Tag Archives: Bowl – refinishing

Rejuvenating an American Bentley Apple

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

“I don’t want to be pretty. I want to be better. I want to be perfect.”
― Kimber Henry (Kelly Carlson), in “Nip/Tuck,” Season 1, Ep. 1

INTRODUCTION
A nip and tuck is a minor plastic surgery procedure. “Nip/Tuck” (FX channel, 2003-2010) is a racy drama/dark comedy about the realities and sometimes horrors of the cosmetic surgery profession, with some truly grisly moments. Although this restoration involved only normal and accepted methods of pipe fixing, some of them resulted in drastic improvements of the U.S. Bentley apple that needed a full makeover. And so I flashed back on the bawdy TV series.

I bought the pipe on eBay for $6 when I tracked down its nomenclature that identified it as a Kaywoodie second. The seller, who is more into oddball collectibles than tobacco pipes and therefore knows nothing about the latter, had sold me a genuine white briar Kaywoodie 12B bulldog for $10.00, but then had the unfortunate duty to inform me he lost it somewhere in the clutter of his home. He promptly refunded my payment and assured me that both he and his wife would continue searching for the misplaced bulldog and forward it to me free of charge when it was located.

Why I chose to give this fellow a second chance is anyone’s guess, but it paid off. Both the Bentley and the full Kaywoodie white bulldog arrived soon after in the same package. Grateful for my business and true to his word, the seller charged me only for the Bentley. It just goes to show there are good folks everywhere, even some in Ohio who don’t enjoy or collect smoking pipes. Appreciating the excellent fortune I had in acquiring these two pipes for the normal shipping fee of one, I nevertheless suggested that the good gentleman in the Midwest begin checking the pipes he stumbled upon now and then at http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/index-en.html, or at least a browser search, before choosing such low prices. However, his response indicated he hadn’t a clue what I meant. Sadly, I had to let the urge to be helpful go, and look forward to taking advantage of his generosity more and more in the future.
When I opened the box in my car outside of my Post Office and saw the white briar bulldog first, I smiled as I turned it in my hands and concluded a little work would make it whole and vital once more. Then my attention turned to the Bentley, and I laughed hard enough to draw attention from the occupants of the car next to mine. The chamber was so full of built-up cake, in such a uniform circle leaving only a virtual pinpoint of space to load tobacco, that I ignored the other Postal customers and continued guffawing. So amused and excited was I by the challenge of restoring the Bentley, I had to resist the impulse to get out of my car and show it to the complete strangers next to me.

RESTORATION

This one was going to take some work, to be sure. The chamber – well, I needed to think about how even to start that. The rim, I knew, would be no problem. The bit was slightly off its mark when tightened. The old polish and stain was worn away in areas, in particular the sides. And of course, there were scratches everywhere. All in all, I was exhilarated.

Having decided to bore my way through the huge blockade of years of determined and, I must admit, evenly-executed accretion of chamber char in increments, I chose a 17mm fixed reamer and went at it. With just enough room at the top to insert the reamer – I was even grateful the single user of the pipe had somewhat obsessively filled it to the same exact point about an eighth of an inch below the rim – I slowly cranked away, emptying the carbon dust and checking the progress as I moved deeper. I used to document the height of the pile of carbon with each restoration, but I gave up on that long ago. Suffice it to say there would have been a small hill of it in this case. Just getting to the bottom took about a half-hour. Here are pictures of the halfway point and the first strike of gold at the bottom. I gave the bit, which was in pretty good shape, an OxiClean wash, for the most part to help clean out what had to be an ugly mess of ignored old saliva and tobacco juice. While the bath was doing its magic, I sanded off all of the old wax and stain using 500-grit paper and took off the rim char with super fine steel wool.

Removing the bit from the wash, I rinsed it and tried micromesh from 1500-4000, but there was still a small area on both sides of the lip end that needed more attention with 320-grit paper, then another progression of the micromesh.

I worked on the briar with a micromesh progression from 1500-4000, as usual, and it did the trick for most of the outer area. I also used 200-grit paper followed by 320 and 500 on the chamber to smooth it out.

Clearly, the sides and rim still had small scratches, and so I used 800 micromesh to remove those blemishes before working my way up the scale again.

The stem was off just a tad. I heated the tenon with my Bic, threw a small rag over it and used clamped the pliers down. I had to use all of my might to make it budge, but it was straight. Below are the before and after shots, which are barely different. After a pre-scrub of the shank with wire cleaners dipped in Everclear, which removed quite a bit of nasty old gunk, I retorted the pipe. Then I chose, after careful consideration of whether or not to let it go with the natural finish, to darken the wood just a little using Lincoln Medium Brown stain, which is lighter than the regular brown, and flamed it. A gentle rub with 4000 micromesh took off the char, and I rubbed it with a soft cotton cloth.

Time for the buffer wheels, I applied red and white Tripoli to the stem, using the clean wheel after each. I did the same to the wood, adding White Diamond and carnauba.

And this time I remembered not to over-do the sanding on the nomenclature.

