Tag Archives: Bowl – finishing

Overcoming Bit Bending Phobia for a Comoy’s 1983 Christmas Bulldog

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

Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Boy: Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
― From “The Matrix” (1999), starring Keanu Reeves, with Owan Witt as Spoon Boy

INTRODUCTION
Whatever some might think of me, I’m not so far off the deep end to space that when it comes to bending a pipe bit, there is, of course, the bit. The real truth behind this essay – how easy it is to accomplish the task, without tricks or special effects – bends the mind. I had dreaded and postponed the basic exercise in pipe restoration as something fearsome, once even passing the task to my mentor, Chuck Richards, when the rare opportunity to improve upon my first genuine renewal, of a Chinese Chicken Wing Wood churchwarden, presented itself a while back. Although I did the second makeover of the bowl and shank of that unusual specimen of wood and craftsmanship myself, using standard waxing techniques not available to me when I began learning this artful craft, and even polished the bit, I could just as well have bent the long piece of vulcanite had I known then that which I only just learned one morning this past weekend by perusing the web. More importantly, in so doing, I would have been done with the unpleasant feeling that comes with parting out work on a project.

However, the necessity of facing the dreaded deed finally presenting itself to me, and I at last concluding enough was enough with the shirking of responsibility, I resorted to browsing the Internet (“Read the instructions,” my dad would tell me) in search of a feasible method to achieve my goal without a high-powered torch. And where did I reach the end of my quest but here at Reborn Pipes, in a three-year-old blog by our host, which can be read at https://rebornpipes.com/2012/07/15/bending-vulcanite-stems/.

I should note that my surrender to the essential instruction in and practice of bending a pipe bit was not as easy as I make it seem above. Several weeks ago, at our Friday night pipe club get-together, a good friend and fellow restorer named Bob Kasenchak surprised me with the gift of a box of assorted pipes that needed various degrees of work, all leaning toward the critical side. There are 15 in all, including a Ropp Deluxe #809 natural cherry wood with a pronounced crack in the bottom of the bowl; an old Ehrlich Frankenstein billiard; a Kaywoodie Supergrain bulldog with a wicked Harry Potterish lightning crack in the bowl and the bit maybe incinerated; an interesting old Wellington Storm De Luxe sterling band pot with a bad gash on the rim, and a Trapwell Patented rusticated billiard. There is also something that appears to be a once fine, handsome Ehrlich sterling bulldog (at least judging from the style of the E on the bit) that will make a nice shop pipe someday, and which plays an important role in this narrative.

Most of these pipes have missing, broken or mangled stems, and only a few are free of fatal flaws, and Bob just doesn’t want to mess with them. Who can blame him? If I had Bob’s outrageously hectic schedule, I might not keep them, even for parts, either. But I don’t, and I’m a little touched when it comes to hording parts.

Then a funny thing happened on the way from the meeting to the shop, or my apartment. In fact, it occurred during the meeting, but it sounds better the other way. The clear jewel of the pipes Bob gave me, which I delayed mentioning, is a Comoy’s Christmas 1983 smooth bulldog.

I already had my heart set on keeping the Comoy’s to add to my budding Christmas Pipe collection, but a fellow piper in my club, who has a keen eye for sharp pipes and has bought two meerschaums from me, took an immediate shine to the bulldog’s sleek contours and exceptional subtlety of the bit curve, and offered to buy it when I was finished. We still haven’t discussed a price. At a glance, the Christmas Pipe was a beauty right out of the “scrap” box. The reddish brown briar was very pleasant, the chamber appeared to be well-kept and Bob told me he had started to clean it, the rim was in perfect, shiny shape that I also attribute to Bob, and there was only one small scratch on a side of the triangular shank. Then there was the bit. How can I best describe it? The vulcanite below the lip, on the bottom, appeared to have been chomped by the steel-toothed “Jaws” character (Richard Kiel, 1939-2003) of the James Bond movie series fame. The reason I note a continued difficulty in regard to learning about bending a stem is my dual desire to become more proficient in repairing those that are damaged, of which this, no one would disagree, is a worthy challenge, and doing the job right. And so I set upon a course of action I will neither illustrate nor chronicle here except to say with all honesty the project was going, well – well – but it was just taking too frigging long. And yes, I admit, I somehow took a bad hole and made it worse. Due to the fact that I already had a buyer waiting, time was of the essence; I couldn’t afford to satisfy my own aesthetic sense of propriety in hoping to preserve the original bit when the buyer wasn’t concerned. Besides, I’m sure the right Comoy’s will happen along in good time.

