces. The cheaper line was stamped “Bjarne” while the highest grades were stamped “Bjarne Nielsen” (never with the pipemakers’ name) and graded, from highest to lowest, by the letters: AX, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J.

Now I knew that I was dealing with the cheaper line of pipe made by the company. It was stamped Bjarne while the higher grade pipes were stamped Bjarne Nielsen with a grade stamp. Now that I had the background information on the brand I went to work on the pipe.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer using the second and third cutting head to take the cake back to bare briar so I could inspect the walls. I cleaned up the remnants with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I sanded the bowl walls with 220 grit sandpaper on a piece of dowel to smooth them out and further examine them. I was happy that the walls looked very good.  I also scraped off the lava on the rim top and edges with the Fitsall Knife and a brass bristle wire brush to begin to break down the hard coat in the plateau.    I scrubbed the surface of the bowl and the plateau areas on the shank end and rim top with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit from the briar.   I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the darkened areas on the rim top and inner edge of the rim. I was able to remove the darkening and the remaining lava. I also sanded the high spots on the plateau to clean those up. I finished by using the brass bristle brush on the rim top and shank end.   I polished rim top and sides of the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad to remove the dust and debris from the sanding. The bowl was looking very good after the final polishing pad.   I interrupted the polishing to stain the plateau on the rim top and the shank end with a Maple stain pen before I polished the bowl with the last set of three pads – 6000, 8000, 12000. The pipe is looking very good at this point in the process. I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips and a horse hair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I rubbed the stem down with Soft Scrub on with a cotton pad and it removed the oxidation and the calcification build up. It looked a lot better. Once the surface was cleaned off I found the Bj stamp on the top of the flat blade. Up until that point I was wondering if the stem was a replacement.  It was at this point that I remembered that I had not cleaned out the mortise and airway in the shank and stem. I paused and cleaned them with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I am glad I remembered now because it was very dirty – as I would have guessed by the condition of the rim top.  Now that I had cleaned the pipe internally I went back to working on the stem. I sanded out the remaining tooth chatter and oxidation with 220 grit sandpaper and started the polishing with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper.        I rubbed down the stem with Denicare Mouthpiece Polish, a red gritty paste and a cotton pad to remove the remnants of oxidation and to blend in the sanding. The stem is starting to show promise at this point in the process.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with a cotton pad to remove the sanding debris.  I finished polishing the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both fine and extra fine. I finished by wiping it down with Briarville’s No Oxy Oil and buffing it to a shine.   I finally feel like I am making progress on this 19 pipe lot from Eastern Canada. With the completion of this one I have finished 13 of the pipes. I put Bjarne Hand-Carved Freehand back together and buffed it with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I hand buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. It is fun to see what the polished bowl looks like with the grain on both sides and the plateau on the rim top and shank end looked amazing. Added to that the polished black vulcanite stem was beautiful. This nicely grained Bjarne Freehand is nice looking and feels great in my hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 ½ inches, Height: 2 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. Once again I am looking forward to what the pipeman who sent it thinks of this restoration. Only 6 more of these pipes to do in this lot! Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog. Remember we are not pipe owners; we are pipemen and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on the trust to the next pipeman or woman.

Refurbishing a Bjarne Hand Made Nosewarmer

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Blog by Steve Laug

In the past weeks I finished up some pipes for a guy here in Vancouver and when he came to pick them up he brought some more for me to work on for him. I finished up some of the ones on the worktable so I decided it was time to work on these. The third of them is a Bjarne bent apple nosewarmer with a short stem. It is another really beautiful pipe. The shape, the rich reddish brown finish along with the black acrylic stem with the bj logo all combine to make this a uniquely beautiful pipe.   The bowl had a thin and uneven cake. The upper half of the bowl was more thickly caked than the bottom half. I would need to ream it to even out the cake. There was some slight darkening on the rim top as well as dents and nicks in the top of the rim. The inside of the shank was dirty and needed to be cleaned. The black Lucite stem had tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside of the stem near the button. There was one deep tooth mark on the top edge of the button. The short saddle stem looked good otherwise. I took photos of the bowl and stem to give a clear picture of the condition of the pipe before I started to work on it.I did a quick review of the history of the brand by turning to Pipedia. Here is the link https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne. I quote from part of that article to give a short synopsis of the history of the brand.