CONCLUSION
Some say pride is a sin, but I am happy with the results. After all of that work, I’d love to keep this beautiful, elegant Bentley apple. But I’m going to have to sell her. Oh, well. My P.A.D. is so bad, I’m sure I’ll find something else to keep – like the Kaywoodie 12B bulldog.

Restoring a Dr. Grabow Viscount 39 Continental

6 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I was gifted this beautifully grained Grabow Viscount Shape 39 in a box of pipes that needed to be reconditioned and repaired. It was a shape that I had seen pictures of but I had never seen one in person. Holding it in hand led me to have a few questions regarding it. It is stamped on the left side of the shank Viscount over Dr. Grabow and on the right side 39 near the shank and then Imported Briar over Adjustomatic over Pat.2461905. I posted the questions and some photos of the pipe on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum as I have found the folks there to be extremely helpful and knowledgeable about all things Grabow.

Here are the questions:
1. Any idea on the dates of this one.
2. The rim top has ridges but I am not sure if they are scratches or original. They are in no particular pattern and the rest of the bowl is smooth. Did this shape have a rusticated rim?
3. Did it have the Grabow scoop stinger as it is missing in this one?
4. The Grabow spade on the stem is raised above the surface. Was this normal? I have not seen it before.

I concluded my questions with a short comment on the pipe. The briar is amazing – birdseye on the sides and cross grain on the front and back of the bowl.

The pipe needed some work as can be seen from the above questions. The stem was rough. It was oxidized and had been scraped clean with a knife or other tool and left ridges and scratches all over the stem. It gave it a striped look. The rim had a hatched rustic pattern on it and had probably fallen prey to the same knife wielding owner. The finish was actually quite good underneath the dirt and sticky spots that may have come from price tags on the bowl or labels. I was surprised that it did not have any lacquer or varnish coat over the briar. It was just stained briar and would be quite easy to clean up.

It was not long before I got a reply from Ted over on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum. He answered all of the questions that I had regarding this particular pipe and did them in reverse order. Here is his reply.

Yes, The grain is great. A fine example.

4) Spade on the stem has raised over time. It was flush when it left the factory. Even if it comes out (unlikely) it is a relatively easy fix. Joe and Ed have bunches of spades that they picked up off the factory floor.

3) It had the scoop (72B) cleaner. Unfortunately I don’t have any left. Someone will get you one.

2) Rim scratches weren’t there when it left the factory. Someone cleaned the top a little too vigorously.

1) This is fun…… The Continentals started in 1959/60 and their heyday was 1964-1966. Almost none were produced after 1967 because the sales just weren’t there. Shape stamped with a vulcanite stem makes me believe it was made in 66/67. I can’t speculate as to when it was sold… just made.

Here are some close up photos of the rim and the grain on this beautiful little pipe.

Troy Wilburn sent me some catalogue photos of the Continental Line. There are some unique and interesting shapes. I thought you might enjoy seeing the photos.

I did a light reaming of the bowl with a sharp pen knife being careful to keep it vertical and not damage the inner edge of the rim. I scrubbed the bowl, shank and stem airway with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. These metal mortise inserts collect a lot of “gunk” behind them and it takes some work to remove all of the debris and oils from the shank. I scrubbed down the exterior of the briar with isopropyl alcohol to remove the sticky areas and also the general grime that was built up on the bowl and shank.

I lightly sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and also a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to loosen the oxidation. Then I dropped it in a bath of warm Oxy Clean to soften and bring the oxidation to the surface.

While the stem soaked I worked on the scratches and hatch work on the rim surface. It was not only dirty but it looked like someone had scraped off the tars with a knife and left a rough hatch pattern all over the surface of the rim. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches and smooth it out once again. I then sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to reduce the scratches left behind by the sandpaper.

I sanded the rim down with micromesh pads, wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and then dry sanding with 3200-4000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with alcohol once more to remove the dust and sanding grit.

Troy mentioned that these older Continentals were not stained but general just had a light oil coat on the natural briar. It appeared that this was true on this old pipe but the patina that had developed over the years since 1966-67 had darkened the briar. I used a medium brown stain pen to touch up the rim as it matched the patina exactly. I took the stem out of the bath and dried it off with a coarse cotton cloth. The oxidation was greatly reduced and the stem was ready to work on.

I put a plastic washer between the stem and the shank and sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and the sanding sponges to remove the hard to get oxidation at that point. I took the stem off again and finished sanding with the sandpaper and sanding sponges. Then it was time to work on the polish of the stem. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and repeated the oil. I finished with 6000-12000 grit pads, gave the stem a final coat of oil and when it dried buffed the stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel.

I gave the entire pipe a light buff with Blue Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. I took it back to the work table and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to bring out a deeper shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It turned out to be a beautiful piece of briar and a unique looking pipe. The old briar is rich with colour and warmth.

I want to thank the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum and Ted of that Forum for their help on this pipe. I also want to thank Troy for the catalogue pages and for sending me the spoon stinger to insert to completely finish the restoration of the Continental. Thanks for looking.