RESTORATION

As I mentioned before, Bob started the process of reaming the chamber. To my initial touch it felt smoother than almost any pipe I had ever started restoring. Still, there was some cake in it, and a few bumps, all of which came clean with minimal additional turns of a reamer and sanding with 150- and 320- grit paper. Not having to touch the rim was a rare treat, although I have to add I always enjoy removing the burns. I used micromesh on the wood from 1500-4000 and cleaned up the shank opening with super fine steel wool.

By then I was ready for the retort. Six test tubes later, full of Everclear boiled up through a temporary saddle bit with the right sized push tenon – a personal record – I was finished.

I needed to find a replacement bit. Searching with a hot glow of intense zeal through the dozens of old pipes awaiting restorations, I began to think I would never find one that had a push-in tenon, was straight, the right length and with the appropriate bulldog triangle size (5/8″; the length was 2-7/8″). Suddenly, there it was: a Bertram Bulldog #50, with a double stamp, and no mark on the straight bit. I actually had imminent plans for that great pipe, but they could wait.

The tenon was just a tad too big, so I took about a sixteenth of an inch off of it with 150-grit sandpaper and sanitized and cleared out the old grime in the air hole with bristly cleaners soaked in Everclear. I still need to invest in a tenon cutter, as will become apparent. Once the tenon fit and I thought it was “finished,” the bit pushed all the way into the shank, but was canted upward. I tried to adjust this by filing the flat edge of the bit around the tenon, and after considerable work, my efforts seemed to have paid off. I gave the bit an OxiClean wash, rinsed it and micro-meshed from 1500-4000.

Following the instructions for the oven method of shaping in the blog mentioned earlier, I pre-heated gas stove to the low end of 200-220 degrees and assembled what I would need as suggested, except that all of it was improvised other than the oven: aluminum foil instead of a baking pan, a small jar of wood putty rather than a spice jar, two wash cloths in place of cooking mitts and of course the bit. As it turned out, I spaced that I had a few spices in my sparse cabinet, but the round putty glass did fine. Inserting a soft cleaner through the airway before heating to prevent collapse, I had the distinct sensation of butterflies in my stomach as I placed the foil and bit on the center rack of the hot even, closed the door and…waited. Five minutes. Not good enough. Another five. To my amazement, holding the bit carefully with the wash cloths at both ends over the rounded edge of the putty jar and pressing down with all the gentleness my rough hands could handle, I in fact saw the vulcanite bend! I’m here to tell you, I have never been so surprised and full of trepidation at the same time in my entire life! In a minute, the job was done, and I removed the cleaner and rinsed the bit with cold tap water.

And so, other than the facts that I had already blown it again by sanding the base of the tenon so far that the whole thing could snap at the least provocation, and upon closer inspection the bit did not, in fact, line up seamlessly with the shank, the entire exercise produced a wonderful looking bit (in and of itself) and was an excellent though time-intensive and frustrating lesson about the intricacies of replacing a bit – and one I’ll never forget.

As a good friend from junior high through high school used to say at such moments (or their school day equivalents), and often with a yawn, well, hell. Then again, he was always much less uptight than I. My true reaction was frustration verging on despair. But that’s where my mind like a steel trap always springs shut and saves me. And my skull is so thick it can take running headlong into a concrete utility post and being pistol-whipped. I’m not kidding. The first happened to me as a young boy fooling around during summer vacation, and the second seven years ago during an armed home invasion after I beat one of the three intruders unconscious with a club – and he had pretty well messed me up with my own baseball bat – and one of his buddies hit me from the side with the butt of his 9mm. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes through the stupid monster mask when I turned on him and he took a step back.

Once again, as is my habit, I digress. I was illustrating how my stubbornness and downright thick-headedness has often saved me. The way this process worked last Wednesday, while I sat and collected my wits at my tobacconist where Chuck gave me the bad news about the tenon, was by telling me to go online and order a replacement. I crossed the Internet from Albuquerque to Phoenix in an instant and found Pipe Makers Emporium. I have placed several orders there, but only once before for a vulcanite churchwarden stem that was $3.99 because I didn’t understand why smaller stems, such as the one I needed for the bulldog, were priced so much more – in this case, $17.50. Even when the package arrived swiftly yesterday and weighed a pound, according to my estimation and confirmation on the label, I still didn’t get it until I peeled open the envelope and found a pack of 20. Duh! The churchwardens are sold individually because they’re not needed as often. Sometimes the thickness of my head can get in the way.

Now, back to the Ehrlich sterling bulldog with the E on the bit that came with Bob’s generous gift. Remember that? I tried to make apparent how important it would become to this restoration, and it’s lucky I recalled it before the new bits came, both because I was eager to continue work on the Comoy’s and the uncut tenons on the 20 bits that came in the mail are about a half-inch wide. In this photo, I had already sanded the E off the bit and given it an OxiClean bath. By the way, when I showed Chuck my progress on the Christmas pipe with the re-worked Ehrlich stem as of yesterday, he said it was looking good. Then I let him have a gander at one of the new bits, and he gave me his best, widest grin.