With a demanding job it was hard to find time to make pipes in that quantity, and Bjarne had to choose. His dream had always been to have a company of his own, and if he wanted fo fulfill that dream, now was the time to do it. But to leave a promising career, in which he probably would have become a Danish ambassador in some foreign country, was indeed a big step to take. “Many thought I was crazy”, Bjarne says, “and one of them was my wife. But she supported my decision anyway.”

He made that decision in 1973, and became a fulltime pipemaker. But he soon realized that it was impossible for one person to handle all of it–he could not make a lot of pipes, sell them and collect money for them all by himself. So he decided to find some pipemakers to help him. In those days Preben Holm was one of the biggest makers of fancy pipes, and he employed a great number of pipemakers. But not all of them were happy to work for Preben,m so Bjarne recruited a few of those.

During the first years all of Bjarne’s pipes were sold in the USA, but at the end of the 1970s he visited the pipe show in Frandfurt and found that there was a market for his there as well. However, he found that the Germans wanted a completely different style of pipes–pipes in traditional shapes. So if he wanted to be successful there, he had to add a completely new line to his production. “It was not easy, we learned it the hard way,” Bjarne says. But they certainly succeeded, and for a number of years Germany became the top-selling market for Bjarne’s pipes.

The photo below shows pictures of Bjarne Nielsen. The photo is from the Pipedia article and comes from Doug Valitchka as noted below the photo.I then turned to the Pipephil website – http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-b5.html  and did a screen capture of the article there on Bjarne pipes. Bjarne Nielsen distributed his own brand of pipes carved by Danish Pipemakers. It is stamped on the underside of the shank with Bjarne over Hand Made in Denmark. There are no other stampings or numbers on the shank. The pipe was obviously made prior to 2008 when Nielsen died.I started my clean up on this pipe by reaming out the bowl and smoothing out the cake on the walls. I reamed it back with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I sanded it smooth and even with a dowel wrapped in 220 grit sandpaper. Once that was finished the walls were smooth and undamaged and the surface ready for a new cake.I worked over the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I removed the most of the damage to the rim top with the micromesh sanding pads. I removed the area on the rear that had been darkened. I polished the exterior of the bowl with the pads at the same time. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. I touched up the cleaned up rim top with a Maple stain pen to match the colour of the rest of the bowl. The match was perfect and once the bowl was waxed and polished would be indistinguishable from the rest.I rubbed down the briar with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the finish with my fingertips and finished working it in with a shoe brush. I worked over the rim top to blend it into the rest of the stain. The balm works to clean, preserve and enliven the briar. I really like the effect of the product on briar so I took some photos of the pipe at this point. I cleaned out the airway in the stem and shank, the mortise and shank interior with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. It did not take as much as I expected to remove all the tars and oils in the shank and mortise. The stem had some debris in the edges of the slot in the stem.I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem. I sanded the tooth marks and chatter out of the stem surface with some folded 220 grit sandpaper. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratches in the acrylic. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine polishes. I wiped it down with a cotton pad and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I set the stem aside to dry. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I carefully avoided the stamping on the underside of the shank. I gave both the smooth bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I have five more pipes to finish for him – one move from his personal rotation and four of them that are some finds he made while pipe hunting. This is a fun bunch of pipes to work on. I look forward to moving through the rest of them. Thanks for looking.  

An Exceptional Bjarne Hand Made Freehand

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Blog by Robert M. Boughton

Copyright © Reborn Pipes and the Author except as cited

He could have been an ambassador for his country, but instead he became an ambassador for Danish pipes.