The Pipe of the Baskerville

Crafting another Frankenpipe – one plus one equals three

7 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I have wanted to do some more experimenting and learning new ways of doing things for a while now. That is why I love refurbishing, there is always something new to learn. I was sent some pipes as a gift to either scrap out or clean up. In this lot was an Israeli Anderson freehand pipe. The bowl had been cut off and what was left was not much different from a Falcon base. There was no way it would hold any tobacco that would even make it worth smoking and it was in pretty rough shape. The stem was great the base was solid but the finish was done. I also had a pipe that I had cut the shank off of and repurpose on another project so the bowl was left. It had a lot of large fills on the side that were full of pink putty. I thought maybe with a little imagination I could join the two parts together and get a workable pipe. Let’s see what I can do with the parts.

I don’t have a table saw or a band saw so any kind of cutting briar needs to be done by hand. In this case I used a hacksaw to cut the bottom of the bowl off so that I could splice the bowl and the base together. I figured it would work and I might get a half way decent pipe out of the blend.

I used a small drill bit to place six small holes around the base and the bowl. I stabilized the small cracks with wood glue and briar dust. I planned on putting a bowl coating on the interior so I was not too concerned with the walls of the base. I had some small stainless steel pins that I had found that would work well to join the two parts together. I inserted the pins in the holes in the base and glued them in place. When the glue had set I put glue on the top of the base and the bottom of the bowl portion and set it on the pins as well.

I pressed the bowl onto the pins in the base until the two surfaces connected. I clamped it in place until the glue dried. Once it was dry I put a ring of super glue around the joint on the two and pressed briar dust into the remaining crevices in the joint.

I used a Dremel and sanding drum to remove the excess briar on the front of the base and bring it into alignment with the bowl. I did the same on the sides and back of the bowl.

I sanded the bowl and base union with a medium grit emery paper and then with 180 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface of the two parts and to work on making the junction smooth between the two. I followed that by sanding it with 220 grit sandpaper to further smooth out the walls of the new pipe. The photos below show the new “Stack” that had been fashioned from the two parts – one plus one did in this case render a third.

I sanded the exterior of the bowl and base with a coarse grit sanding block and then with a medium grit block. The photos below show the state of the bowl after much sanding with the blocks. The surface of the bowl and base junction is smooth to touch. The large fills on the side of the bowl and the dark ring of the glue and briar dust patch around the middle were going to take some work to make them “disappear”.

I sanded the bowl with a fine grit sanding sponge to further smooth things out while I decide on how to proceed next with the finish on the bowl.

The internal junction of the bowl and base needed some work as well. The bowl I had used was slightly conical on the base so the internal walls came in at an angle. The base walls were straight. I needed to sand the joint from the inside to smooth out the junction. I used the Dremel and the sanding drum to smooth out the junction. I proceeded slowly and carefully and was able to smooth out the walls. The photo below shows the inside of the bowl after the first work over with the Dremel and sanding drum. More needs to be done but you can see the progress. When I got back from the office I decided to rusticate the new bowl with the same tree bark rustication pattern that the Anderson Freehand had. I used a pointed dental burr with striations through the shape of the cone. I held it like a pencil and worked on the surface of the briar. I followed the pattern on the lower portion of the pipe and worked to match it and continue it to the top of the rim.

As I got closer to the top of the bowl I wrapped the edge with several layers of cellophane tape and folded it over the rim as well. I continued to use the burr until I had carried the pattern all the way to the edge of the tape. The original bowl also had some smooth spots in the midst of the rustication. These looked like the ends of cut off branches. I put several of them on the sides of the new bowl as well to match the lower portion.

The next two photos show the conical burr that I used for the rustication pattern.

To highlight the barklike nature of the rustication I used a black Sharpie permanent marker to colour in the trails in the briar.

I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on a cotton pad to even out the black and to set it in the bottoms of the lines.

I stained over the black marker with a dark brown thinned 50% with alcohol. I applied the stain and then flamed it. I repeated the process until the coverage was even.

I then gave the bowl a coat of oxblood stain thinned 50/50 with alcohol and set it on the cork stand to dry.

To protect the newly sanded bowl and the joint between the bowl and the base until a cake had a chance to form I mixed a batch of organic bowl coating that I have used for years. It sounds like it would smell and make things a mess but it does not. I use sour cream and activated charcoal powder. I put a dollop of sour cream in a bowl and empty the contents of three or more charcoal capsules into the sour cream. I mix it until it is a grey pasted. At this point there is very little smell to the mixture.

I painted the inside of the bowl walls and bottom with a folded pipe cleaner. I want to give the bowl a coating on all sides. I insert a pipe cleaner in the airway so I do not get the mixture in the airway. I put on the coating in several layers letting the one underneath get a little set. I paid special attention to the area around the junction of the two parts. I set the bowl aside to dry. When it dries the coating will be a charcoal black colour and provide a base for the formation of the cake. While it dried I worked on the stem. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then moved on to sanding with micromesh pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads, rubbed it down with oil again and then dry sanded with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and when it dried I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond.

I lightly buffed the stem and the bowl with carnauba – spending more time on the stem than on the bowl. I then took it back to the work table and hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to raise the shine. I did not want too much of a shine as I think the matte finish looks good on the tree bark rustication. The finished pipe is shown below. Once the bowl coating has dried for several days it will be ready to smoke. I am still mulling over what I will pack it with for the inaugural smoke. Thanks for looking.