“This is why you need to get yourself a cutter,” he said, turning serious and with emphasis on need.

“I know,” I replied. “My God! Look at that tenon! It would take me a month of sanding to get it down to fit this pipe!”

We both enjoyed a good laugh, and we needed one, for our separate reasons.

Here is the Ehrlich bit as it originally presented, minus the E, and after sanding and micro-meshing from 1500-4000.

Thinking I was done with most of the restoration of the pipe – and at a glance it did look good – I buffed the stem on the wheels with red and white Tripoli, as usual. I had, after the first hour of this job, already buffed the wood with white Tripoli as well as White Diamond and carnauba.

But then I took the “final” photos and saw at once that the bit did not line up with the shank when the top lines of each were even, in particular gaps all around and misalignment of the bottom line of the triangle. Well, hell.

And so I got into the kind of detail work I had never done with any pipe. I filed the edge of the bit where the tenon connects. I started a lengthy process of gently sanding away and re-micro-meshing areas of wood around the shank opening. As shown in the last photo above, the only part of the problem that could only be solved with serious sanding of the shank was along the top left line leading into the bit (as shown in this view). Then I used micromesh on the one heavily sanded area of the shank and bit all the way from 1500 to 12000.

I stained the small area of the shank still a bit lighter than before with Lincoln Medium Brown and flamed it before micro-meshing with 4000 and 6000. At this point, after about three weeks of work on the pipe, the lines of the bit matched those of the shank, but there was still a gap between the two – and although it was in fact bigger, it was perfect in terms of uniformity. I broke out the file one more time and with the utmost care took a layer off the edge of the bit around the tenon.

At last, a nice, flush match. I touched up the waxing with another coat of carnauba.

CONCLUSION
Well…first of all, I can report, without doubt, that I have never been happier to be done with a restoration. This one was as full of a restore as I have ever had occasion to do, and I am full of it (not in the sense that I think I did it perfectly, because if anything, it taught me how much more I really do have to learn, and the equipment and supplies needed). But I do find nowadays that many times when I ask one of my trusted guides a question, it is to confirm that which I already more or less suspect, as in an email I sent late last night to Steve about a saddle bit with two holes in the lip that I wished I could somehow remove the space between them to make the draw hole a typical slit opening and therefore easier to clean for whomever buys the pipe I chose for it. I had already bent the tenon to fit the mortise using the oven method described in this blog, and so knew two cleaners were required to fill the airway before heating, and that something must be up with that, but Steve promptly replied that the design is meant to be a twin-bore “bite-proof” bit. Then I recalled Chuck once telling me something along the same lines. And when I showed Chuck the Comoy’s Christmas 1983 bulldog with the initial Bertram’s bit I wasted on it, I knew in my heart that the analysis he would have for me, though unpleasant, was necessary to confirm.

This essay, therefore, was not meant so much to be the usual restoration or refurbish piece as it was, rather, a horror story of the calamities that can befall anyone who engages in the art of taking a damaged pipe and making it better with the myriad processes that might present themselves toward that end. I am, perhaps somewhat wickedly, always pleased to hear the anecdotes of masters such as Steve and Chuck, and countless contributors to this forum, who have shared some of their own truly Gothic tales of the grotesque in their encounters with real Frankenstein pipes. By good fortune, my account herein was only one of a bowl and shank in excellent shape that merely needed a single appendage added, with a relative minimum of minor surgery to realize it.

Now I can hardly contain my excitement at being able to attack all the bodiless heads and headless bodies, to use a metaphor, that have waited patiently (I guess that’s personification) for my late but kind attention.

Another dressed for the Prom… maybe the Prom King – Cheap Meer Given a New Look

6 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

In the box of pipes to experiment with and refurbish as I can I had the mate to the little meerschaum apple that I restored a few days ago. https://rebornpipes.com/2015/08/28/prom-night-dressing-up-a-cheap-meerschaum-apple/ This one is a Meerschaum billiard. It had the same plastic (nylon) stem (it is not acrylic – way too soft). It had been smoked about the same amount as the other one – in fact the detritus in the bowl was identical. The stem had a crack on the underside from the button forward about 1 ½ inches. The finish had some dings and scratches in the surface but was very redeemable. I thought since I had to restem it anyway I might as well make it a match to the apple.

I took the next close-up photo to show the fit of the stem to the shank and also the crack in the underside. The next series of photos show the brass band that I chose to put on this one to match the other. It is a pressure ferrule and I have used them a lot in the past as they make a great looking band. Sometimes I grind out the rings and other times I leave them as I did in this case. Note the different tenon set up on this stem. The other stem had been drill out and the shank had a Delrin insert to accommodate a push stem. This one has a stainless steel tube glued solidly in the shank of the pipe. I heated it and pulled it but I am not able to remove it so I decided to leave it alone.

