Tag Archives: Bowl – finishing

A Sad Lesson from a Botched GBD Repair (by Someone Else) I Tried to Mend

Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, International Society of Codgers
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipesnm.biz
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
― Thomas Bertram “Bert” Lance (1931-2013), U.S. bank teller to president and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter, in the May 1977 issue of “Nation’s Business” magazine

INTRODUCTION
This is a sad tale for all involved: the eBay seller from whom I purchased the GBD straight apple sitter this blog concerns, for $39.99 in April of last year, which the good lady in England refunded five days later; me, as the buyer who requested the refund after receiving the pipe and finding that the photos posted by the seller did not reveal the hidden nomenclature from a previous silver banding to fix an apparent crack in the shank, and at last, in a very real way, the person or persons unknown responsible for the banding itself that, nine months later, I have only just discovered was unnecessary. At least the last of the concerned parties is/are blithely unaware.

That’s right, you read correctly. Although I was justified in asking for the refund, and intended to pay the high postage required to return it to the seller beforehand, she responded, to my gentle but detailed account of the reasoning, with a message that can only be described as hysterical from an obvious sense of unjustified guilt for having “falsely advertised” the GBD. I never used that phrase in my request.

As I recall – though I can’t locate the exchange of emails between the Englishwoman and me that followed my awaiting the arrival of the GBD, with great expectations that were dashed by its clear flaws upon receipt – she wrote back that I should not bother returning it at all, but instead that she would promptly refund my money and I should “keep it, sell it for whatever you can, or throw it away, I don’t care.”

At that point, I was filled with remorse over the anguish in the tone and content of her message that literally rang in my ears, even without an exclamation point. I nevertheless attempted, in a final, unanswered message, to express my intent merely to let her know, in order to sell this pipe or any other (they are not her specialty), that she only needed to add a brief note of the band work and its effect on the nomenclature, as these are important details to collectors and sellers, and perhaps lower her asking price.

After showing the pipe to Chuck Richards, my good friend and mentor, before the emails described above and allowing him to discover on his own the same flaws I detected, he concluded that if I paid more than $10 for it, I should immediately ask for a refund, as I had bought it for my own estate pipe business with the prospect of a quick clean-up for resale. When I told Chuck the actual amount I had shelled out, he was speechless for a moment before all but insisting I seek the refund.

I have been unable to get the shame-riddled emailed words of the kind seller, who as far as I’m concerned made an honest mistake and acted, throughout the transaction, in absolute good faith, out of my mind ever since. I have entertained various options concerning the ultimate disposition of the pipe’s rightful ownership. Of course, I could (A) keep the still beautiful pipe and restore it as best I could to put in my own collection or sell with appropriate disclaimers; (B) clean it up and return it, like a good gentleman, to the grief-stricken lady, with the emphatic suggestion that she give it to a friend who enjoys pipes and would likely treasure this one, if she still didn’t wish to sell it on eBay with a lower price and notices, or (C) complete the work that could be done to fix the damages wrought on the hapless GBD, keep it or sell it but under no circumstances toss it in the trash as the seller advocated, and write the blog now presented as a full and sincere apology to the lady, with the intent of depositing the refunded money back into her PayPal account and forwarding her the link to the blog.

With great effort, I at last located the transaction numbers and dates of the original purchase and refund, and with them was able to obtain the lady’s name and email address.

I will save my final decision for later in this account of the restoration of the GBD Prestige straight apple sitter, which research has disclosed was made prior to the acquisition of GBD (an abbreviation of the three founders of the brand in 1850 in Paris – Ganneval, Bondier and Donninger) by Cadogan of the Oppenheimer group in the 1970s. The imprint “London England” in a straight line on the right side of the shank, almost half of which was obliterated by the band, narrowed the pipe to the pre-Cadogan era and also signified that it might have been made in France despite the nomenclature. GBD was last taken over in 1981 by Comoy’s.

The other nomenclature on the Prestige was critically faint, before I started work on it, and included on the left shank the small letters GBD in an oval, barely visible beside the band, and the model name in cursive that took hours to decipher enough to make out the first uncovered letters, “Prest,” which led the excellent Englishwoman to suspect Presto, but I Googled and found the full correct name. On the right shank, equally as light as the left and below “on England,” were three numbers for the shape, 448, which I understood was 9448. Here is what another version of the pipe looked like. The apple of my eyes in this blog is remarkably similar, discounting the nomenclature.

RESTORATION

[Note the unusual, perfect, pale half oval indentation in the top of the shank in the sixth photo above: I have.no rational explanation for the presence of this mark other than the appearance that it is neither a natural aspect of the wood nor any type of damage, such as a crack. I believe the previous restorer attempted to use a self-made metal band, with the idea of reinforcing the top of the shank without covering any of the nomenclature. If this admittedly crazy-sounding guess is correct, the restorer likely intended to do the same on the bottom of the shank but aborted the idea altogether after failing with the top piece. Call me nuts, but this mark is not an accident.]

Already considering re-banding the apple with a shorter sterling variety, I tugged at the one used in the first place, without much hope that it might be loose, and was surprised when it flew off of the shank and onto my lap. Now that was fortunate indeed, for, upon closer inspection, I was able to see that the tiny line in the shank’s opening, which ignited some daft restorer’s passion to fix something that wasn’t broken, was a mere blemish that led nowhere and, in fact, disappeared with a few seconds of sanding. I have to add an acknowledgement of my simultaneous relief that the shank was not cracked and disgust with the previous restorer who desecrated the otherwise weathered but fine pipe by ruining so much of the invaluable nomenclature. The only remaining imprints were the indentations left from the hallmarks and sterling silver designation on the once tight band. I scoffed out loud after my brain digested this enormous error in judgment that more or less ended any real value – and prestige, so to say – this GBD might have had.

Not yet wanting to deal with the majority of the stummel’s outer area, I decided to start by removing the years of accumulated dirt and whatnot from the wood with small soft white pieces of cotton gun cleaner cloths and much of the rim char with wet micromesh pads and a light touch of superfine steel wool. I followed those tasks by clearing the small amount of excess carbon in the chamber with a 19mm reamer and 200- and 500-grit paper, swabbing with Everclear-soaked cotton cloth pieces, and a retort of the pipe.

The retort turned out to be the hardest part of these preliminary steps, as neither of the two rubber tubes that span the few inches from the boiling Everclear to the lip of the bit would fit the extra wide mouthpiece that was part of the GBD. And so, ad-libbing somewhat, I sought out another bit from my collection with a tenon that fit the GBD and a lip that matched the rubber tube. Of course, the last possible pipe I checked was a match – or closely enough. It was from a favorite Ropp. I had no trouble cleaning the metal inlaid GBD bit with a couple of alcohol-soaked bristly cleaners.

The photos above show the surprising cleanliness of the well-worn sitter, and by inference, the degree of care its fortunate owner once accorded the bijou. The later of two test tubes full of Everclear used in the retort was almost clear, with only a few small, solid pieces of flotsam at the bottom.

Here, alas, is where I erred, and will have to accept the consequences, until the day I die, for the heartbreaking lesson they provided. In hindsight, I suppose I might, at this critical stage, have sought the guidance of Chuck or Steve (my second if unofficial mentor in this ever-evolving process of learning). But, as Jesse Eisenberg’s character in “Zombieland,” Columbus (for the city in Ohio where he was born), repeated slowly as a sort of mantra: “Shoulda-coulda-woulda.” Much as Columbus had come up with rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse, so have I adopted a set of guidelines, from my own experiences and those of others, for pipe restoring.

Sometimes I ignore one of these, for the most part with success, and sometimes I have to learn the hard way, on my own. Still, as I type this, I find myself experiencing emotions I prefer to avoid. Recognizing my harshness with the previous restorer, and my own share of fault for the apple’s present condition, I nevertheless tell myself I did my best, alone, to return the splendid pipe to its potential glory. My mistake, although unintentionally made in the pursuit of correcting one more egregious that I believed necessitated my next step, is on me.

To the point, and in spite of a note in my previous blog that I try my best to avoid full stripping of a pipe’s original stain and waxes with an Everclear bath, that is what I did.

These photos show two things: the wonderful success in removing the remaining rim char and reducing the wood to its natural smoothness, and, as an unexpected result of the latter, also eliminating almost every vestige of the remaining nomenclature. Anyone who loves pipes with all of his heart, as I do, will comprehend the complete hollowness, in the pit of my stomach and consuming my mind, I experienced upon seeing with my own eyes the gaff I had committed. I sat there on my couch awhile, stunned, until I forced myself to snap out of the melancholy reverie and get on with it.

Flashing on memories of a few pipes restored by Chuck, and which I bought despite the blemishes I detected and wondered why he let them remain, I knew the full answer he omitted, in his enigmatic way, when I asked him. Some flaws, as battles, are better left unfought. Before I reached this conclusion – as my mind was still rampaging with thoughts of how I should have approached the same notion of stripping the original stain and waxes from just the bowl and chamber, or could have accomplished the goal better, or would have saved the fragile markings that could now be visible – I had to suffer the unavoidable fact of my misdeed. Shoulda-coulda-woulda.