Preserving Two LHS Advertising Pokers

12 Replies

Blog by Troy Wilburn
Troy originally posted this to the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forums. You can read the original post and the responses to his work at the following link: http://drgrabows.myfreeforum.org/sutra129300.php#129300

I picked up both of these rare early 20th Century (I would guess just after WW1 to mid-20’s) LHS pokers made for companies to advertise their services and goods. I imagine few of these survived as they were given away to the public and most likely company employees. They were smoked until they were worn out or broken and then thrown away.

The first poker model is one that I have seen before on an old post from 2010 on Tamp and Puff (http://tampandpuff.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1119). I have drooled over that for a couple of years now hoping to find one and I did . Mine is not as nice as that one but happy to have it just the same. I have not found any more pictures of or posting of another before or since. When this one came on EBay I knew I had to have it. Luckily there wasn’t much interest because of the way the seller posted it.

The first poker is marked Warner Sand Gravel Lime Products Est 1794. The shank is stamped Italian Briar (mine is double stamped) with LHS logo.

More pics of the pipe as it arrived to me. Worst condition problems of pipe were bad tooth marks on the stem and shank’s stampings are worn. It was also really greasy and dirty but not caked up and in otherwise good shape with no major damage.

It’s missing its unique stinger that luckily was still in the other poker I acquired. With the rarity of the pipe I decided to preserve what I had and do little more than just a good cleaning. The pipe really had a lot of grime and greasy feel. I gave it a good cleaning inside and out and removed most of the rim scorching with Oxy Clean and Scotch Brite pad. It could have used a slight topping but I decided not to as I’m preserving the pipe not restoring it. Plus I was afraid it would mess up the symmetry of the pipe rim design. I also gave the rest of the bowl several scrubbings with mild detergent and a soft bristle tooth brush. Wiping it down after with paper towels till the paper towels wiped clean afterwards.

I gave the stem a good scrubbing as well Oxy Clean and water as I dipped the end of the tenon in alcohol to test it and it acted like it would melt the rubber. After cleaning I dipped the button end of stem in very hot water to raise the tooth marks best I could. I then filed the stem to get rid of almost all the tooth marks without compromising the structure of it. After wet sanding stem to sand out file marks I sanded rim and stem with 2500 grit and mineral oil and wiped rest of pipe down with mineral oil as well. After some light buffing and wax.

The second Poker is marked Bird Archer Co. NY. It’s a company that sold chemicals that was used in water for steam locomotives. They were in business from around start of 20th century till end of WW2. Shank stamped same as other – Italian Briar over LHS logo.

This one has the unique stinger. I can tell you it made cleaning the shank and stem a breeze as most all the tar was in the stinger. It runs from the bottom of the bowl to about center of the stem. The pipe pretty much got the same cleaning treatment as the above pipe with less work on the stem as there were not bad tooth marks. When I buffed the pipe I did not use the buffer on the embossed stampings but instead hand buffed to avoid causing any damage to them. Finished Bird Archer pipe.

I had been looking for an all original LHS poker for a long time and to find both of these original ones at once was very lucky.

NEPAL PROJECT PIPE SALE 15 – From Ugly Toad to Handsome Prince. Converting an Ehrlich Special Grain Stack into a Beautiful Billiard

Bringing New Life to a Gift Pipe – a Gasparini MGM Elegante Brandy

6 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

A few evenings ago my friend John stopped by to drop off some pipes for repair and to visit. We loaded up our pipes and sat on my porch while we chatted. He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and said it was a gift to me. It was a nice Brandy shaped pipe that was stamped Gasparini MGM on the left side of the shank and Elegante on the right side. On the underside it is stamped Briar 1912 and Italy. John had purchased the pipe and smoked it for awhile. He wanted to pass it on to me. I am honoured to have received his gift. Being an obsessive refurbisher I decided to clean it up and make a few modifications that I thought would make it look even better. I don’t know why I think like that but it is what goes through my eye every time I look at a pipe. It is like a small voice says, “hmmmm I could change that and tweak that and…. When I am done it will be better. Sometimes that voice gets me into trouble and sometimes it works. When John gave me the pipe these are some of the things that I saw. The bend in the stem was too sharp of an angle. It needed to be gentler in its curve. The rim was slightly out of round and the inner edge was damaged on the back right side and the right front it had some nicks in the edge. The stain on the rim had worn off and it no long had a shine. It did not match the rest of the bowl. There was a thick urethane finish on the bowl. Other than those few small things it was a nice looking pipe. It had a lot of promise. I really liked the contrast stain on it and the mix of birdseye grain and cross grain.

I decided to address the rim damage first. It would not take long and a light topping of the bowl would take care of the damage. I set up the topping board and some 220 grit sandpaper to do the job. I twisted the bowl against the sandpaper and removed the damaged part of the rim. It did not take long and the rim was flat and looked clean.

I sanded the newly topped bowl with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then with 1500-2400 micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratches from the briar. I coloured the top with a black permanent marker to get the black undertones, wiped it down with acetone and then used two different stain pens – a medium and a dark brown – to match the bowl colour. With the bowl cleaned, repaired and restained I set it aside to work on the stem. I would buff the whole pipe once I finished the stem work. I set up the heat gun and straightened the bend in the stem first. Once it was straight I would then heat it a bit more and bend it over a rolling pin to get a gentle curve.