To make the shank ready for the band I needed to sand it back the width of the band. I used 220 grit sandpaper and carefully worked it back evenly to make fitting the band simpler. My normal pressure fit method of pressing a band would need to be modified on this one because of the metal tenon locked in the shank. It would still work but just need modification. I heated the band with a lighter and then pressed in place a little bit at a time working my way around the tenon.

With the newly banded shank finished it was time to work on a new stem. I toyed with the idea of using the nylon one from the other pipe. It did not take me long to put that idea aside. I had a stem in my can of stems that would do the job – an old taper vulcanite with a very straight profile would look great on this meer billiard. I used the Dremel and sanding drum to take back the existing tenon and flatten it against the face. I forgot to take a photo of the stem to begin with so I stopped mid stream after I had removed about half of it to take the photo below. Once I had removed the tenon I needed to drill out the airway to accommodate the metal tenon. I would in essence make a reverse tenon set up on the stem. I started with a drill bit slightly larger than the airway and hand twisted the stem onto the bit. I have found this is far safer that using a power drill to do this finicky work. I worked my way up to a bit the same diameter as the tenon and hand turned the stem onto the bit. I put a piece of tape on the bit so I would know when to stop turning the stem. That marked the depth of the tenon. Once I got to that place the stem would push onto the tenon flush against the shank end in the band.

The next photo is an end view of the newly drilled airway. It is a little rough and will need to be sanded smooth to remove all of the scratches. I pushed the stem in place on the pipe to get an idea of the final look of the newly dressed prom king. The photos below show the stem before I did the final adjustments to the diameter and flow.

I liked the new look a lot. It had the same touch of class as the meerschaum apple does. It would come out looking pretty slick once it was finished. I sanded the diameter of the stem with the Dremel and sanding drum to take off a fraction so that it would sit flush in the band with no gap around the edges. I then hand sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to further fine tune the fit.

I sanded the newly fit stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to clean up the vulcanite and remove all of the scratches from the sanding drum and 220 grit sandpaper. I sanded it with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 4000-12000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads and then after the 12000 grit pad I let it dry before going to the buffer. I also sanded the bowl with the micromesh pads to polish the meerschaum.

I buffed bowl and stem with Blue Diamond and then gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff to raise a shine and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to put on the final touches. The finished pipe is shown below.

The next two close up photos show the detail of the stem. They also show the way the air hole has been opened to accommodate the metal tenon.

The final two photos show the two meers, dressed and ready to head out to the Prom. They look like royalty – maybe Prom King and Queen. Ah well so much for an old guys memory of things long past in the recesses of the high school years file.

Restoring a Dr. Grabow Westbrook 42

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Blog by Steve Laug

In a box of pipes I was gifted there was a pipe stamped WESTBROOK over Dr. Grabow on the left side of the shank. On the right side it is stamped Imported Briar over Adjustomatic over PAT. 2181833. I did some searching on the web and found that it was a shape number 42. I found plenty of photos of wire carved Westbrook 42s but only one of a smooth alongside of the wire carved. This pair was pictured on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum and belongs to Troy Wilburn. Mine is similar to the smooth one but the look of the stem is more of a true saddle like the wire carved one. The grain on it was beautiful under the peeling varnish finish. There was a lot of birdseye and swirls with some mixed flame and straight grain. There were small nicks on the left side near the rim and on the front edge of the rim. The stem was oxidized but otherwise clean. The internals were pretty clean. The bowl had some slight carbon build up. The stinger apparatus was missing but I have one thanks to Troy that will fit perfect.

I scrubbed the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the bubbled and peeling varnish or lacquer coating. It took some elbow grease but it came out pretty well. With that coat gone you can begin to see the grain on the sides, top and bottom of the bowl.

I wiped it down a final time with isopropyl alcohol and took the next photos to show the grain on this little beauty! It is a great piece of briar and what appeared to be fill were not but rather just chips of varnish that came off.

The front edge of the rim and the left side nicks would need to be sanded to smooth them out. The entire bowl would also need to be sanded with micromesh to remove the bits of varnish stuck on the briar and also smooth out some of the scratches in the briar. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to just a thin coating. I left a little on the sides and bottom of the bowl to protect the bowl. I cleaned out the bowl and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the grime.

I sanded the rim of the bowl and bowl sides with micromesh sanding pads. I smoothed out the damage on the front of the bowl and on the side. I also worked on the stem. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil in between each set of three pads. I cleaned the metal threaded tenon with steel wool and then added the spoon stinger in the tenon to make the pipe complete.