Thus I embarked on the only course of action I had left – to re-smooth and finish cleaning the chamber with 150-, 200- and 500-grit papers followed by small cotton cloths soaked with alcohol, and returning the sheen of the wood using superfine steel wool and then 3600-12000 micromesh pads. I then re-stained the briar, first trying Lincoln Medium Brown leather dye and flaming it before buffing with 6000 and 8000 micromesh.

I saw that the clear, pale half-oval shape, from the suspected attempt by the previous restorer to use an adornment band to fix the misperceived shank crack, remained stubbornly. And so, having nothing to lose, I sanded the open end of the shank with 150-, 200-, 320- and 500-grit papers before micro-meshing and staining again. I’ll tell you straight out, this was not the end of the struggle to fix the single blemish. Of course, I buffed off the char from flaming the end of the shank with 6000 and 8000 micromesh, and reattached the bit to the shank with the band removed, to check the fit. The bit was still a match with the shank! Grateful to have something go right, I turned in that direction and went after the bit. The photos below show before, as it arrived in the mail, and after I worked on it with the tools displayed.

This blog is nothing if not a cautionary tale about the horrors of reversing someone else’s mistakes – of which mine, unfortunately, cannot be undone. I return to the battle of the pernicious, aborted oval pipe band, at the very moment I concluded that maybe a darker staining, adding Lincoln’s version of burgundy red to the medium brown I applied earlier, would help me be out, out with the foul spot. I was wrong, but here’s what it looked like after flaming the alcohol out of the stain. However, this was, at least, a step in the right direction. I concluded that, despite my deepest desire not to be forced to re-shackle the apple sitter with the excellent but unnecessary sterling band that caused this ruckus in the first place, I had no choice. I Super Glued the band firmly back onto the shank, with the hallmarks on the left side, and it did serve to obscure most of the oval shape. Before I snapped the next photos, I added another spot stain using more of the medium brown, flamed it and buffed with 8000 micromesh. That was pretty much the end of the oval spot!

At long last, I was ready for the final buffing on my electric wheels, which as always involved the clean buffer after each of the waxes. For the bit, I used the regular red and white Tripoli and White Diamond. Having let every other convention fly in the wind, the thought occurred to me to wax the stummel with the red Tripoli as well as white, followed by White Diamond and a slow double-coat of carnauba.

CONCLUSION
The foul spot still remains enough for a good eye to catch, if not the camera for once. I’m going to sum this up with the note that I sincerely hope I succeeded in creating a final result that, despite its one glaring disaster, reveals a more beautiful grain than the original darker version. And one more thing: I have decided to return the money the Englishwoman who gave me this fine GBD refunded to me last April, and then forward the link to this explanation. At this point in the whole experience with the cursed and enchanted apple sitter, I am happy to take a loss for once, and will try to sell the pipe for $25. I have no doubt the lady in England is lovely. How could she not be, given her obvious love of pipes that equals mine?

SOURCES
http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-gbd.html
http://yeoldebriars.com/gbd013.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPIuIfAywvY Zombieland Rules (AC, AL, GL, V)

UPCOMING RESTORES

Celebrating the Re-Opening of My Store with a Restoration

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“The people like to be humbugged.”
“Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed.”
“Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public.”
“The noblest art is that of making others happy”
― Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891), U.S. showman, businessman, politician, celebrated hoaxer and founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus

INTRODUCTION
P.T. Barnum was a man of contradictions, as the quotes above suggest, making him an obvious two-time Republican candidate for state legislator in the Connecticut General Assembly, both of which races (at different periods of his eventful life) were successful. Business, however, was always his first love, and by the age of 12, in Bethel, Connecticut, he earned enough money selling snacks and homemade cherry rum to buy his own livestock. By 21, he owned a general store and a newspaper called “The Herald of Freedom,” and ran a small lottery.

The Greatest Showman on Earth, who insisted his customers were willing participants in his obvious pranks and hoaxes, never said the line most attributed to him: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Hence the first quote above. Barnum’s fame began with the 1835 purchase of a blind slave named Joice Heth, whom he advertised, in one of his greatest hoaxes, as being 161 years old and the one-time nurse of George Washington. During her tour of New York City and New England, throngs of gawkers paid to hear the old woman spin tale of “dear little George.” To heighten the already wild frenzy around Heth, Barnum later spread the rumor that she was, in fact, an automaton manipulated by ventriloquists. At Heth’s autopsy in 1837 – to which Barnum sold tickets – medical examiners determined that she was probably 80 at the oldest.

Despite his purchase of a slave, to whom he no doubt gave far better treatment than her former owners, as a legislator in later years Barnum was a strong advocate of equal rights for African-Americans. And likewise, giving up all liquor, including the cherry rum that started his long run in business, Barnum became a devout supporter of the Temperance Movement and remained committed to it until he died.

Other than Heth, three of Barnum’s best-known “exhibits” were a child dwarf he called General Tom Thumb, who was even granted a royal audience by England’s Queen Victoria; the Fejee Mermaid [see “The X Files,” S2, E20, “Humbug”], or the top half of a dead monkey sewn to the lower part of a fish, and his giant, six-ton African elephant named Jumbo, which was bought under wide protest from the London Zoölogical Society and led to the adjective jumbo, or large.

There are far too many more titillating examples of Barnum’s contradictory exploits and far too little space to go into any of them here, but you get the point. At least I hope you do. In a market-driven economy, advertising, publicity and flair are everything, and they form the unabashed purpose of this blog: to celebrate the grand re-opening of my online pipe restoration and sales business with the latest addition to its stock.

The selection has diminished in size during the past few months that the webstore was down, due both to continuing sales the old-fashioned way – hand-to-hand – and a plethora of personal issues, including moving again and several pressing legal matters in which I am prevailing through appeals despite being up against real attorneys, that have until recently eaten away at the time I prefer to devote to pipe work.

As the Steve Miller Band might have sung had they been writing of my better spent daily life:

This here’s a story about Bobby Mike and his stew,
One young lover with nothin’ better to do
Than sit around the house, smoke his pipes, and watch the tube
And here is what happened when he decided to cut loose….

With no further ado, I am pleased to call out in a booming voice, though it be in written words, “La-dies and gen-tle-men, who are children of all ages, welcome to the greatest, most amazing, daring, thrilling and spectacular show on Earth! The circus known round the world as pipe restoration! And now…in the Center Ring…turn your eyes toward the wonderful and awe-inspiring silver-banded bulldog ! All the way from England, measuring an astonishing six inches in length and a 6/8” x 5-1/4” chamber diameter, and called the Atwood Hall of Fame Natural #5, of the world-renowned Comoy’s family!”

RESTORATION

Sixty-three years after it was made and, my intuition tells me, loved by a single owner, there are numerous signs of wear and tear. Still, scratches on almost every inch of the stummel and bit, not to mention a few outright dings, are the pith of the blemishes, not counting the almost inevitable loose sterling silver band. These flaws are negligible considering the venerable pipe’s age and obvious regularity of use. Even the band – which, given the thinness of the inherently fragile material itself, invites heavy tarnish, bending and total obliteration of any hallmarks or stampings – was almost pristine, and is once more, still showing showing the single word of its substance, STERLING, and by more careful examination three hallmarks – something I can’t make out following by a T and a 5. Here is the first page of the original (and apparently only) Atwood U.S. Patent, showing the same design of the Hall of Fame 1953 Brandy.

Atwood pipes came with “a permanent aluminum cup at the base of the chamber, with a bore hole.” [http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-a9.html] The cup and bore hole, after cleaning, indeed are intact.

Although, by virtue of Atwood being a Comoy’s second, I was not over-concerned with the possibility of finding fills in the wood if I were forced to strip the original polish and stain, but I nevertheless took every measure I could conceive to avoid that step. At worst, I was convinced, the reason for the oppressive stain was to hide unfortunate grain. As will be shown, this proved to be the case.

I began by removing almost all of the rim burn with concerted rubbing using 2400 and 3200 micromesh freshly cleaned by a long soak in purified water. An unsuccessful but still incomplete attempt to fix the remaining rim burn and scratching led me to an acceptance at that point of the fact that, though I might otherwise rid the rim of the remaining char, the remaining scratches, not just on the rim but everywhere else on the stummel, were sufficient to necessitate a low enough grit of sandpaper to take it down to bare wood. Having learned that sandpapering the entire wooden surface of a pipe can and often does lead to more problems, I chose the more efficient and reparable measure of an Everclear bath.

The Everclear was a complete success in revealing that there were, indeed, no fills, but even finer scratches than even my minute examination of the briar beforehand, using a jeweler’s magnifier headset, had caused me to suspect could exist. And so I tried the superfine 0000 steel wool first, which at least took off the rest of the old artificial color and some of the less pernicious scratches. But 200-grit paper was unavoidable, in careful spot sanding, to banish the rest of the marks and pocks, followed by another soft buffing with the steel wool.

The next steps seemed to be an easy crank or two of a 21mm reamer in the chamber followed by 320-grit and 500-grit paper, and a retort.

The retort required two test tubes full of Everclear, but only because of the way the first tube-full always seems to remain in the pipe’s inner bowels after a few boils. At any rate, immediately following the retort, I ran a bristly cleaner through the bit’s air hole, which came out remarkably light, and used both ends of a fluffy pipe cleaner on the inner shank to soak up the wet residue of various accretions still in the shank. I removed the cotton ball from the chamber and swabbed it thoroughly with small white cotton gun cleaning cloths. Then I finished the chamber with a final wipe using 500 paper and more thin cotton swabs soaked in Everclear. The chamber was silky smooth.