I put the newly bent stem into the shank and took a few photos to see the new look of the pipe.

With the bend done it was time to polish the stem. Even with the stem held 6 inches above the heat gun there was some slight bubbling in the surface of the Lucite. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the bubbling and smooth out the surface of the stem. Once the bubbling and rippling were removed I went on to polish the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and then dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads to return it to its original shine.

I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish on the buffer and then gave them both a few coats of wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff and then with a microfibre cloth to raise a good shine. I was unable to permeate the urethane finish and since it was in decent shape I left it alone. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is cleaned and ready to be loaded and smoked. I hope to do that later today. Thanks for the “new pipe” John. I know I am going to really like this one.

Replacing a Broken Tenon & Doing a Simple Restoration on a Unique Bjarne Danish Handmade Egg

2 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I found this interestingly shape pipe in an antique mall in Idaho Falls. I was attracted to the egg shape, the hanging bottom and the rectangular shank and saddle stem before I even knew who had made it. I was pretty sure that it was a Danish made pipe but did not know who had made it. When the clerk took it out of the display case I saw that it was priced at $15 US – not a bad price these days for estate pipes. I turned it over in my hands and could see that it was well made and barely smoked. The bottom of the bowl still showed unseasoned briar. The stem was oxidized but free of tooth marks and tooth damage. The finish was in decent shape other than some sticky spots where the person selling it had put price tags. On the bottom of the shank it is stamped BJARNE over Handmade in Denmark. That is the only stamping on the shank. It is the pipe circled in the photos below.

I was excited by this find. I liked the shape and the cleanup would be simple. I purchased it and took it back to my mom and dad’s place. But then the something happened that I have come to dread. I was carrying the bag across their parlour when the bottom fell out of the bag and the pipe bounced off the tile floor. There was a sharp crack and the stem had disappeared. I found it hidden in the pattern of the carpet about three feet from the bowl. I was sick to my stomach. The tenon had snapped off evenly in the shank. The stem and the bowl were undamaged otherwise. This meant that what was originally a simple restoration would now be a bit more complicated. I would need to replace either the tenon or the stem. I took some photos of the bowl when I brought it to my work table. The briar was beautiful and not a flaw in the grain on the bowl itself. There was one small sand pit on the bottom side of the shank but it had only darkened from handling and was not that big a deal. The rim had some darkening and burn marks on the top near the back, the right side and the right front. These would have to be dealt with.

I used my tried and true method for pulling broken tenons. I twisted a drywall screw with wide threads by hand into the airway on the tenon. When it bit, I wiggled the tenon free of the shank. It did not take much to pull it out. If it had I would have put the bowl in the freezer for a half hour and repeated the process. I faced the stem on my topping board to knock off the remnants of the broken tenon and then twisted the stem onto a drill bit slightly larger than the airway in the stem. I don’t use the power feature on the drill as I would rather turn the stem onto the bit by hand. This is critical when working on short saddle stems where it is very easy to over drill the airway and ruin the stem. When I had the airway open for a new tenon I improvised by using a junk stem I had in my can of stems. I pressed the tenon on the thin stem into the freshly drilled airway on the stem. The fit was snug and the once I cut back the donor stem I would have a new vulcanite tenon. I glued the new tenon in place with super glue and pressed it until it set. The next three photos give an idea of how the new tenon and the donor stem fit in the stem as a replacement tenon. I cut off the stem with a hacksaw. In this case, after measuring the depth of the mortise I knew I could cut of the tenon portion of the donor stem and be left with a tenon the right length for the pipe. I turned the diameter of the new tenon down with a sanding drum on my Dremel until it was close to fitting and then finished the fit by hand with 220 grit sandpaper.

As often happens with a new tenon I had to do a little fine tuning on the shank – not much really but a slight removal of briar on the left side and a little vulcanite on the left. I probably could have left it but I am picky so I sanded it lightly until the transition was smooth. I wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the mottled finish and the glue that was on the shank and the bowl from the price tags.

I examined the burns on the rim and to repair/remove them the bowl would have to be lightly topped. I used the topping board and 220 grit sandpaper to take off most of the burn marks and minimize the damage.

I sanded the rim with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge and then wiped the bowl down with a cotton pad to remove the sanding dust.

I restained the sanded areas on the shank and the rim with a stain touch up pen using the lightest colour stain. I was able to match the colour of the bowl and not have to restain the whole pipe.

I gave the bowl a quick buff with a coarse cotton rag to blend in the stained areas with the rest of the bowl and feather in the new stain.

I took the stem off and cleaned out the shank and the stem. It was a pretty clean pipe which lent proof to my earlier assumption of the pipe being lightly smoked. With the tenon replaced, the bowl stained and looking fresh all that remained was to remove the oxidation on the stem. I lightly sanded the stem with medium and fine grit sanding sponges and then went on to sand it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I “painted” over the saddle area and the edge of the button with the flame from a Bic lighter to remove the oxidation. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads, rubbed it down with oil once again and then sanded it with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final rubdown with Obsidian Oil.