The oxidation on this one was tough to get off the stem. I took it to the buffer and use some Tripoli, White Diamond and then Blue Diamond and I finally beat it. I took it back to the work table and sanded it again with the last three grits of micromesh – 6000-12000 grit. I rubbed it down again with Obsidian Oil and then gave both the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown below.

Prom Night – Dressing up a Cheap Meerschaum Apple

5 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I was given a batch of pipes from a friend on one of the forums that he had lying around a long time. He was pretty certain that they were not worth much but he thought they might be fun for me to fiddle with. One of them was a meerschaum apple-shaped pipe with a plastic stem. The draw on it was awful, like sucking air through a coffee stirrer. The bowl had a few issues at first glance. There were some gouges in the meer on the sides of the bowl and the shank. There were some small cracks in the shank from the end forward near the top. There was a Delrin sleeve so these may or may not be a problem. The tenon itself was small and rough. The stem had some damage from what appeared to be melting at some point in its life. But it was barely smoked and there was something about it that caught my eye. I could see some promise in it so it would be worth the fiddle.

On the bottom of the exterior of the bowl there looked like there was a crack that ran for the length of the bowl. I examined it with a lens and it turned out to be a gouge in the surface of the meerschaum. It may be a crack but it did not go deep in the material so it was salvageable.

I took a close-up photo of top and inside of the bowl. You can see that it is barely smoked and the crack does not appear to go into the bowl. The plastic stem just bugged me. I could find nothing redeeming in the shape of it at all. The taper was wrong and it was pinched at the shank joint. The faux amber look of it was really fake looking. The material was very soft and I could scratch it with a fingernail.

Everything about the way the pipe looked when it arrived made me think it would be one that I would clean up, polish and turn around and get rid of. I probably would not sell it but would pass it on to someone wanting a meerschaum pipe. I cleaned the inside of the bowl with a cotton swab and water. I cleaned out the airway in the shank and stem with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol. I had finished the cleaning and had lightly sanded the bowl with 400 and 600 grit sandpaper to minimize the scratches and dings in it. I was done with the pipe and took it to the buffer to lightly polish the stem and bowl.

It has been a long time since a pipe got away from me when buffing but this one did. The Blue Diamond polishing wheel is a bit touchy and it grabbed the plastic stem and took the pipe out of my hand. It hit the tile floor right in front of the buffer and the stem snapped off at the shank. The tenon was stuck in the shank and the other end was glued in the stem. I was very fortunate as the pipe hit directly on the stem and not on the meer bowl or it might have been ruined. As it was it meant I had a good excuse to throw away the plastic stem and make a vulcanite one. I pulled the tenon out of the shank with a screw. It came out easily. I tried to pull the glued end out of the stem but putting in a screw and heating the screw but the glue held. I put the stem away and went on a hunt in my stem can for a suitable vulcanite stem for the pipe.

I found just the right donor stem. It was a bent round stem that came from an old-timer somewhere along the way. It was thick and the diameter was close to that of the shank. I took the tenon down with the Dremel and sanding drum and finish it by hand with sandpaper to make a snug fit in the Delrin sleeve in the shank. I used the Dremel and sanding drum to take off the excess diameter of the stem and then hand sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to make the shank and stem match. While I was working on it I examined the two small cracks in the shank. They bothered me. While they would not go anywhere as the Delrin sleeve was glued and held them together, they still bothered me. I used a small micro drill bit on the Dremel and put a hole in the end of both cracks on the shank. I put a drop of super glue in the holes to seal them. I then remembered that I had some brass plumbing pressure fittings that make interesting bands. I heated the brass with a lighter and pressed it onto the shank to cover the cracks and give the pipe a little more bling.

I finished shaping and fitting the stem and took the photos below to give an idea of what the pipe would look like when finished. The bend in the stem is a little too much at this point and I would need to take some of the bend out. The bowl looks good with the brass fitting and the stem length works with this bowl.

I was able to sand out the gouge on the bottom of the bowl and it looks smooth and fresh now. I will need to sand the entire bowl with micromesh to polish the meerschaum and give it a shine. I heated the stem with a heat gun to take out some of the bend. When the stem was flexible I pressed it against table surface with a towel to take out some of the bend. I cooled it with water to set the new bend. The second photo below shows the newly bent stem.

I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to take out the scratches and work on the oxidation that was deep in the edges of the button.

You can see in the photos above that the stem did not quite seat properly in the shank. I used a sharp knife to bevel the inner edge of the mortise so that the stem would sit properly against the shank. I sanded the bowl and shank with 3200-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads to minimize the scratches.