“This pipe is clean!” I said to myself, out loud in fact, thinking of the tiny lady of “Poltergeist” fame, who sought out and did her best to dispel dead but still malicious souls. At last, I turned my attention to the bit. It was in pretty good shape, but notice the bad scratch in the second photo below. Every micromesh pad I have, still damp after the soaking from which I removed them some time earlier, was employed to make the bit shine again.

The distinctive A for Atwood was perfectly ingrained and intact. I had made the rounded top of the bulldog bowl lighter than the rest of the stummel on purpose, and as the time for re-staining had come, I chose Fiebing’s Brown leather stain for the top and Lincoln Medium Brown (darker) for the rest. Applying the Fiebing’s with care to the top, I flamed it with my Bic, then did the same to the rest of the stummel with the Lincoln. After a short sit to cool off (both the wood and me), I gently buffed the whole surface with 3000 and 6000 micromesh.

The final step before buffing was re-attaching the band to the shank, mindful of placing the STERLING/SILVER stamp in small letters on the upper left side, where it had been. Oh, glorious moment! The time was nigh to retire to my office, wherein rests my electric buffers. Observing the clock on the wall, which told me it was already 2 a.m., I considered the neighbors opposite that side of the apartment and, understanding the way my building is laid out, realized they would hear nothing from their bedroom. I used the customary red and White Tripoli on the bit, with the clean buffer between each, and white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba on the stummel, again separating each with the clean buffer. For the band, I used a very fast turn on the clean buffer.

SOURCES
http://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-p-t-barnum
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/stevemillerband/takethemoneyandrun.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringmaster_(circus)

UPCOMING RESTORES

Reborn S.M. Frank Bakelite Bent Billiard

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Blog by Pam Otto

This week’s refurbing adventure comes courtesy of an eBay estate lot, for which the seller accepted my “Best Offer” bid. The transaction occurred on a Sunday and by Wednesday the pipes had arrived. This is the photo that accompanied the listing: All of the pipes appeared quite old, with orifice bits, and two of them really jumped out at me: a KB&B Blue Line that would need to be restemmed, but otherwise appeared to be in decent shape, and a C.P.F. Chesterfield that looked to be, and indeed is, positively enormous.

The other two pipes were older S.M. Franks. One is stamped Genuine Amber on the shank but as the stem on it is quite dark I’m going to guess it’s a replacement. The second one is stamped Frank Bakelite on the shank. It has a lovely bent red stem, way overturned, and a metal band stamped EP Silver. A few dings and a couple scratches on the bowl, and no tooth marks on the stem. I’m thinking this one, for whatever reason, was not a favorite.

Even though I’m anxious to get the Blue Line and Chesterfield cleaned up and smokable, the Frank Bakelite, with its simple needs, beckoned. It moved to the front of the queue.

I don’t know old this particular pipe is, but if it dates to the same era as the KB&B Blue Line, it could well be past the century mark. Thoughts, anyone?

At any rate, the stem of this old boy seemed like a logical place to start. I took a couple of pictures of it in its overturned state, then unscrewed it completely to see if an internal problem was to blame. Thankfully, the bone tenon was clean and solid.

Knowing I’d read how to tackle overturned stems, I looked to Steve’s blog and, sure enough, there it was in clear, easy-to-follow directions. Following the steps he listed, I filled a cup halfway with water, leaned the stem against the side of the cup and put it in the microwave. I used the highest setting and, because the cup was only half full, set the time for 1 minute—plenty of time to get the water boiling.

In those 60 seconds, two things happened that I hadn’t really counted on. One, it worked (not that I had any doubts in the recommendation; it’s just that I rarely get things right the first time). And two, whether because of the vigorous bubbling of the boiling water, or because my microwave is a carousel, or even because the Bakelite was so smooth, the stem fell all the way into the water.

The material itself was fine; in fact, some of the debris from the airway got cleaned out by the bubbling water. However, the heat caused the bent stem to straighten.

Reheating the stem to restore the curve was no big deal; all I had to do next was re-bend it over a rounded object. But as I hadn’t foreseen this step, I didn’t have many options from which to choose. Paper towel tube? Nope, too flimsy. Peanut butter jar? Too big.

Then I saw it, sitting amid the excelsior of a near-empty holiday gift basket: a small summer sausage. It had a slightly narrower diameter than I’d hoped for, but it was a solid cylinder and certainly convenient. I heated the stem in boiling water again, laid it across the curve of the sausage, and applied slow, steady pressure.

The results weren’t perfect, but they could be worse. Or wurst, har har. The stem feels good in my mouth, and the curvature looks okay. However, it’s not quite as deep as it was originally, and that bothers me just a wee bit. If I can find the rolling pin I know I used to have, I may try re-curving the stem at some point in the future.

To make the tenon fix on the stem permanent I dunked the tenon-stem assembly once again in boiling water—this time holding onto the stem so it couldn’t submerge completely. I twisted it tightly onto the pipe, counting on the slightly swelled tenon to grab hold inside the shank and the slightly softened glue in the stem to let go. I untwisted and, sure enough, the stem came off while the tenon stayed in the shank.

I dried the tenon with a soft pipe cleaner and applied super glue sparingly to the narrow threads, then twisted it back into the stem. Satisfied with the alignment, I put the pipe down to let the glue cure.
The following evening I unscrewed the stem from the bowl and the tenon withdrew from the shank just fine. I screwed it back in to make sure the repair held, then removed it once again and set it aside.
I took the bowl over to the sink and scrubbed the outside with a toothbrush dipped in Murphy’s Oil Soap. I wiped it down, then took it back to the table and rubbed it good with cotton balls soaked in 91% isopropyl alcohol.

The rim had a pretty good chip—maybe 1mm or so deep–missing at about the 8 o’clock position as you look at the bowl from the shank. While an extreme topping of the bowl would smooth things out, I felt it could also compromise the bowl’s shape. So after sizing it up from all angles, and finding that there really wouldn’t be much chance of tobacco being in contact with that area, I decided to try filling it instead.

Before proceeding with the fill, I thought it might be good to first address the inside of the bowl, which had minimal cake but a troubling bit of what looked like fuzzy mold or fungus. I didn’t want any spores getting into the fill, so I wiped everything down with 190 proof alcohol, then wrapped a piece of 220 grit sandpaper around my finger and sanded the interior thoroughly. More alcohol, then the addition of a flame. Take that, moldy fungus! After another heavy swabbing with Everclear I declared the inside done.

Back to the rim patch… I cleaned the area to be filled with alcohol, then scrubbed it with a green Scotch Brite pad to remove any dirt and debris. I was glad I used a wide pad like that because the briar on either side of the chip was loose and came off when I scrubbed.

The fill would need to be a little wider but not any deeper—not a big deal. I packed some briar dust along the rim, then reached for the super glue to drip onto the patch.

I’ve done this many times but am still perfecting the technique. This time I learned an important lesson: Don’t attempt a maneuver like super glue-dripping, which requires a certain degree of precision, with a parrot perched on your shoulder.

(Time out for a side note: I have a large macaw named Tom who is a frequent observer of my pipe renovations. I don’t let him near smoke or fumes but other than that he’s close by pretty much all the time. He normally sits on his stand and looks down on the proceedings, but this particular night he was on my shoulder.)

Anyway, Tom shifted just as I was letting a little drip drop onto the pipe. I totally missed the briar dust and watched as the dribble made its way down the inside of the bowl. Shazbot.

I tried again, Tom shifted again, and I dripped on the outside of the bowl. Arrrr!

Fool me once, fool me twice… I wiped up the outside drip as best I could and put Tom over on his stand. I sat down and, with steadier hands, I dripped the glue a third time—on target—and after sprinkling on a little more briar dust, set the bowl aside to cure overnight. The next morning I took a flat needle file to the overfilled fill to jump start the removal of material. After that a thorough sanding with 220 grit sandpaper, first with the paper in my hand and then on my topping board, got the fill flush with the side of the bowl as well as the adjoining rim surfaces.

Follow-up sandings with 400 and 600 grit smoothed things out even more, but also revealed a couple of small holes in the fill. I probably had left some small air pockets in the briar dust; I couldn’t pack it down as tightly as I normally would due to its location on the rim. I refilled the fill using minute amounts of briar dust and applying the superglue with a toothpick. While these tiny patches dried, I took on the task of shining up the metal band. I wiped it down with white vinegar, then ran through the sequence of 1500-12000 micromesh pads to make it good and shiny. Using the same pads, I polished the stem as well. To give the patches a little more time to cure, I set about cleaning out the shank. Two—count ‘em, TWO—pipe cleaners, one bristle and one regular, dipped in alcohol was all it took.

I don’t know why the former owner didn’t smoke this pipe much, but as I set about sanding the patches I started coming up with scenarios. One, maybe it’s a crappy smoker. Only time will tell on that one. But other situations came to mind too. Maybe the stem was a problem from the get-go. Maybe it overturned after only a few smokes. Maybe the bend didn’t feel right. (Not that that will be problem any more. Ha.) Maybe it gurgled.

Whatever the reason for its nearly new condition, the pipe was rapidly coming back together again. Even with a 20 minute detour to sand off my super glue mistake inside of the bowl, the end was in sight.