Once the oil dried I buffed the stem and the 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. I then used the new addition to my order of things, learned from Dave Gossett and hand buffed the bowl and stem with a microfibre cloth to take the shine to the next level. The finished pipe is shown below. The fit of the stem makes the repair look like it came that way. The final photos of the stem and tenon show how the new tenon looks when it was completed. I am sure glad that the broken tenon did not ruin this old pipe and that once the new tenon was replaced the restoration was quite simple. This pipe should serve me well for years to come. Thanks for looking.

Repairing and Restemming a York (KBB) Diamond Shank Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I was traveling in Idaho my brother and I took the family for a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. On the way we stopped in a little town called Victor, Idaho. There was an antique shop there in the town and I found four more old pipes. The first of these reminded me of an old WDC Diamond shank billiard that I have. This one was stamped YORK on the left side of the shank and from research it may have been made by KBB. It was in rough shape. The shank had been cracked and repaired with glue and a piece of twisted wire. The stem obviously had a broken tenon and the previous owner had carved it down to fit in the shank anyway. The bowl had a thick cake and the finish was gone. The rim was damaged on the front outer edge and there was some tar on the rim.

On the right side of the bowl near the shank junction there was a pink putty fill that was coming out. Most of the putty had fallen out of the briar. This would need to be repaired. When I got back home I took the pipe out of the bag to have a look. The silver end cap had some hallmarks but they were the faux hallmarks that I have found on older American made pipes to give them a touch of class. All four edges of the band were split. I removed the stem and looked inside the mortise and could see that a major part of the briar was missing on the right side of the shank under the cap. With little effort I removed the cap and sure enough a huge chunk was missing out of the briar. In fact the whole right side under the cap was gone. There was a small crack that had been repaired earlier. There was a small hole in the shank to stop the crack and the crack was glued and clamped with the wire. This was going to take a bit of work to bring it back from the brink of destruction. I clipped the wire with a pair of wire cutters so that I could work on repairing the broken portion of the shank. This repair would take some careful and time consuming work to rebuild the missing portion of briar. I reamed the bowl to clean out the thick cake. It was crumbling so I wanted it removed so that the repair of the shank would be less dirty. I use a PipNet reamer to take the cake back to the bare briar.

The first step in rebuilding the broken area was to clean up the damaged ends of the remaining briar. Once it was clean I put clear super glue on the raw edge of the broken spot and tamped the end into some briar dust. I repeated the process until the edge was repaired as much as possible with this method.

During the process I also picked out the broken putty fill and replaced it with briar dust and super glue. I sanded the flat surface of each of the four sides of the diamond shank smooth with 220 grit sandpaper until the cap slid easily over the shank. I also faced the end of the shank on the topping board.

The next step in the process of rebuilding the shank and the mortise was a little more difficult than the briar dust and super glue rebuild. It involved working on the internals of the shank. I glued the end cap in place with wood glue and clamped it in place to take care of small splits in the edges of the metal cap. Once that dried and set, I mixed white wood glue with briar dust to make putty. I tamped the mixture into the remaining areas of the shank with a dental pick and dental spatula until the area was filled solid looking once again. The next two photos show the rough repair on the inside of the mortise and shank. The broken area is gone! The holes are filled in and the repair is complete. Once the glue set I would have to clean up the mortise and make the walls smooth. The edges of the metal cap, looking at it from the end are damaged and I will not be able to repair them.

While the shank repair cured I worked on the rim. There was a thick tar build up that was like rock on the back edge and the front edge of the rim had been knocked against something hard and was rough. I decided to top the bowl to remove the rock hard tar and also minimize the damage to the front of the bowl. I used a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper and worked the rim against the sandpaper until the damage was minimized. Once I had it smoothed out I put some briar dust and super glue on the remaining divot on the front edge of the bowl as a fill. When it dried I sanded it smooth and lightly topped the rim once more to even out the repair with the rest of the rim. (That picture will be shown shortly.) The stem that came with the bowl was damaged beyond repair. It had been repeatedly been cut off by the previous owner and hacked at until it fit in the damaged tenon. It was not a stem I would use again on this pipe. I went through my can of stems and found a faux p-lip stem – the airway came out the end of the button rather than on the top. It was old enough to work on this pipe and with some modification I thought it would look just right. The problem was that it did not have a tenon. When I found it the tenon was missing and the end of the stem had been drilled out to receive a replacement tenon. I am currently out of Delrin tenons so I used a thin vulcanite stem as the sacrificial tenon. I glued the tenon on the donor stem in place in the diamond shaped stem with super glue and then cut off the stem with a hacksaw. I left a piece of vulcanite that was longer than necessary so that I could work it to a proper fit in the repaired shank.