I wet sanded the stem and the tenon with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads and then rubbed them down with Obsidian Oil. I continued by dry sanding the stem with 3200-4000 grit micromesh pads and the giving it another coat of oil. I finished by sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. When it dried it was ready to buff.

I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond Plastic polish on the wheel and then gave the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I gave the bowl two coats of white beeswax and the buffed it as well. I buffed both with a clean flannel buff and then by hand with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.

A Straight Forward Rejuvenation on a Butz Choquin Calabash Churchwarden

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This pipe came to me from a friend who wanted me to sell it for him and give a donation to the SA Foundation’s work in Kathmandu, Nepal. Having just come home from there I thought it was time to work on this one. I have a buyer for it already so it is just a matter of cleaning it up and then sending it off. It is a Butz-Choquin Calabash Churchwarden and it is in pretty decent shape. It is stamped Butz-Choquin over Calabash on the left side of the shank and St Claude arched over France on the right side. The finish was quite nice and just had some build up and oils on the surface. The bowl had a thin cake that was running over the rim. The finish while dirty was in decent shape. The stem was stamped with the BC logo and was lightly oxidized. It would not take a lot of time or energy to clean up and get it ready for its new owner.

I scrubbed down the rim with saliva and cotton pads until it all came off and left the surface fresh. I gave the bowl a coat of carnauba wax and buffed it lightly by hand. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to a very thin coat (almost nothing) as it will give the new owner the opportunity to build his own cake.

I cleaned out the bowl and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove carbon from the wall of the bowl and the tars and oils that were trapped in the shank and airway. I also cleaned out the airway in the stem at the same time. I sanded the stem down with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil before progressing to dry sanding with 3200-4000 grit pads. I gave it another coat of oil and then finished with 6000-12,000 grit micromesh pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and let it dry.

Once it was absorbed into the vulcanite I buffed it with White Diamond and then Blue Diamond to polish it and remove any remaining oxidation. I gave it several coats of carnauba wax and then buffed with a clean flannel buff. I finished by hand buffing the pipe with a microfibre cloth to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. Tomorrow it will be mailed out to the new owner. I think he will enjoy this long stemmed pipe. It is truly a beauty.

Reviving a Savinelli Silver 806

5 Replies

Blog by Dave Gossett
My Army cousin stationed in Italy came to the states recently bearing gifts. He bought me 9 pipes at a swap meet in Vencenza – 5 Savinelli’s, 2 Brebbia’s, 1 Rossi, and 1 lesser known Italian briar. I’m a sucker for silver bands, long shanks, and Sav’s, so naturally this is the first one out of the batch I cleaned up.

This one had not been “smoked lightly” as the saying goes. The rim was beat up, the stummel had plenty of scratches, and the stem had a hefty chunk missing.

I started out by reaming and cleaning the airways. Then I topped the bowl and beveled it, and sanded the scratches from the exterior. After removing the damage from the stummel, I gave it a light alcohol scrub to remove the rest of the stain.

I gave it a dark contrast stain starting with Fiebings dark brown and a hint of oxblood, then after drying for 24 hours I sanded it to lighten it up and make the grain pop. A cloth dampened with alcohol can be used around the stampings to lighten the stain a bit without compromising the nomenclature.

Next up, the stem. I removed the oxidation and scored the area around the repair site. Patched up the missing vulcanite with CA and charcoal, then filed it down and wet sanded smooth, followed by a light run on the wheel with compound. I’ve already put a few bowls of Syrian Reserve through it since the pictures were taken. Great smoker. This one’s a keeper.

Breathing New Life into an LHS Sulgrave

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Blog by Steve Laug

I have become a fan of older LHS pipes and restored quite a few of them lately. I am always on the lookout for different LHS lines that I have not seen. Recently I picked up this LHS Sulgrave from a fellow on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum for $15. It is a line that I had not heard of before. He described it as a lightly smoked briar pipe. When I saw it I wanted it as it was my kind of shape. Never sure what to call this shape – bent banker, squat apple – not sure but I like it. He gave the following description in the sale listing. The shank is stamped Purex Sulgrave arched over LHS in a Diamond on the left side. The stem has two light coloured dots on the left side. The pipe is 5 1/8 inches long from the bottom of bowl to end of bit. The bowl chamber diameter is 7/8 inch and bowl depth is 1 1/4 inch. There is light caking in bowl. There is light tooth wear on end of the stem near the button. It has normal wear and tear (dings, oxidation and scratches) for an estate pipe. Nice overall shape and condition. Here are the photos that he included when I emailed him for details.