I sanded the outside of the bowl and shank with 400 and 600 grit paper and followed up with the 1500 micromesh pad to take care of some slight scratches and dings. Next I got out the aniline stains to even up the color of the briar. Although much of the bowl was still quite dark, it was lighter on either side of the rim patch. I wiped on some oxblood stain, flamed it, wiped on dark brown and flamed again. A little bit of dabbing here and there with the dark brown and the staining was complete.

I slipped the metal band on the shank, screwed on the stem, smiled when it stopped right where it should, and headed over to the buffer.

(New development here at Casa Otto: Aided by a couple of gift cards from my brother, I invested in a Foredom M.BL—a small bench lathe with a variable speed motor that tops out at 7,000 rpm. I haven’t gone over what I estimate is about 1,200 rpm, based on the intervals marked on the speed control, and the results have been outstanding. Not only is it a fabulous machine, but it’s also small and fits nicely on the kitchen counter. It’s a huge improvement over my jerry-rigged drill press buffing station in the garage, and on a day like today when the outside temp is 2°F, a heck of a lot warmer too. Next step: Setting up the buffer in a spare bedroom. Upside to this will be getting counter space back. Downside is that the spare room is quite a distance from where the beer and snacks that fuel all good pipe projects are stored.)

I first buffed the assembled pipe with White Diamond, wiped it down with a flannel rag, then gave it three coats of carnauba, buffing with a clean wheel after each application.

This old pipe didn’t see much action during its go-around. But today, chip-free, moldy fungus-free and with a stem that sits where it should, it stands ready for a new century of service. Pam15 Pam14 Pam13

A Peterson’s Product 268 Zulu Restemmed and Restored

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Blog by Steve Laug

This pipe came to me with the Meerschaum Sultan that I restemmed. It is stamped Shamrock on the top of the shank and “A Peterson’s Product” Made in the Republic of Ireland on the underside. On the right side near the bowl shank union it was stamped 268. I looked the number up and it is the shape number for a Zulu shape. The gentleman in Chile wrote: “I only have the bowl (I’m not acquainted with the minor brand) with an inappropriate mouthpiece which makes it impossible to smoke. I don’t remember how it got into my collection and certainly it’s not a pipe I purchased myself. It has a heavy cake and is a second-hand. If a proper mouthpiece could be made and a proper tune-up, it could make a fine pipe.” He included the following pictures. When it arrived I took it out of the box to deal with when I had finished repairing the Sultan Meerschaum pipe. It was a nice piece of briar with mixed grain and a worn finish. The stamping on the top of the shank was clear and sharp. The stamping on the underside showed clearly on the left side as you read it but as you got to the right side it was fainter. The rim was dirty and had a flaky coat of lava overflowing from the inside of the bowl and the thick cake there. The inner and outer rim looked good with no dents or chips. The bowl sides, front and back had some light dents in the finish. The stem was a billiard stem that had been stuck in the shank. It fit snugly but absolutely did not match the oval shank.

I took a close up photo of the rim and the bowl to show the thickness of the cake. Toward the bottom of the bowl it got thicker and reduced the size of the bowl at the airway. I looked at several Peterson shape # 268 Zulus to get an idea of what the stem looked like originally on this pipe. I went through my can of stems and found several that would work on this pipe. The one that was the closest to matching the diameter of the shank of the pipe was a brand new stem blank that still had the castings on the sides and end of the button. The slot was constricted but the length and shape would be easy to match to the shank. I drilled open the airway to accept the rod of the PIMO tenon tool. And then set up the tenon tool on a cordless drill. The current tenon was too long for the tool to cut all the way to the end of the tenon so I used the Dremel and sanding drum to shorten the tenon. I put it on the tool and adjusted the set screws and took off the first round of material. I did three adjustments to turn the tenon down to a fit in the mortise. I fine tuned the fit with 220 grit sandpaper.

The fit in the mortise was snug. The diameter of the new stem was large on the sides and the bottom. The top would take the least adjustment to get the fit correct.

I took off the majority of the excess vulcanite with the Dremel and sanding drum. I put it back in the shank and the fit was better. The rest of the work would have to be done by hand sanding. I hand sanded the stem until it was smooth and the transition between the shank and stem needed some fine tuning then set the stem aside and worked on the bowl. Contrary to my normal pattern I wiped off the outside of the bowl and shank with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish and the grime that had been ground into the briar. Once it was gone there was some nice grain showing through.

I put the stem in place and took a few photos so that I could see where I stood at this point in the process. The pipe was looking good and with a few tweaks would look even better.

The top of the bowl was caked and the lava was very hard. I tried to scrape it carefully with a pen knife and gave up. I resorted to lightly topping the bowl on the topping board to remove the thick lava build up.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer starting with the first cutting head. I finished with the second cutting head which was the same diameter as the inside of the bowl. I cut the cake back to bare briar so I could assess the inner bowl walls. They looked very good with little burn or damage. The cake had protected them.

I fine tuned the sanding on the stem and shank fit with 220 grit sandpaper and shaped the stem to match the oval of the shank. The flow of the bowl and stem were looking really good at this point in the process.

I cleaned out the inside of the mortise and the airway in the stem and shank with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I used the dark brown stain pen to touch up the rim and the end of the shank to match the stain colour on the rest of the pipe. I rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil to give some life to the dry wood. I gave the bowl a quick buff with Blue Diamond and then gave it one coat of carnauba wax and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The “new” look of the bowl is shown in the photos below.

With the bowl stained and oiled I used a heat gun to bend the stem and get the proper angles that I had found online on the 268 shaped pipes. I heated the stem until it was pliable and then bent it over a round can to get a smooth angle. I took photos of the pipe with a bent stem to give a feel for the finished look.

I fine tuned the fit of the stem to the shank by beveling the inner edge of the mortise in the shank and then cleaning the area around the tenon stem joint. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit micromesh pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding with 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I laid the stem aside to dry.

I put the stem on the pipe and buffed the entirety with Blue Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad and then by hand with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is ready to go back to Chile. Sometime early this week I will pack the two repaired pipes up and make the trip to FEDEX to send them back. I look forward to hearing what the two of them smoke like for the Chilean pipeman. I like the new looks of both of these pipes and I think he will as well. But I have to tell you I am a sucker for the Zulu shaped Petersons. This one is a beauty!

Restemming and restoring an oval shank billiard with issues

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Blog by Steve Laug

I was gifted an oval shank billiard with a broken tenon and no stem by a fellow pipe refurbisher. He knows I like a challenge so he thought that maybe this would be a fun one for me to fiddle with. I looked at it when I unpacked it and spent more time looking at it over the weekend. When I first picked it up I put it in the bin of pipe to be refurbished and pretty much figured it would be one of those that I picked up when I had nothing else to work on. I have a few of those sitting in the bottom of the box. On Sunday I was going through the box trying to decide which pipe I would work on next and picked it up. There was something about it that drew me to work on it next. I can’t tell you what that was; I have no words to describe it. I know though that those of you who refurbish pipes know the feeling and the call of certain pipes. This was one of those. So it came to my work table.

Now that I had made a decision to work on it I took time to look it over and assess it. That is what I always do when I work on a pipe. I look it over and list out what needs to be addressed if I am to bring this pipe back to life. I like to enter into the work with a clear idea of what needs to be done. Doing this keeps me from finding those issues that surprise you in the process – at least most of the time it does. There will always be exceptions to the rule. For this pipe it was pretty straight forward.
Here is a list of the issues:

1. The finish was very rough and the darkening of the briar around the middle of the bowl was worrisome. It was hard to tell if it was potential burnout starting to happen – thus darkening the briar or if it was dirt and grime. I was pretty sure it was just soiled and stained but could not tell for sure until I had reamed the bowl.

2. There were scratches and dents all over the surface of the bowl.

3. There was one large fill on the right side of the bowl, mid-bowl that would need some work. I would either need to pick it out and refill it or repair it.

4. There was a burn mark on the underside of the shank mid-shank.

5. There appeared to be a small crack on the bottom of the shank at the place the stem and shank meet. It extends inward about a quarter inch. It was hard to see as it was hidden in the dings on the bottom of the shank from when the pipe had been dropped and the stem broken.

6. The bowl had a thick cake in it to the point that the tip of my little finger was about all that would fit in the bowl.

7. The rim had nicks and damage to the surface as well as a lava overflow from the cake in the bowl.

8. The stamping was virtually nonexistent. All that remained was a faint stamp on the left top side of the shank near the end – it read Made in London. It would definitely disappear if I banded the pipe to deal with the crack.

9. The airway in the shank and mortise was dirty and clogged. I could push air through it but barely when I blew through the end of the shank.

10. There was a broken tenon stuck in the shank. Generally these are pretty straight forward so I was not too worried about removing it.

11. There was no stem to work from as a model and the oval shank would make matching it a challenge.

Here is what the pipe looked like when I brought it to the work table.

I started the cleanup by pulling the broken tenon. I used the normal drywall screw and had the tools handy. In this case I threaded the screw in gently and was able to pull the tenon out by hand very easily.

I turned to my can of stems for a potential stem. I actually had one that was a decent fit. The tenon was perfect and the fit against the shank end was ideal. The diameter of the stem on the bottom of the oval was too big and would need to be sanded to a correct fit. It happened to be the only oval stem I had at the moment and it was a twin bore bite proof stem. I was careful in fitting the stem because of the small crack in the shank.