The next photo shows the repaired stem and tenon and the topped bowl before I put the two parts together. I used a Dremel to remove the excess material on the new tenon and shortened it to the depth of the mortise in the shank. The next photo shows the repaired fill on the bowl side with another photo of the new stem. Once the shank repair was dry I used a needle file to clean up the rough areas and smooth out the inside of the mortise. I gave it several more coats of glue and briar dust to buildup the areas that had shrunk as the glue dried. I continued to work it with the files and sandpaper until the fit was correct. I cleaned out the airway to the bowl and the inside of the mortise with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners in preparation for putting the new stem in place. The next two photos show the newly fit stem. There was still work to do to fine tune the flow of the diamond stem sides to match the flow of the diamond shank but the look is clear at this point in the process.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to fine tune the fit. When I had it the way I wanted, it was time to bend the stem. I used my heat gun to do the work. In this case I quickly set it up on the dryer in our laundry room (shh don’t tell my wife I did this) and heated the stem. I bent it over an old rolling pin that I use for this purpose until the bend in the stem matched the curve of the bottom of the bowl. I set the bend by holding the stem under cool running water.

The next two photos show the newly bent stem and give an idea of how it will look with the pipe once it is finished.

With the easiest part of fitting a stem completed I went on to do the laborious and tedious part of sanding and more sanding to get the fit just right. To do this without rounding the edges of the stem at the shank stem junction I use a plastic washer placed between the two areas. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the transition and make the angles square (or at least as square as possible on these old pipes where every side has a different angle and width). When I had the fit of the stem correct it was time to polish it. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I needed a break from the stem work so I turned my attention to the bowl. I rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil to highlight the grain. I took a few photos to show what it looked like at this point. It is certainly looking far different than it did when I started working on it. There is a deep richness in the red tones of the briar.

I decided to highlight those tones with a dark brown aniline stain thinned by 50% with some isopropyl alcohol. I applied it and flamed it to set it in the grain. I hand buffed it with a cotton cloth to get an idea of the coverage. It was still too dark to my liking so I would need to address that.

I wiped the bowl down with some acetone on a cotton pad to remove some of the stain and make the grain show through better.

I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it the first of many coats of carnauba. I don’t know about you but by this point in a long refurbishment I get a bit anxious to see what I have accomplished. It always seems that it is going to go on forever so I rewarded myself by putting the stem in place and taking a few photos to see what I had achieved.

For comparison purposes I took the next two photos of the pipe with the old stem next to the new one. You can see how badly hacked the vulcanite was from the previous owners salvage work on his broken pipe. The pipe is beginning to look like a very different pipe than when I started. That always encourages me!

Now it was time to finish up with this long project and get the stem done. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil once again. I then dry sanded it with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of oil and let it soak into the vulcanite.

I buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond and then gave them both multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed them with a clean soft flannel buff to raise the shine and then hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to finish. The completed pipe is shown below. It has come a long way from the pipe I started on this morning. I had a quiet day at home and between reading and napping finished the work on this old timer. From what I can find out in my research and from Who Made That Pipe, the pipe may well be from the old KBB pipe works. Thanks for looking.

Take a Sad Pipe and Make It Better

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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

“Only when you eat a lemon do you appreciate what sugar is.”
― Ukrainian proverb]

INTRODUCTION
The Beatles sang the idea more perfectly, to take the same liberty with the English language as Thomas Jefferson when beginning to pen the U.S. Constitution, and I’m not looking to start a revolution or create an international incident or any other uproar by saying that all Ukrainian pipes are lemons. My personal experiences have both been with the Veresk Company in Kiev, now the capitol city of the Republic of Ukraine. Before the fall of the former Soviet Union, the Veresk Cooperative factory was the only official outlet for tobacco pipes throughout the USSR. On the other hand, the following work of briar art was created by Ukrainian pipe crafter Konstantin Shekita, who made his start at Veresk. The Cooperative made all of its pipes during the Soviet days from fruit woods including cherry, pear, peach and apricot. After the collapse of the entire Soviet empire, brought about as an unforeseen consequence of Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempt to ease economic hardship for the common Russian with perestroika (rebuilding, reorganization) and to remove the iron-clad clamp on discussion of economic and political realities employing glasnost (openness), Veresk became a company and started to use briar imported from Tuscany, Italy. Although the fruit woods are still sometimes substituted, briar is now the preferred wood. This Golden Gate billiard, which with help from my mentor, Chuck, was determined to be pear wood, was probably made before the end of the Cold War.

On occasion, I find myself having to track down information on a given odd pipe every way I can: Internet engines using multiple query terms, emailing or calling friends, posting threads on various forums – even some Deep Web methods. Having a background as a newspaper reporter, I then try to verify the first source as well as I can. By and large, however, the first place I check is Pipephil, at http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/index-en.html. If that site has nothing on a pipe I have bought and/or restored, then I know I’m in for some real work. The contributions of Pipephil as a database trove of information on pipe brands, history, dating and other useful details is, for the most part, invaluable and irrefutable.

For example, about a week ago I saw a Kaywoodie Super Grain Lovat advertised as pre-1930s. Checking Pipephil, I learned that although that dating was not quite accurate, the placing of the Super Grain stamp above Kaywoodie and a four-digit shape number – in this case 5190 – dated the pipe to between 1931 and 1938. The inclusion of Imported Briar, introduced in 1935, narrowed the pipe’s manufacture to within three years during the latter part of the Great Depression. Lucky that no one else seemed to see these details, I won the very old but pristine Lovat for $32.50 with S&H.