— Jan Anderson, author of Scandinavian Pipemakers (2012)

INTRODUCTION

Jan Anderson was speaking of Bjarne Nielsen, the great Danish pipe maker, who finished his studies at the University of Copenhagen with an MBA in the early 1960s and went to work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the export division.  Nielsen made his first pipes when he was 16 and gave them to friends then and later at the university, and of course he continued making pipes as a hobby.  Whether he knew it or not, he was bitten by the bug.  Call it Pipe Makers Disorder (PMD), if you like.  Bjarne was considered a likely candidate for appointment as ambassador to a foreign country, but he gave it all up to pursue his real ambition, which will come as no surprise to anyone with creative leanings was to form his own business.

Bjarne may never even have imagined turning his pastime into a career, but fate, if there is such a thing, is powerful.  The freehand pipe movement was first building speed when Bjarne was at the Ministry, and he was often asked to help find foreign buyers for the style of pipe that was more popular abroad than in Denmark, where it started.  Many older smokers, deeply rooted in the English tradition of the classic Dunhill style, considered the new direction outlandish, crazy and worst of all, ugly.  And every source Bjarne knew had orders for such pipes up the wazoo.  I’m sure he used more diplomatic words.

Then, out of the blue, again if there is such a phenomenon, Bjarne had the idea to send photos of some of his pipes to a few of those same foreign distributors.  I’m sure he put it out of his mind and wasn’t watching the pot until it started to boil over with so many positive responses he had to decide whether to stay with the Ministry or pursue his innate talent.  Not being the average man, fearful of taking such a huge risk – or, rather, being the typical young man he was, still full of dreams – Bjarne embarked on the journey that would make him a legend, meaning most of the world has never heard of him.

The hand-made Danish freehand in this blog has three lines of clear block nomenclature on the bottom of the shank, below the stem: BJARNE/HANDMADE/ IN DENMARK.  The stem also bears a mark – a lower-case b sitting in the curl of a lower-case j.

Courtesy Pipephil

This means Bjarne did not make the pipe himself, but instead delegated the job to one of three master carvers who were and are in business for themselves and did special work for him.  They are Mogens “Johs” Johansen, Jes Phillip Vigen Jertsen (Ph. Vigen) and Tonni Nielsen.  These pipes were sold by Bjarne as lower-grade pieces than those he carved and on which he ascribed his full name, in cursive script, above HANDMADE/IN DENMARK.  The pipes Bjarne carved himself also bore a grade of AX or A-J.  The man’s self-appraising standards were refined to the extreme.  They bear no mark on the stems.

Bjarne Nielsen Bulldog Grade O, photos, courtesy abel2antique on eBay

I didn’t mind that my new Bjarne, whichever of the fine craftsmen above made it, came with a box and sock as well.

RESTORATION Three long years ago, before I learned lessons beyond count and, more than anything else, that the process never ends, I wrote a blog here called “Ben Wade and the Chamber of Horrors,” in which I recounted the restoration of a huge BW poker with cake so gnarly it took me hours to repair.  As I can think of no better words to describe the terrors of uncovering layer after layer of hardened old carbon, only to reach a patch of almost perfect smoothness and then reaching spiraling new veins and lumps, I’ll give a brief quote from the BW blog.

“The ongoing task of removing all of the cake, every time I thought I achieved smoothness all around, only uncovered still more hidden holes, like microcosmic pits and craters on the moon, only black…the evil chamber walls in spots felt like the bowels of a volcano.”

But this pipe was so much worse, it took me days of concerted effort to get to the bottom of the years of iron-like cake.  I am certain that had this pipe come my way three years ago, I would have been forced to set it aside in the to-do pile.