I used the Dremel and sanding drum to take off the excess rubber on the bottom of the stem. This may be a funny thing to say but as I examined the stem after I fit it to the shank I noticed it had a small hole near the button. When I turned it over to check it out then I noticed that I was dealing with a bite proof stem – a stem with two airholes coming out of the button from the single airway in the stem. Picture the letter Y and you have a good picture of the stem. I inserted a greased pipe cleaner in the airway on left airhole and then repaired the hole in the underside of the stem. I used black super glue to fill it and built it up to give a good base. When it dried I sanded it smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the stem.

Reaming the bowl took some effort and several different reamers. I used the PipNet reamer to start and then worked on the bowl with a KLEENREEM reamer. I finished by using a pen knife to clean out the last remnant of carbon in the bowl. I cleaned out the airway in the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol.

I topped the bowl on my sanding board and lightly sanded the cracked area and damage on the bottom of the shank end.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium sanding sponge to smooth out the scratches. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the grime and the remaining finish. The new stem fit really well and I only wished that the shank did not have the small crack that mad banding a necessity.

I cleaned the area around the fill on the right side and repaired it with super glue. I sanded it smooth and then sanded the bowl with a medium grit sanding sponge. I heated the briar with a heat gun and then applied a coat of cherry stain to it. The stain took well and sat deeply in the grain of the bowl.

With the stain in place the crack on the underside of the shank was very visible. It was mid shank and extended about ¼ inch. At this point I had to decide how to address this crack. I could do a shank insert and do an internal repair or I could band it. In looking over the shank I realized that the tenon was already quite thin and I would be hard pressed to make it smaller to fit inside of a shank insert. I would need to band the pipe. I had a round band that would fit once I flattened it. I opened the crack with a dental pick and filled it with glue to repair the crack and then pressed the band into place on the shank.

I lightly sanded the tenon as the band made the fit in the shank too tight. I put the stem in place and took the next photo to get an idea of the new look. I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I sanded it with micromesh sanding pads. I did my usual routine with the micromesh pads – wet sanding with the 1500-2400 grit and dry sanding with the rest of the pads up to 12000 grit. I used Obsidian Oil as usual.

I buffed the nickel band with a jeweller’s cloth and buffed the pipe on the wheel with Blue Diamond polish. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it on a clean flannel buffing wheel and then by hand with a microfibre cloth to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. I think that taking the time to recondition and restore this pipe paid off with a beautiful oval shank billiard. Thanks for looking.

Another Brewster That Looks Better Now Than When It Was Made

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, International Society of Codgers
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipesnm.biz (Coming Soon)
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
https://roadrunnerpipes.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/about-the-author/
Photos © the Author

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.
― Kong Qui (Confucius), 551-479 BC, Chinese philosopher, teacher and political figure

INTRODUCTION
This Brewster Billiard arrived in one of the many pipe lots I bought online the year before last, at which time I apparently dismissed it as a common Dr. Grabow that could be put off until I had nothing better to clean or restore. Nevertheless, despite the oppressive grime and weariness that lay upon the wretched pipe like a veil of black magic – or maybe because of this gloomy aspect, as a good friend once remarked with acerbic nonchalance that I seem to be attracted to wounded things (his exact words, all the more angering because I knew he was right) – my eyes returned to it many times since it came in the mail. On every occasion except the last, a week or so ago, I made the mental Dr. G. connection and passed it by.

I’m not saying all Dr. G. pipes are worthless; I just seem to be happier when they’re not cluttering up my own collection. But the two I do own are excellent and exceptional, not counting three unusual beauties that were given to me by my friend and mentor, Chuck Richards and which I expect to sell.

There is a good reason for all of this talk about Dr. G. pipes, which might seem to some as nothing more than pointless rambling. As I already noted, all but the last time I considered this pipe, I was so certain it was a Dr. G. that I didn’t even bother with more than a glance. Then, not more than 10 days ago, for some reason I will never understand, I picked it up and squinted at the left side of the shank to check the brand. The pipe was so filthy and sticky (remember that last word) that it might have fallen out of a pig farmer’s bib overalls and smack into the trough. It was so bad, at any rate, that I had to take it into the living room where I keep my jeweler’s magnifier headset to begin to decipher the name, which I could see began with a B. Even then some hard rubbing with a thumb was necessary to break on through to the other side.

When I at last made out the word Brewster, all that came to mind was a great old movie, “Brewster’s Millions,” from 1945. Go figure! And so, of course, I took a seat on the couch and consulted my laptop, clicking the speed dial to pipephil.eu. There, sure enough, was Brewster. Made in Italy. Unknown maker. What kind of hogwash was this? I Googled “brewster tobacco pipes” and found only a few identical references. Well, I said to myself, I’m not about to let any lack of preliminary intel stop me from making this wounded or perhaps birth defected little thing better.

Only when I was gearing up for the restoration, and happened to visit my local tobacconist, did I chance to notice a new estate pipe put out by Chuck. You guessed it: a Brewster, made in Italy. What were the odds, I wondered, laughing so loudly that the young lady behind the counter, Candice, looked at me in surprise. I explained myself.

But the real shock came a few days later, when I was nearly done with the restoration and started wondering (worrying is more like it) how I was going to write a blog about a pipe with a clear name on it of which several experts in the pipe community had heard but still had no clue who made it. Being a somewhat persistent little bugger, however, I returned to Google, this time expanding my search to “brewster tobacco smoking pipes.” I will never cease to be amazed how sometimes the computer knows exactly where I’m going with a search and even comes up with the right suggestion, and others it’s a swing and a miss. This time it was out of the ballpark.

The very first link, at the top of the page, was to – where else? BREWSTER PIPES/ REBORN PIPES, https://rebornpipes.com/tag/brewster-pipes/. To say I was beside myself is an idiom that doesn’t begin to describe my sense of amazement. As I wrote to Steve in an email, the Brewster triangle was complete. And there, in the most vindicating black and white letters I have ever read, were the words, “The thread pattern and the look of the metal fitment looked exactly like a Dr. Grabow set up.”

Anyway, the bizarre connection between Brewster and Dr. G. is so thoroughly Italian (read “Machiavellian”) that I haven’t quite processed all of it yet. But it’s all there in Steve’s blog, blow by brutal blow, and as far as I can tell, it’s a Reborn Pipes exclusive. I’m sure those who are interested in the grizzly details will follow the link above. I am not about to try to paraphrase Steve’s incredibly detailed research. All I can say is that congratulations on an investigative job worthy of Woodward and Bernstein are in order. For once I will exercise the better part of valor in not going into details that already took up pages of Steve’s blog.

I will comment that Steve’s history of the Brewster includes one hilarious section on a blunder involving a large shipment of pipes to Mastercraft which were stained but not cured with a drying agent. Hence they remained sticky to the touch for years before they were eventually “fixed.”

RESTORATION

The first order of business, if only so that I could handle the clinging pieces of wood and Vulcanite, was to clean the outside. I did this with a couple of white cotton gun cleaner cloths and purified water, and while I was at it applied 1800 and 2400 micromesh. Wetting the micromesh pads, I was able to remove all of the char on the rim. The stummel had so many scratches and dings that I doubted the micromesh would be enough, but the immediate difference was striking.

Next I chose a fixed, 21mm reamer, 320-grit and 500-grit paper for the chamber, and seeing I was correct about the scratches on the stummel, I tried super fine steel wool, the same sandpaper and steel wool again to work away more of the blemishes. This was an ongoing process.

An OxiClean bath, for the first time in my experience, was enough to work out all of the mess inside the bit air hole, which, judging from the used, sudsy, murky water, had been somewhat bad. I used 320 paper followed by the full gamut of micromesh on the bit, and thought I was done. Now, I didn’t actually notice the problem at this stage, but for the sake of uniformity I’ll add it here. In fact, only after I had completed the remainder of the restoration did I notice the turn of the bit was off. Examining the tenon end of the bit, which should have been flat, I saw it had a chip that I hoped – notice I don’t say thought – I could remedy with a little sanding. Luckily I stopped that madness before it was too late. Yes, I’ve utterly destroyed a few bits in my short experience with the treacherous objects, and I’ve learned my lesson! Turning to Black Super Glue, I dabbed a little over the weak spot and let it sit overnight. Staining the stummel with Lincoln medium brown boot stain (which is really pretty dark), I flamed it, set it aside to cool, and buffed lightly with 4000 and 6000 micromesh.

The next day, with the stummel already buffed on the wheels, I had to re-do the entire bit to remove scratches left from my aborted attempt to sand down the lip, and to even out the Black Super Glue. I also heated the tenon, threw a cotton rag over it and clamped it with my grip pliers and turned. It was close, but no cigar, so I repeated the process with less force, and the bit was flush with the shank.

Well, now I looked the two pieces over and was happy with the bit, but there were still fine lines on the wood that I didn’t care for at all. And so, not liking the idea, I used 1800 micromesh to smooth it out, then had to re-buff with white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba, and the clean wheel between each. That did the trick.

CONCLUSION
The most difficult part of this task, surprisingly, was the bit, from which, after bringing it to a high shine the first time, I didn’t expect any further problems. It’s taken some time, but I’m finally getting the hang of bits. The easy part of the restore was making the sweet little billiard look better than I expect it ever did out of the factory in Italy, with everyone involved in its creation doing his best to hide the fact!