At about the same time, seeing the Golden Gate advertised on eBay as “Wooden Smoking Estate Pipe,” I was able to make my decision to buy it based on the GG I spotted on the bit, which Pipephil, with its amazing logo-finding resources, identified with certainty as a Ukrainian brand with the unlikely name Golden Gate. I was also warned that I was liable to receive a pipe made with very alternative wood, meaning something from a fruit tree. For $10 Buy Now with no S&H, I didn’t care. P.A.D., I embrace thee! There are so many worse things on which to spend one’s money.

However, in its entry on the Golden Gate brand, Pipephil gives the translation of Veresk as briar. I have been unable to determine from which language this assertion is drawn. The Russian word for briar, шиповник, transliterates to shipovnik (ship-ŌV-nee-yik), and the Ukrainian шипшина is shypshnya (SHIP-shnee-uh). The best references to Veresk in regard to Russian I can find are a sub machine gun known to players as the SR 2M Veresk, used in a computer role playing game (RPG) called Alliance of Valiant Arms [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9BFocl97_Y], and a surname most common in Russia [http://forebears.io/surnames/veresk]. Hence I suspect Pipephil has this tidbit wrong, and Veresk is in fact derived from the last name of some Party-loyal old Comrade. I emailed Pipephil the details above and asked if perhaps Veresk is briar in another language or dialect. I’m hoping for a response.

RESTORATION I snapped this first photo to add to my private collection, as I do all of my new and unused pipes that need no restoration, before I realized the peculiar stain probably hid something, such as a fruit wood that Pipephil identified as the most common type used by Veresk, whatever the company’s name means. Here is the Golden Gate after I stripped the old stain with an Everclear soak and then used super fine steel wool to begin the process of smoothing the assaulted pear wood’s skin, so to say.

I’m no expert on woods, but this does most resemble pear to me, after comparing all of the possibilities. Any knowledgeable wood-workers who might read this, please feel free to correct me

I tried a couple of fills of favorite tobacco blends before beginning the restoration, and enjoyed them, and after the Everclear soak, I was sure the pipe needed no retort. In hindsight, it occurs to me that I should have taken a close-up of the chamber before soaking the wood in alcohol and then using my reamer and sandpaper to remove the unusual coating that came in it as the billiard arrived in the mail.

Researching that general subtopic of pipe knowledge after my instincts already led me to eradicate the harsh-feeling stuff, I was horrified and reached the conclusion that the somewhat sharp and definitely alien material used to coat the chambers of both Veresk pipes I have purchased was the so-called “waterglass.” This attractive sounding term is a euphemism for sodium metasilicate (Na2O3Si), a highly toxic chemical compound that is “[i}rritating & caustic to skin, mucous membranes. If swallowed causes vomiting & diarrhea.” Then there are the serious consequences of absorbing or ingesting this diabolical method of coating the chamber of a pipe that, when lit, cannot help delivering its sickening and potentially deadly payload directly into the hapless pipe smoker’s body, causing “[u]pper airway irritation, fever/hyperthermia [and] leukocytosis.” [http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Sodium_metasilicate#section=Top. Also see its use in tobacco pipes at http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/out-of-the-ashes/bowl-coatings-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-part-ii/.%5D

On a brighter note, I observed an unevenness of the rim. With the gentlest wood file I have, I corrected that minor problem and re-sanded and micro-meshed again until it was smooth.

I proceeded to sand the wood with 320-grit paper and used micromesh from 1500-4000.

Although I liked the grain on most of the Golden Gate and considered buffing without stain, I recognized the need for something darker to lessen the flaws on the front and back of the bowl. I chose Lincoln Brown boot stain and flamed it after I applied a couple of coats. This time I took off the char with 4000-grade micromesh and some extra pressure on the pad instead of going down to 3600 and risking removal of the new color in spots.

You can see in the first photo above that the small metal band came off from the alcohol soak, and so I used a few dabs of Super Glue to reattach it. Seeing the surface of the wood could use some slight further attention to prepare it for buffing, I took a small piece of super fine steel wool and only ran it over the surface of the wood with the gentlest touch, as though wiping dust or hand smears from the wood. With the pear wood ready to buff, I did so with white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba. The stem I left as it was.

CONCLUSION
Altogether I think I took this sad billiard and, with a little help from a friend, as the Beatles also sang, made it better. At the very least I am now willing to offer it for sale, knowing it won’t send anyone to the hospital or perhaps even kill him.

rebornpipes

reclaiming old and worn estate pipes

Tag Archives: Bowl – refinishing

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The Pipe of the Baskerville

Crafting another Frankenpipe – one plus one equals three

Preserving Two LHS Advertising Pokers

NEPAL PROJECT PIPE SALE 15 – From Ugly Toad to Handsome Prince. Converting an Ehrlich Special Grain Stack into a Beautiful Billiard

Bringing New Life to a Gift Pipe – a Gasparini MGM Elegante Brandy

Replacing a Broken Tenon & Doing a Simple Restoration on a Unique Bjarne Danish Handmade Egg

Repairing and Restemming a York (KBB) Diamond Shank Bent Billiard

Take a Sad Pipe and Make It Better

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