When the pipe arrived I was not disappointed. The shape was perfect. The description was accurate and the only variation that I could see was that the stamping did not include PUREX on the shank. Not a big deal in my book. The bowl was unevenly caked and appeared to have been reamed. The back side of the bowl had a thicker portion of cake that gave the inside wall on the back side an uneven and out of round look. I was pretty certain that with a good reaming and a light sanding the rim would look better. The stem was over bent and there was a slight crease on the underside of the bend. There was a coat of wax or some kind of coating on the stem and bowl. The stem was oxidized. In the first photo below you can see slight imperfection in the vulcanite stem. I have circled it to highlight it in the photo below. It is not a hole or worn spot, it is actually a thread of cord in the rubber. Its presence gives some idea of the date of manufacture as recycled rubber was used in WWII pipes.

The stem also had a lot of tooth dents and chatter along both top and bottom with some very deep marks on both. I tried to capture them in the next two close-up photos but they are still not very clear. The odd thing was that the dents went up the stem over an inch. The slot in the button was not centred and appeared to have left the factory that way. The dents were deep enough that I was concerned regarding the thinness of the stem surface over the airway. The mortise and airway in the shank were dirty and the end of the mortise was chipped away. It looked as if there had originally been a stinger in the tenon but it was no longer with the pipe.

I also have included the next close-up photo of the rim and the bowl interior to show the cake that gave the bowl an out of round appearance. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer using the largest cutting head. I took the cake back to bare wood to even out the inner edge of the bowl. I wanted to get rid of the cake so that I could smooth out the edge.

I folded a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out inner edge. It took a little effort remove the inner edge damage and clean up the roundness of the bowl.

I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the tars and the wax coat on the briar. With them removed the outer edge of the bowl showed damage as well. The bowl had been knocked about on the front edge particularly. The grain on this pipe was lovely.

To minimize the outer edge damage I topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board. I sanded it to remove the damage to the top of the bowl and clean up the outer edge of the bowl.

I cleaned out the shank and the bowl with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the grime inside. It took quite a few of both to clean out the shank but finally they came out clean. I heated the stem with a heat gun to try and lift some of the dents to the surface and to also take out some of the bend. I also wanted to smooth out the sharpness of the bend on the bottom side.

I cleaned out the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. The heat had raised most of the dents significantly. The ones that were left in the stem needed to be sanded out and then filled to take care of them. I used 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface. I also worked on the curve on the underside of the stem to make it less sharp looking.

The dents in the stem needed to be filled to bring the surface back to smooth flowing condition. I used a black super glue to fill the surface and set the stem aside to dry for several hours. Once dry, I sanded the fills with 220 grit sandpaper and then used a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to feather them into the surface of the stem.

I used a needle file to clean up and sharpen the edge of the button and give it more definition. I sanded the sharp edge with sandpaper and then sanded it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads and then let it dry after sanding with a 12,000 grit pad.

I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to polish and remove the slight remnants of oxidation that had come to the surface. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad. I brought it back to the table and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.

Dave’s Four Dot Sasieni

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Blog by Andrew Selking

I’ve been out of touch for the past few months, between moving, home renovation, and finding a new job my free time has been limited. Dave is sneaky though, he sent a picture of a pipe he bought and asked me if I thought I could fix it. Of course I said yes. Here is the pipe as it looked upon arrival. There is an obvious chunk missing from the button, but there is also a small crack on the other side of the stem. That was uglier than it looks.

I did my normal procedure of cleaning the inside of the pipe first. Dave was kind of worried about how the alcohol might affect the finish, so I used new alcohol and only left the bowl in for about 45 minutes. I soaked the stem in an Oxyclean bath.

The tar on the rim came right off after removal from the alcohol bath. Next I reamed the pipe using my Castleford reamer, used a brush on the inside of the shank, followed by a retort of the bowl. As I suspected the pipe was pretty clean.

Before dumping out the Oxyclean, I ran a pipe cleaner through the stem. It was not too dirty. I followed that by a retort and more pipe cleaners. That was the easy part, the fun was about to begin.

As you can see the missing chunk is a problem. The crack on the other side looked like it could keep going, so I drilled a hole to stop it. You might notice a slight micro crack to left of the main crack. Turns out there was a chunk of vulcanite hanging on like a loose tooth. Of course it came out very easily, leaving a stem that was missing most of the button on both sides.

The first thing I do when building a new stem is fit some rolled up wax paper inside the stem. I’ve found that the CA glue does not stick to it and it helps give shape to the inside of the stem. I use ground charcoal (which I purchased at the pet store and ran through a coffee grinder and sifter) and CA glue. I started by filling in the hole that I drilled to stop the crack. Once I had that filled in and sanded smooth, I started building up the stem below the button. I forgot to mention that I use CA accelerator throughout the process. I find that you can work the glue within 2 to 3 minutes instead of having to wait overnight.