Putting the pieces together and arriving at a Parker Super Bruyere Billiard

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Blog by Pam Otto

It is with pleasure that I introduce to you all the work of one of our readers, Pam Otto. I think as you read this first blog of hers posted here that you will join me in hoping we have not heard the last of her. She has done work on this Parker that rivals what an early writer, Gan Barber did with a Peterson. (If you did not read it or don’t remember here is the link: https://rebornpipes.com/2012/10/03/all-the-kings-horses-and-all-the-kings-men-a-petersen-adventure-gan-barber/). Pam has done the work a masterful job of rebuilding this old pipe. Its finished beauty is amazing. Thank you Pam for being willing to post here. It is a privilege to have you here. Without further ado, here is her post. — rebornpipes

I discovered the hobby of pipe restoration about a year and a half ago and jumped in with both feet. I soon discovered Reborn Pipes and Steve, let me tell you, my life hasn’t been the same since. Thanks so much for the information, techniques and methods you share, and for this opportunity to contribute to your blog.

Most of the pipes I’ve worked on, and learned on, have arrived through the “usual channels”–flea markets, estate sales and of course eBay. But this particular pipe, a Parker Super Bruyere, came via a more unusual route.

I was at work one recent Saturday (I manage a nature center when I’m not fiddling with pipes) when I received a text message from my friend Suzi. It contained this photo, along with the words, “Thought of you at Geneva Mothers Club bazaar!” One look at that pic and I knew work could wait. I jumped in the car and within minutes arrived at the craft show location.

I half walked, half jogged up to the building, paid my entrance fee and made my way through the throng—a well-dressed, Ladies Who Lunch crowd—in search of a sign that read Exit 22E. A subsequent text from Suzi had given this added detail, which turned out to be absolutely essential in navigating the cavalcade of vendors.

After a couple of wrong turns I at last found the booth, staffed by a pleasant woman peddling hand-crafted snowman décor. With sawdust and a little mud crumbling off my jacket, I reached for her basket of “Frosty’s Pipes” and began laying them out on the counter. We exchanged pleasantries—the woman and I—and she told me that the pipes were US$4.95 each. She also encouraged me to consider a snowman for my front door. But by then I wasn’t really listening.

I emptied the basket and studied what Frosty had to offer, eventually deciding on five Yello Boles of various vintages going back to Honey Cured Briar; a Medico Ventilator I want to try unventilating; and the Parker.

Clutching my prizes, swathed in tissue paper within a plastic Wal-Mart bag, I then faced the daunting task of navigating back through the crowded aisles. (Exit 22E, it turns out, was for emergencies only.) Along the way I bumped into Suzi and excitedly showed her the pipes—especially the Parker—while she in turn showed me the handmade greeting cards she’d found. Both happy with our purchases, we went our separate ways—she to peruse more holiday wares, I to head home and triage my treasures. Spread out on the dining room table, the pipes ran the gamut from barely touched to smoked nearly beyond recognition. Oddly enough, rather than dismiss pipes in poor condition, I find myself drawn to them. Clearly their previous owners found them quite delectable; there’s a good chance some of that former glory remains. And so it was that the Parker went to the front of the line.

Carbon clogged the bowl and had fractured the briar in three separate places, the cracks pervading the crusted rim and converging at the bottom of the bowl. The shank too was obstructed with decades of hardened goo, to the point where the mortise could accommodate only about half of the stem’s tenon. I turned up the lights and rubbed the shank a bit in an effort to remove some surface grime and get a better look at the shank’s stampings. The left side bore a faint PARKER SUPER BRUYERE, the SUPER inside a diamond; closer to the bowl was stamped the number 5. The right side read MADE IN LONDON over ENGLAND and the number 18. Below this was PAT. NO. 116989/17 and, about 5mm toward the bowl, a capital letter T.

I did a quick check of Pipedia and PipePhil for Parker date codes and discovered that this old boy* dates to 1941. (*As a female, I find it funny that men tend to refer to pipes in the feminine, i.e. she/her. To me they’re clearly male. But to each his or her own, right?)

At any rate, I couldn’t wait to get started on the pipe’s revival. I started by gently pulling the stem from the shank and laying it aside. For all its years of service, its oxidation was minimal. There were some troubling dings, one nearly marring the P logo, but the delicate work they would require could wait.

Instead I turned my attention to the amazing carbon cake. I tried to picture the very last time the previous owner loaded up the bowl. Roughly half its original capacity remained and the draw, if there was one at all, probably caused some pulled lip and/or cheek muscles. I put the smallest head on my Pipnet and gently twisted it inside the cake. I expected the bowl to disintegrate immediately but, no, that took a good two or three turns more.

Moments later, with three distinct pieces in my hand and a lot more carbon to remove, I headed down to the garage and the Dremel. Even though this tool and its potential for destruction scares the bejeebers out of me, when equipped with a sanding barrel it does make quick work of hardened cake. A few minutes later I returned to my dining/work table blackened with carbon (thank goodness for dust masks and goggles) but with three much-cleaner pieces of briar to assess.

Parts of the bowl were not only caked but also charred, so I’d had to remove a considerable amount of material. Worse, due to the uneven nature of the char, the bowl innards were something less than round.

The good news tho was that all the breaks were clean, and the three pieces fit neatly back together. Before reassembly I scrubbed the outer surfaces with straight-up Murphy’s Oil Soap, then wiped them down with a damp towel. The grain that was hiding beneath the grunge made me smile. I mixed up some JB Weld and applied it to the breaks, placing more on the inner edges than the outer. I reunited the individual parts, pressed and held them together for a couple of minutes, smoothed the interior with a toothpick and then set the bowl aside to cure.

A combination of demands at work as well as home meant that it was another week before I returned to the Parker. I tried twisting and turning the bowl and thankfully the “welds” held. JB Weld is tough stuff. 🙂 I ran a needle along the external surfaces of the cracks to clean out any loose debris, then applied briar dust and super glue. While waiting for the glue mixture to cure, I began work on the stem. Starting with a small, folded bit of 220 grit paper, then 400 and 600, I gingerly worked on the small gouges near the base. If it weren’t for their location near the logo, I would have tried using a flame and then sanding. But I opted instead to make the raised edges flush with the stem, then mixed powdered charcoal with super glue and filled in the small cavities that remained. After curing, I sanded the patches smooth.

I also decided to experiment with the inside of a cigar box as background for picture taking. The next day I sanded the briar-dust crack repairs with a succession of 220, 400 and 600 grit sandpapers. I also topped the bowl with that same sequence to see how the cracks appeared from the top down. I put the stem back in the shank to size up how things were coming along and, when it only went in halfway, remembered that I still had a lot of internal cleaning to do.

I dipped a bristle pipe cleaner in 91% isopropyl alcohol and threaded it through the stem, then set it aside to soak. I attempted to do the same with the shank, but it was so clogged I had to first abrade away whatever gunk I could reach with a round needle file.

I dripped some alcohol down the shank and eventually was able to poke through to the bowl with a bristle cleaner—the first of many. I worked for about an hour, switching between bristle cleaners and cotton swabs, before finally finishing up with a few regular pipe cleaners.

The stem took a little less time, maybe 30 minutes, and a dozen bristle and regular pipe cleaners combined.

The P logo on the stem was a little worse for wear. The lower right side of the diamond, as viewed from the button end, was virtually nonexistent. Using an Exacto blade, I pushed on the faint outline that remained until there was a slight indent. It wasn’t quite as deep as the other three sides of the diamond, but I thought it prudent to stop before I went too far.

I tried using white nail polish to brighten up the logo but, perhaps because the bottle was 20 years old, the results weren’t quite what I was looking for. I wiped away the nail polish residue and applied Liquid Paper white correction fluid, which I’ve had success with in the past. I would say the results were “Meh,” except that, in looking up other Parkers online, it would appear that their stem stampings are not always super-crisp. Rather than waste more time on a detail that probably can’t improve a whole lot more, I decided to celebrate its unevenness and move along to the next step: resolving the bowl’s myriad issues.

Using 220 grit sandpaper, I moved along the inside of the bowl, sanding away excess JB Weld along with microns of briar. I eyeballed the progress as I went, hoping for a shape that approximated round. When I was satisfied it was as close as it could get, I mixed up a small batch of Steve’s sour cream-n-powdered-charcoal bowl coating and applied it, first with a dental spatula, then a folded pipe cleaner. I used my index finger for a final smoothing.
It was during this process that I noticed the left exterior of the bowl was itself somewhat flattened. Maybe a few too many whacks on a tabletop or boot heel?

Whatever the reason, I moistened a towel, heated a table knife and proceeded to steam the area. Maybe it worked, maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but the flatness did seem to raise up a bit. With that issue addressed, it was time to start staining.

When I’d cleaned up the briar with the Murphy’s Oil Soap, the grunge on the towel included a considerable amount of red pigment. Hoping to recreate the same hue, I swabbed the bowl with oxblood aniline stain, wiped it immediately with an absorbent cloth, then swabbed it with dark brown stain and wiped again. After a few touch-ups I was satisfied that the coverage was even, and flamed the stain with a lighter.