I started with my Junior Reamer, which, due perhaps to the curve of the freehand chamber, made almost not even a dent. The coarsest sandpaper I had was a small old finger-length strip of 180-grit that has stood by me for years and is most often the roughest I need to get with a chamber’s walls.  A half-hour or so of that left my hand aching, my fingers burning and one of them torn open, as was the case to a much more serious degree with the BW chamber of horrors.  I put the chamber ordeal on pause and decided to see how awful the shank’s airway might be.  I admit my attitude sucked by then, but also that I was pleased with the relative ease of clearing the shank of grime with alcohol-dipped regular pipe cleaners.  The first one took some finagling to break on through to the other side, but only four cleaners were needed for the preliminary cleaning. I girded for another go at the chamber with the following armaments.I hoped I would not have to resort to either (and certainly not both) blades, but I was going to be prepared for anything.  As it turned out, the Dremel I used in the BW chamber of horrors case would have come in handy, but I had to borrow it and didn’t want to take the time.  The task was longer and more arduous than I can detail in photos, but here are some time lapses – during the first day.  I hope they show the bulges and veins that appeared hither and thither with each new attack.  Indeed, both the pen and utility knives were needed throughout the three-day process of perfecting the chamber. Another problem I’m sure has not gone unnoticed was the rim burn that was fairly bad, but on the plateau area of a freehand presented greater than average problems.  I did not want to use sand paper or even spot-soak the rim in alcohol, if black stain was under the char.  After debating the options available to me with my resources at hand, I opted for an approach that may seem unusual but I knew from experience would leave any black paint intact.  I submerged the entire stummel in alcohol for several minutes at most, and when I removed it I thought I had the desired result of eliminating the old stain and excess char. Scrutiny of the outer wood showed a perfect piece of briar, free of any blemishes or even a single scratch.  The only other such experience I recall after alcohol-stripping a stummel was with my previous blog about a Capitello Jonico Dublin.  I tried to tell myself the remaining blackness on the rim was natural or maybe left-over stain.

Other than the final sanding, which tore through the final layer of uneven cake, the time for micro-meshing had arrived.  Giving the stummel a final inspection, I overrode my misgivings about the dull murkiness that pervaded most of the rim, with random rays of nice red wood making it through the gloom. I remembered a Ben Wade by Preben Holm I restored and had to re-stain the rim black, and I’ve never quite been happy with it.  The whole approach to this project was to restore the freehand to a better look than it may ever have had, if I may be excused the apparent impertinence.  Still, I proceeded with the micro-mesh, which only confirmed my gut instinct. Before I return to the rim, there are a few minor wrap-ups to make.  First, look at the discoloration of the wood at the top of the front view above.  I figured Super Fine 0000 steel wool should do the trick, and it did.Then there were the stains on the tip of the Lucite tenon and inside the button of the stem.  I scraped out the difficult to reach crud from the button with a mashed end of a pipe cleaner dipped in alcohol and sanded clean the open end of the tenon with my trusty 180-grit fragment of paper.The retort went well, requiring only three Pyrex test tubes of alcohol – the first that was sucked up into the cotton stuffed in the chamber, the second coming out moderately dirty, and the third, after boiling through the pipe four times, was clear.The last step I imagined before the final wheel buffing – there would be no stain – was to fill in the congruent bj etching on the stem that had not been worn away.Unfortunately, the curl of the b is completely faded away.

I just could not see proceeding with either of the courses that presented themselves, leaving the dull, scorched earth look of the rim as it was and trying to make it shine or buying more black stain and hiding the beautiful wood I was sure was hidden.  And so, I gave the rim a spot-soak in alcohol to see what lay beneath.The result was a very pale rim, but I knew that would change with another, focused full course of the micro-mesh pads.  The semi-final result as I headed for the buffers was just what I wanted.  I buffed the stummel with brown Tripoli and a heavy coat of Carnauba, and the stem with Carnauba.

CONCLUSION

This restore was one of the biggest surprises I’ve had in the few years I’ve been learning a few of the myriad techniques and resources available.  Thinking at first it would be done overnight, three days later I knew never to underestimate the opponent each new pipe presents as.  I struggled with the question of to sell or not to sell, and gave in to my P.A.D.  All I have to say is, I’m glad I did, because, as the title says, this is one extraordinary freehand.

SOURCES

https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne
http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-b5.html

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

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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.