Once the stem was repaired, I put layers of clear tape on the stem under the button to serve as a form for the glue. Once the tape was even with the button, I started adding CA glue and charcoal. I put a small amount of charcoal on the bottom of a plastic cup, add a drop or two of CA glue and mix it with a push pin. I use the push pin to add the material to the stem, followed by a few drops of accelerator. Once the material is built up, I start to sand and file it into shape. I use needle files and 400 grit sand paper. This gets me to the final step, which is addressing the micro pits.

I filled the micro pits with a mixture of CA and charcoal, but used much less charcoal than before. I used 400 grit sandpaper and needle files to get the final shape. I then used 1500-2400 grit micro mesh with water to smooth it all out. Since the bowl was in nice condition and I wanted to preserve the finish, I started polishing with 3200 grit micro mesh. I used a progression of 3200-12,000 grit micro mesh on both the bowl and the stem. Here is what it looked like once it was ready for the buffer.

I polished the stem using my rotary tool with a felt pad and white diamond, followed by carnauba wax. My rotary tool has variable speed and I use the lowest setting. I used white diamond and carnauba wax on the bowl with the buffing wheel. Here is what the pipe looked like when I finished. This is my second repair of this type. My ultimate goal is to do repairs that look like the original. Thanks for looking.

Rescuing a Kaywoodie Flame Grain Meerschaum Lined Doggie

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Blog by Andrew Selking

To paraphrase Samuel Clemmons, reports that I’m no longer messing with pipes are greatly exaggerated. Between a cross country move, a new house, renovations to said house, and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, I have not spent as much time working on pipes as I would like. I did manage to squeeze in this nice Kaywoodie Flame Grain Meerschaum lined doggie.

According to a Kaywoodie brochure from the era, Flame Grain pipes were made from “200 to 400 year-old briar burls…the last of their kind to be found in the world.” The meerschaum inlaid Flame Grain is a “superb Flame Grain Kaywoodie with an inlaid inner bowl of imported Turkish meerschaum. This pipe combines the outstanding qualities of the two best materials in the world in which to smoke tobacco.” This pipe represents the pinnacle of American pipe making. As a point of reference, in 1947 this pipe would sell for $12.50 while Dunhill pipes started at $10.00.

As you can see, it took some imagination to see a pipe that might compete with a Dunhill.

The stem was under-clocked and heavily oxidized. The bowl had very thick cake and a buildup of tar on the rim. There was some kind of protective finish on the bowl that left a film after the alcohol bath. Additionally, the stinger was cut. On the plus side, I could see some really nice grain and the stem was virtually unmolested.

The first thing I did was soak the bowl in alcohol. I was hesitant to do that, because I was afraid the alcohol would cause the meer lining to deteriorate. At the same time I was also worried that if I didn’t soften the cake first, just using the reamer might damage the lining as well. I compromised and soaked it for about two hours and the cake came out nicely.

While the bowl was soaking, I used Oxyclean and warm water to soak the stem. Since it was missing the end of the stinger, it was easy to get the worst of the gunk out with a pipe cleaner. As I mentioned, the stem was under-clocked. To fix this problem I usually heat the stinger with my heat gun until I can easily rotate back into place. As the tip of the stinger heats up it transfers heat into the stem and loosens the glue. The whole heat transfer thing wasn’t working very well with this pipe, so I stuck a small nail in the stinger. That worked like a charm.

Next I did a retort on the bowl and stem.

After scrubbing the insides with brushes, q-tips, and pipe cleaners, it was time to tackle the exterior issues. I used 0000 steel wool with acetone to remove the tar build up on the rim.

I continued with the 0000 steel wool over the rest of the bowl to remove the film on the finish. After cleaning the bowl, I used 3200-12000 grit micro mesh to polish the bowl. This is what it looked like afterwards.

I used 400 grit wet/dry with water to remove the oxidation from the stem, followed by 1800-2400 grit micro mesh with water. I finished the stem with a progression of 3200-12,000 grit micro mesh.

I set up my buffer and polished the bowl with white diamond and carnauba wax. I used my variable speed rotary tool with white diamond and carnauba wax for the stem. Here is the finished pipe. Thanks for looking.

Refurbishing a Dr. Grabow Westbrook 84L Smooth Canadian

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Blog by Troy Wilburn

I got this pipe in a trade. I was pleasantly surprised when it showed up it was an 84L and not a regular 84. The stampings are crisp. The rim did have some dings so I had to lightly top it and restain it. There are still some very light dings on pipe but I let them go as the factory finish and color was excellent. So I just cleaned and buffed it other than rim. The stem still has some teeth marks I could not get out fully. The old bowl cake came out easy and the shank was not that dirty and I’m glad because these Canadian shanks are a pain to clean lol. It has zero fills too, which on that much briar was a nice surprise. All and all I’m very happy with it.

Here is the pipe when it arrived.