The seams where the bowl had been mended were still a little too visible for my taste, so I went at them with a black Sharpie marker. A quick dab with the marker followed by a quick wipe with my finger helped the cracks blend in a little more.

At this point I decided this Parker was about as reborn as he was going to get. Down to the garage workshop we went, one last time, to apply some carnauba. Only then did I realize just how cold our recent cold snap has been. I brought the wax bar inside to warm up a bit, then went back to the garage for a couple quick coats. More will come, after the next thaw.

If you look at the pipe up close, the cracks are still apparent. But like a bad memory, they fade with some distance. This is one pipe Frosty is going to have to do without.

Who Made Benson and Hedges Pipes – Reclaiming a B&H Acorn

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Blog by Steve Laug

My brother sent me a little acorn shaped pipe that was stamped on the left side of the shank, Benson & Hedges and on the right side, Imported Briar over 84 and next to that in a smaller sized font 18. I have had several of these pipes on the work table over the years but this is a beautiful little pipe (5 inches long). The briar is nice and there are no fills or sandpits in it that I can see. The rim was dirty and had some cut marks in it. There was a cake in the bowl that was uneven – thick in some places and thin in others. The stem was badly oxidized and on the underside near the button there was a small tooth mark. Here is what it looked like when I brought it to the table to work on it.

I have included a close up photo of the rim to show the damage and the thickness of the cake. I was curious about the maker of the pipe so I did some searching. In Who Made that Pipe it says that the pipe is English Made. In Pipedia says that it was likely made by Comoy for the London Tobacco Company. Then it lists the following stamping “London Made”. http://pipedia.org/wiki/British_Pipe_Brands_%26_Makers_A_-_D There was one other note that Orlik made pipes that were stamped with the Benson and Hedges label. Nowhere in the listings that I could find did anyone mention the stamping on this one: Imported Briar. That stamping tells me that it was made for the American Market. The number stamp on the right side of the shank fits both Comoy and Orlik numbering systems and point to either as possible makers of the pipe. I guess this is one mystery that I can go no further in unraveling.

I reamed the bowl of the uneven cake with a PipNet reamer using the first two cutting heads. I took the cake back to bare briar. It was crumbly and soft so it was an easy reaming job.

I lightly topped the bowl on the topping board to take of the rim damage and clean it up.

Sometimes I think that my readers probably could tell me the next step but I write it anyway. I scrubbed down the bowl with alcohol and cotton pads to remove the grime and the light varnish coat that seemed to be on the bowl. I scrubbed the mortise with cotton swabs and alcohol to clean out the grime. I used a shank brush and pipe cleaners to clean out the airway. I cleaned out the airway on the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol.

I could have let the stem sit in Oxyclean but did not feel like doing that this morning so I put a plastic washer between the shank and the stem and worked on the oxidation with 220 grit sandpaper. I also sanded and removed the tooth mark on the underside of the stem near the button. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge as well to remove the scratching in the rubber.

I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads and rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final rubdown of Obsidian Oil and let it dry.

I buffed bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel and gave the entire pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff to raise a shine and then again by hand with the microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is a pretty little pipe that is lightweight and charming looking. Thanks for looking.

I Got the Kaywoodie-Delta Blues

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, International Society of Codgers
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipesnm.biz (Coming Soon)
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

The Delta blues is a low-down, dirty shame blues. It’s a sad, big wide sound, something to make you think of people who are dead or the women who left you.
― David “Honeyboy” Edwards (1915-2011), U.S. Delta blues guitarist and singer

INTRODUCTION
I’ve been sitting on these two nice metal pipes, different brands but modeled after the original of their kind, designed by Frederick Kirsten, a U.S. professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington who was transferred to the aeronautics department and promptly changed the course of aviation history with the creation of the Kirsten Wind Tunnel for subsonic aerodynamic testing. He also upended the tobacco pipe industry and generally rocked the world of pipe enjoyers with his 1936 invention of a sleek aluminum radiator frame with interchangeable bowls. The patented revolution in a box was more or less a way to quit cigarettes by exercising his boundless creativity. He puffed cigars as well.

Maybe I’m just not as daring as the good professor. Whenever I find myself on the edge of pipe restoration territory I haven’t charted, I hesitate. I don’t panic or freeze in terror. I just pause to survey the terrain and get my bearings; to triangulate my coordinates, find my footing, and then one day, as if on an impulse but really because I’m good and ready, I take the next leap, with some faith.

And so it was last night that I looked at the Kaywoodie Smooth Billiard and Duncan Delta Rusticated Brandy with a dental lip – again – and without thinking grabbed them. The next thing I knew, I was looking around for the implements of cleaning and restoring I might need for the combined tasks and remembered another aluminum pipe I fixed up once, an Aristocob, and how I used a solution of white vinegar and baking soda to soak the metal. Although I had bought enough of each for a lifetime when I did the Aristocob, I discovered they were lost in my latest necessarily hasty move. The nearest Walmart would close in about a half-hour, at midnight. All of Sam Walton’s children here used to stay up round the clock, but now there are less than a handful that do, and only one within any kind of reasonable distance. They had too many problems with thievery and other shenanigans, you see, mostly through the dock doors, if you follow me. I armed myself against the natives, threw on a coat, petted my cats as they were curious about the sudden hullabaloo and hurried out the door. I was back before the witching hour.

As part of the map checking I did in comforting if only perceived preparation for these restorations, I noted that the Duncan Delta, of the English metal genre, as it were, came with a non-removable bit, as did the two Falcons in my personal collection. At this point I made that greatest of mistakes: I assumed there were no exceptions to the rule.

To be fair to myself, I showed the Kaywoodie and Duncan Delta to my friend and mentor, Chuck Richards, who is usually infallible, and asked how the bits come off for cleaning. In hindsight and an extended spirit of fairness, I’m not sure he looked all that closely at them.

“They don’t,” he said, with a certain amused grin he has. “You just have to work through them.” Or something to that effect. Taking a seat on the couch with the supplies I would need to proceed, I had no idea what I was in for. I can’t wait to show Chuck the mind-boggling discovery I tripped over, figuratively speaking – about halfway through the restorations. To those in the audience who know the astonishing secret of a certain rare Kaywoodie metal pipe made from 1955-1959, with this particular surprise only included during the first year or so of that period, Shhhh! Don’t spoil the revelation for others when it comes, in good time.

RESTORATIONS

I had prepared an empty macaroni salad tub, by cleaning it with scalding water and dish soap, for the vinegar-baking soda soak of the aluminum pipe bodies. It was the widest container I had but also deeper than it needed to be. Into the tub I measured about a tablespoon of baking soda, then added the vinegar and watched it fizz madly until the powder dissolved. I placed the two parts in the mix and added more vinegar until they were almost covered. Considering the possible effects on the bits, I spontaneously chose the bolder path and pushed down a little on each one until they were submerged. The bubble action was really something to see – much more active of an interaction than an OxiClean bath – but I had other things to do. The bowls needed cleaning in the worst way, the bases in particular. The moisture from tobacco creates steam, and Kirsten’s system, which is used in metal pipes still today, traps and cools the steam in the stem. Much of the resulting very sticky, cloying gunk ends up on the bottoms of the bowls and can be cleaned in seconds by anyone who enjoys these pipes. But as Steve put it perfectly in one of his blogs on a particularly messy Generation 1 Kirsten A, I’ll just quote him: “The cleaning in seconds must not have been something that the previous owner of this pipe ever read or understood.” https://rebornpipes.com/tag/kirsten-pipes/

Taking also from this great blog the idea that metal pipes are, for the most part, sturdy things that can outlive generations of a single family of pipe enjoyers, I launched a three-pronged assault on the bottoms of the bowls alone. First I swabbed them and the rest of the bowls’ exteriors with cotton gun cleaning squares soaked with purified water; then the same with Everclear swabs, and next superfine steel wool on the bases and rims. The Delta base, being metal and somewhat pocked with corrosion, needed a little more work with sandpaper before another round of steel wool.

An odd trick of sight makes the rusticated Duncan bowl, which indeed has a wider outer diameter than the smooth Kaywoodie (about 5” compared to 4-3/8), appear as if it would need a bigger reamer to clean out most of the excess cake. But the Duncan only took a 19mm fixed reamer while the Kaywoodie held a 21mm. I smoothed the chambers with 320-grit paper followed by 200, followed by long and careful consideration of the next step. While I started restoring pipes with the habit of stripping the old finish completely, I have taken to avoiding that step for the most part on different levels of thinking, primarily two. One, I never know for sure what I’ll find beneath the finish that might have been better left uncovered, and two, I have become more purist in my approach, liking the idea of imitating the original.

Nevertheless, I concluded I just didn’t care for the light brown shade of the Kaywoodie or the dark brown of the Duncan. As the former was of U.S. origin and the latter of British make, I reasoned, that would make them cousins, as some folks on either side of the Pond refer to each other. But I wanted them to be more like brothers. Therefore, “Off with their stains!” I heard a voice cry in my head, and dunked both bottoms up into an Everclear bath, careful to leave the bases above the alcohol level. While the 190-proof alcohol changed from clear to something else, I removed the frames from their long vinegar-baking soda soak, rinsed them thoroughly and began to “work through” the Duncan frame with pipe cleaners dipped in more Everclear, still shocked, as always, at the filth that came out. Seriously, how hard is it to run a cleaner through your pipe now and then? Are restorers the only people who do it? Deep breath; exhale. I suppose that’s a rant better left for my upcoming Encyclopedia of Pipe Trips. Still, seven bristly cleaners through the frame later, and three swabs soaked with alcohol to clean out most of the mess in the round bowl connector, not to mention having to use my wire cleaner to dig out the muck in the grooves of said connector, I thought I was finished with that part. But now, looking at the photo above, I see it needs a little more work. I’m going to soak the connector in Everclear and scrub it some more. Give me a few minutes to make it shine better, and I’ll be right back with another picture. There. That was easy, and I for one feel better. Plus the picture tells the whole story!

Anyway, enough time had passed to take the bowls out of the Everclear and scrub them cleaner and dry inside-out with more cotton swabs. I used the steel wool again on both, lightly on the Kaywoodie to make it shine before heightening the effect with a micromesh progression, and vigorously to take the finish of the rusticated Duncan down still more until it was actually reddish, for which I had hoped. Re-staining both with Lincoln Marine Cordovan (Burgundy) boot stain, I flamed them with my Bic and set them aside. Now, at last, I near the dramatic moment I know you have all been waiting for! Is that the faint fade-in of a drum roll I hear, or an auditory hallucination? Due to my slight deviation from following the restorations of each pipe part by part – starting when I cleaned the Duncan frame and instead of moving on to the Kaywoodie, continued to the bowls – I did not learn the wonderful nature of the Kaywoodie until I attempted to work through it with bristly cleaners as I had the Duncan…

…and the whole thing came apart in my lap! There were the bit that wasn’t supposed to come off and some bizarre, vile, noxious looking thingamabob that looked like a wire brush. I picked it up with distaste and tossed the whole dark, stained mess in the leftover Everclear from stripping the bowls. I knew that would clean it up somewhat, and it did. With the brush out of the Kaywoodie frame, by the way, the metal was quite easy to clean. That should have been a clue, but my first thought was that someone had stuck the brush inside the frame as a makeshift filter. (It is truly scary how close and yet so far from the truth I can be sometimes in my denser moments.) At least I had the sense to recognize that the resulting hole in the frame was gaping wide, and turned to pipephil.eu for help, which I found as I almost always do. It was the second metal “filter” pipe in the Kaywoodie models A-K section, the Filter Plus, made from 1955-1959. A convenient link to Smoking Metal led me to the rest of the story. http://www.smokingmetal.co.uk/pipe.php?page=133

As it turns out, the brush is not a fluke, of course, but an original Kaywoodie nylon brush filter that was only included with the pipe during the first year or so of its four-year run. The filter brush has 5,000 fibers. Now, I want y’all to think on that fer a spell. Finding a pipe with one at all, much less intact, is a miracle. It’s no wonder Bill Feuerbach, president of S.M. Frank & Co. Inc., owner of Kaywoodie, is quoted at the link above as saying of the Filter Plus, “It is one of the most indestructible and durable pipes I have ever run across.”

Check out the advertisement below from the first year the Filter Plus was made. Considering how easy it was to clean the frame of the pipe itself, despite (or because of) the dirty condition of the filter brush, it’s a shame they stopped making them. As the ad shows, the pipe cost $4, or $35.42 in today’s money. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/. Replacement or additional bowls were $1.50 ($13.28), and two-packs of the filter brushes were 35 cents ($3.10). Getting close to the finish line always makes my blood start to race! I buffed the two bowls with 4000 and 6000 micromesh. Then there was the Kaywoodie bit, which was looking a little rough. I sanded it with 200- and 320-grit paper before working my way up the micromesh trail, and moved on to putting a little Halcyon II wax on the Duncan. During a few of the 15 minutes or so it set in, I took the Kaywoodie Filter Plus billiard bowl and the bit (which indeed is removable) into my office. I buffed the bit with red and white Tripoli, then White Diamond, using the clean wheel between each; then the bowl with white Tripoli, White Diamond and a good coat of carnauba, again using the clean wheel in between.

Really only ten minutes more passed, at most, as I sat back on my couch, screwing the Kaywoodie bowl in and out of the frame threads and wiping it down, over and over, because it seemed like the minute hand on the clock was stuck there to spite me! Maybe that’s because I kept eyeballing it. But the time did pass, and I carried the Duncan bowl into the office for a quick spin on the clean wheel only. That was my reward for being so patient and all.

CONCLUSION
Well. Now that it’s all said and done, all I really have to add is that this pair of restorations was just plain fun. And full of surprises. And I learned a few new things I never imagined, too, and can’t wait to show Chuck!

ADDITIONAL SOURCE
https://www.reddit.com/r/PipeTobacco/comments/3a5hf9/info_on_falcon_pipe_markings/ Info on FD18 stamp

Cleaning up a WDC Milano Hesson 1925 Long stem Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

One of the pipes my brother sent me this past week was this long stemmed little billiard. The stem was over clocked almost ½ a turn in the shank and the stem was frozen in the shank. It was dark coloured and the finish was dingy. The rim was covered with an overflow of cake from the bowl but it did not look to be damaged either on the inside or outside edge. The bowl itself had a broken cake lining it – thicker in the middle and the back edge than at the top or the bottom fo the bowl. There was some small pin prick sized marks around the back side of the bowl near the top edge but they were not rough. The stem itself was quite clean – good rubber so it had hardly oxidized. There were two small tooth marks – one on each side of the stem. The WDC white triangle in the stem had lifted and would need to be repaired. The stamping on the shank of the pipe is what got my attention. On the left side it had the WDC in a triangle logo over MILANO. I have seen quite a few WDC Milano pipes over the years. On the other side it is stamped Hesson over Pat’d Dec 22, 1925 and the shape number 1527.

I was not sure what kind of connection I was dealing with on the tenon on this old Milano. Other ones I had worked on were push aluminum tenons and sat in the shank. The aluminum oxidized and the tenons often were bound to the shank when I got them. But there was something about this one that was different. I could not turn it either direction so I put it in the freezer overnight and let the different expansion/contraction rates of briar and metal do their work. In the morning I carefully worked it back and forth and it seemed to give a little. I decided to see if it was a threaded tenon so I held the shank tightly next to the stem and the turned the stem counter clockwise and it came free. Once it was out I could see that I was dealing with a slightly older Milano Hesson system than any of the previous ones I had worked on. This one had a threaded tenon with a long tube attached to the end. The tube extended right up to the entry of the airway in the bottom of the bowl. The shank was also was threaded but the threads had been cut into the briar. There was no mortise insert in the shank. I looked at the documents I had from the other WDC Milano Hesson pipes that I had restored. This one was slightly different. I have included the Patent drawing for your comparison. The differences are readily notable. The patent is from 1932 and the pipe is stamped 1925. The major difference that I see is the internal of the shank and the tube on the tenon in the 1925 edition. I decided to use my tried and true method for correcting over clocked stems. I heated the tenon with the flame of the lighter and tried to turn it. It did not work. No matter how long I held the lighter in place it did not heat the glue in the stem enough to allow me to align the stem with the shank. I set up a heat gun and heated the tenon on low heat. It did not take long and I was able to screw it into the shank and align the stem properly. I set it aside and let it cool with the stem in place while the glue hardened again. I took the following three photos to show the properly aligned stem.

I cleaned out the shank with cotton swabs and alcohol until it was clean. I ran a pipe cleaner through at the entry of the airway into the bowl. The end of the metal tube sat against the entry so it was pretty clean. Most of the grit and grime were in the threads on the walls of the mortise. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and the smallest cutting head to take the cake back to the briar.

With the inside clean I worked on the bowl finish. It was dirty but it also had a coat of varnish on the surface that had gone opaque. The grain was invisible underneath it. I lightly sanded the bowl and rim with 1500 grit micromesh to break up the surface of the varnish and then wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads until I had removed the grime and varnish coat and the grain was visible. The stain on the pipe was oxblood so it had a rich, deep red hue to it.

I scrubbed the metal tube with 1500 grit micromesh and used a brass tire brush on the threads to clean up the grime and oxidation that was present on it. I cleaned out the inside with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I buffed the bowl with White Diamond (very lightly around the stamping on the shank) and gave it a coat of carnauba wax.

I took close up photos of the stamping on the shank. The left side shows in the first photo. The right side of the shank is shown in the second. It is sharp and very legible.

I worked on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the small tooth marks on the top and the bottom sides. I then sanded it with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to minimize the scratching.

I started to polish the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I was just starting to sand with a 3200 grit pad when the edge of the pad hit the edge of the triangle (it sat high on the stem as it appeared to have lifted) and sent it flying. The white triangle was nowhere to be found so now I faced a new dilemma. I filled in the empty triangle in the stem with liquid paper. It is the same white as the previous triangle. It shrinks as it dries so once it was dry I put a drop of clear super glue on top of it to form a bubble. Once it dried I could sand it down to the surface of the stem and I would be good to go with the replacement triangle. Once the glue dried I sanded the fill down to match the surface of the stem and the new triangle looked pretty good. I cleaned out the threads on the tenon with alcohol and a cotton pad and then screwed it back into the mortise. I sanded the newly filled and area with 1500-2400 grit pads and then continued with 3200-4000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and then dry sanded with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and let it dry.

I buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond on the wheel and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It does not look too bad for a pipe from Dec. 22, 1925. Thanks for looking.